Fallout Equestria: Taking Life By The Horns

by Pokonic

[The Interfishin] Man, Horses Shore Are Weird!

I dreamt that I was perched atop a throne of pony skulls
On a cliff above the ocean, howling wind and shrieking seagulls
And the dream went on forever, one single static frame
Sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name

---

"So, could you tell me a bit about yourself?" I said, long after recovering from Sea Salt's lewd suggestion and at a lost for other topics. I wasn't in a good mood, but I didn't feel especially bad, even when I could see chunks of dead cow in the corner of my eyes every time I looked to my left.

It was either this, or talking about the weather.

"I guess." Sea Salt replied, apparently startled that the bout of silence between us being ended by me.

I wasn't surprised that she seemed reluctant, but I was surprised when she made her way closer to me, if hesitantly. She seemed skittish now, giving a spare glance to the ruin that used to be a brahman nearby when she got the chance to do so, and did not seem especially happy at the moment.

She was about a dozen feet out in the river before, but just six feet closer to me made me feel uneasy. From her upright position in the river, it just looked like she was a oddly large light blue earth pony, if one with a long neck and a finely-shaped head. It was unsettling, really, especially considering that the river was a few feet down from where the outcrop I was sitting on was and Sea Salt and I were still at eye-level.

"Well, my name is Sea Salt." she said after getting close enough to me that she didn't have raise her voice beyond a conversational tone to speak. "I used to be a student at the U of T."

I tilted my head. "Where?"

She gave me a pained look. "The University of Tauronto; you know where that is, right?"

It took me a moment for me to realize just how old she was. She looked young, young enough anyway, but there was no more denying it any more; she was old. Like the old ghouls that sometimes popped up every so often out of there pre-war hide-y holes, feral and rotten. Older than power armor. Older than my great-great-great grandmother and grandsire. Older than the Stables, probably. She was there, before the war.

I had some trouble really getting that, but when I did, I nodded.

"I do." I said.

"Well, that's good." she replied softly, not sounding especially thrilled about how the conversation was going. "It was fun. I was majoring in Pre-Migration Equine Relations. Rather easy, really."

She stopped for a moment, giving me a reserved look. "You don't really care about that, do you?"

I was a little sorry that I shook my head. "Ever Watchful would. But tell me about you. Like, well," I waved a hoof in her direction, "What are you, anyway?"

"Oh, that." she said with a odd sort of loss tinging her voice. "I guess that would be something you care about, even after all this time."

She then did something I would have never expected something her size to do. She was lying before; she could move herself up out of the water, and she could without any extra fuss or effort. In one smooth heaving motion accompanied with the sound of water rushing into a empty space, Sea Salt landed, slid really, sideways to the right of me, barrel-like body settling down in the dry grass and limbs folded under her.

All in all, she looked like a oversized light grey-blue equine with strange ridged ears laying down on her side, but the lack of legs and the big fleshy tail that replaced them broke that image.

"Sorry, I just thought...this would be better." she said, lowering her head low to the ground, her neck making a C-shape as she looked at me, "Resting on the ground, I mean."

She raised her neck up high, high enough that her matted hair was starting to fall down to her shoulders, and groaned when she cracked it noisily.

"A-ah, I have been needing to do that for a very long time." she said, voice a little more breathy than before, "In hindsight, I think I have needed to pop that joint for a decade or so."

"Okay." I said, not sure how to go along with what I wanted to speak about. It seemed a moot point now. She was a giant seapony thing.

"Now, about who I am. I don't think you know of Saddle Arabia, do you?" she said questioningly. "If you do not, it's quite all right."

I only needed to think about that for a few seconds.

"I don't think so, what is it?"

I wanted as much information as possible, and sometimes, to do that, you needed to pretend you didn't know the subject. Something I learned from being in too many situations where I knew only a bit of what I needed to know.

Sea Salt did not react badly to my denial, but rather smiled. It wasn't a necessarily happy smile, but going by the look in her eye, it seemed that she had heard it before.

"It is quite a way's away, unfortunately. It's closer to Germaney and Prance than anything else...hmm. Do want me to tell you about it? I will if you wish."

She sounded pleased as she said that, like she was indulging in some nasty habit and reveling in it.

"Go ahead, I'm boring." I waved a hoof out to her, motioning her to go ahead and speak. "I guess you are from Saddle Arabia?"

She grinned, but it didn't reach her eyes. "Indeed!"

Raising her head slightly, I noticed that her mane was starting to dry, making the big moss-colored mass that covered nearly the entirety of her neck curl at the tips, and as it dried it started to poof out slightly. I suppose that a century or two without cutting her mane might have be a factor, but as it was the slowly drying mop of curly green hair on her head was big enough to the point where you could probably hide a small pony in there without anyone noticing.

"Now, I am not a pony, but do not worry yourself; I am a horse, and still would like to think of myself as one." she continued, pausing to gauge my reaction. "

"What's a horse?" I said, playing dumb. "I don't think I have heard of them."

A look of distinctly heart-breaking sadness passed over her face then, eyes lowered slightly and mouth opened just enough to show that she was trying to take quick, easy breaths. This wasn't fair. I wasn't supposed to feel bad for trying to learn something.

Ug. Nice going, Blueberry. You made the giant seapony with mental issues want to cry. Mom would be proud.

"Ah." she says after a few moments of thought, sounding uneasy, voice tinny. "Well, there is a story behind that. It's a old one, but it's decent. And I guess it's needed to understand Saddle Arabia, too."

She lifted a leg up and sinks a talon into the dirt. "Saddle Arabia had five provinces, for the five..." she gave me a reserved smile, "Ah, the term doesn't translate well, I would think, but my people see themselves as descending from one of five tribes, or herds, or even dames. It's a odd thing to put into words in this language."

"So, they divide themselves based on ancient bloodlines?" I said, piercing together what she was saying."Five areas of rule for every tribal group?"

I had heard of similar stories in Equestria, but this was before the wars, and on a far greater scale then what I was familar with. When she said 'tribe', she wasn't talking about a few dozen individuals. She was probably talking about a few thousand or so.

She smiled broadly, erasing any sign that she was sad a few moments ago. "Yes, you are right! There was a royal family in each tribe, and each one was large and powerful. But a hundred years ago, the Saddles came into power and obtained the seat of power in the capital. Hence," she paused, adding a little flourish to her voice,"Saddle Arabia."

She looked like she was enjoying this, and sounded like it, too. When I nodded for her to go on, it looked like her face was going to split open from the way she was smiling.

"Now," she continued smoothly, with the practiced ease of somepony who was used to talking about something she liked, "I used the word 'tribe', which is not the right word to use when speaking of the social structures of my people, having no resemblance to the pony or zebra usage of the term. The correct world would be something like 'pedigree', but it's actual usage within the context of Saddle Arabia denotes only which of the Al Kamsa, or bloodline, one belongs to. As I have said before, there are five of them, but before you ask, bloodlines outside of the major families matters only for the point of obtaining and controlling land and housing. There are minor families of some importance, but the most common way for a member of such a family to gain power is to marry into one of the greater families."

She took a breath, and somehow had more to say.

"As for the main families, each have historic ties to each of the tribes they have had control of for generations. The Seglawi are controlled by the Shammires, the Hamidani by the Quhiars, the Kehilan by the Zahnarau's, and the Abeyan by the Sahbahi's. Those are the four lesser tribes of the horses, the one's that have little actual power in the kingdom but have control of vast amounts of land and money. My tribe and house, however, is that of the Hadban, who are ruled by the Saddles accordingly."

I felt like I just took a hoof to the face. The way she worded it made me unsure for a moment, but she said it neverless.

"Wait, you are part of the royal family your country is named after?" I suddenly realized what I just said, and what she just said. "Are you like, a princess or something?"

She shrugged lightly, causing some of her curls to untangle from the long strands of hair that covered her shoulders. "Well, yes. It's not that big of a deal, really. The royal families are large."

"Like, how large?" I pressed. "Because I think you are screwing with me here."

She snorted. "Why would I do that? What could I possibly gain from lying about something like this? Do you believe that I find this to something to be joked about?"

She sounded deeply offended, which made me want to tell her that, yes, I do know a little about Saddle Arabia, but what I do know I just learned from a jaded mare who was sitting in the shack near the radio tower nearby, and I didn't want to tell her that my general impression about her country was that it was a slave-taking no-mares land.

"I'm sorry." I said feebly, "I didn't mean to make you upset."

Sea Salt let out a deep breath, and followed it with a long, sad sigh that made the grass in front of me move around like there was a gust of wind blowing.

"It's quite all right, I am sorry if I frightened you. It's just that, I have lost count about how many times I have had this conversation with ponies. It's a little disturbing to me, really. I came to this place to learn, somewhere where bright ponies from both Equestria and Caledonia came to be taught by the brightest minds in the country, But sometimes," she rolled her eyes and sighed with exasperation,"They can be so ignorant about what's outside there little bubble, don't you..."

Her face went bright red as she realized that she happened to be talking to a pony, but before she could cover herself raised a hoof and motioned encouragingly at her. "No, not, it's alright, I have to agree."

She stopped fretting after a few moments, but said nothing as she raised a eyebrow.

"Ponies can be stupid, but so can everything else that has two braincells to rub together.You are talking about different countries, around in Equestria, if you are from the wrong village you might get beaten if you travel to the one a few days away. If you ally with the wrong ponies you might get yourself in trouble, or worse. Most do not know the history of the towns they live in, let alone that of the world before the war. No, I agree; ponies clump together to pointless labels too much for there own good, and are too willing to ignore what's not right in front of them. I don't know many who could really be called 'educated', really. I guess I'm one of the lucky ones."

I didn't want to say the rest of what was on my mind, which was that sometimes, ponies tended to be so hostile to outsiders because it was a survival mechanism that worked really well, especially when one side had power armor and the other side did not, but I thought that would dismantle any approval I gave to her views.

Sea Salt opened her mouth slightly, seemingly in shock, but closed it in due time. "I see that three things are eternal now, I suppose. Death and taxes can be joined with ignorance."

"Well, I don't know many places that collect taxes, honestly, and your living proof that death isn't all that's cracked up to be." I said, letting myself smirk. "So I guess that ignorance is the only stable thing in the world, then."

She let out a high pitched giggle at that, her weight shifting to the right enough to where she looked like she was about to roll on her back and laugh like a madmare. But, she calmed herself down enough to where she could speak after a few moments.

"I suppose, I suppose. Now, you were wondering about my family, yes? The Saddles are actually a very large family. There were around fifteen thousand individuals in it at last count."

She paused after finishing, frowning lightly. When she spoke again, it sounded like she was voicing her own thoughts as apposed to just answering me.

"It's probably far smaller now, though, if Ar-Rideyadh was nuked. Most of my family lived there."

I blinked once when I heard the word 'fifteen', then again when I heard 'thousand', and then let my jaw drop when I heard 'individuals'. That might have been a quarter of the currant population of Equestria. It might have been bigger than the currant population of Caledonia.

"...That's not a family, that's a small country." I muttered.

She nodded at me, smiling broadly. "You are very right! The five dynasties actually constitute five percent of the entire population, and the Saddles are actually two percent of that!"

I started to feel lightheaded, something that tends to happen when I try and comprehend things when large numbers got thrown around in places that usually didn't feature large numbers.

"How does...something that big function? I mean, they can't all be related, right?"

She nodded. "Yes, but very, very distantly. All the families are said to be related from one of five mares that were alive a very long time ago, but I wouldn't put much truth to that. But yes, there are sub-families within the families, especially in the Saddles, where there is only one major branch within it."

She reared up slightly, unfolding her legs so they could stretch out beside her. "In reality, most of the Saddle family has little power outside the positions gifted to them in the government. The truly royal family only has about two hundred members."

I looked at a rather grassy spot next to me out of a wish to not actually look at Sea Salt more than I had to, taking great care to appreciate that the grey mass of plant matter to the right of me was slightly thicker and had a slightly greener tinge to it than the rest of the grass that surrounded it. I almost took a bite of it.

"Oh." I said, trying to force some enthusiasm into my voice, "I guess you are from the really royal family, then?"

Her face suddenly went hard, line's forming at the corners of her eyes and a small scowl appearing.

"Yes I am. I was the very last mare in line for succession. That's why I am here in this country. Is there a issue?" she said, suddenly bitter and apprehensive.

I wanted to start running in the opposite direction then, because I got a good reminder that she had a mouth like a oversized chainsaw.

"No. It's just-"

I was cut off when all the hostility in her stance vanished, and she sighed softly, sounding exhausted. "Oh, oh, that was rude, please forgive me. I didn't mean to do that. I...I got confused for a moment."

I tried to keep my voice from sounding like I wasn't entirely lost on what just happened. "No, it's fine. So, really, your royalty? Are you a princess or something?"

A hazy look of something like amusement flickered on her face. "Only by technicality. My grandmother was removed from the king's own mother by two generations, sharing the same grandmother, but there's little point in grasping for such things." She gave me a sad, wry look. "My father was not especially liked, truth be told, and..."

Her words trailed off as she raised her head, looking past me with widened eyes.

I was about to ask her what she was looking at, but then something tiny and brown rushed up beside me and ran up to Sea Salt, making high-pitched squealing noises.

"OhyouraprincessseaponyohwowyoursoprettycanItouchyourmane?!" Candy Cane half-screamed as she ran up to the happily surprised sea...horse, bouncing in place and looking like she was about to pounce on Sea Salt's neck and never let go.

I was more than a little worried that she noticed the remains of the thing that used to be a cow that was currently painting a good amount of the riverside red, but either Candy Cane didn't notice or didn't care.

Neither did Sea Salt, apparently, as she was looking at the tiny bundle of energy with fondness.

"Of cour-" was all she could make out before Candy Cane ran around her, struggled a little in getting a foothold on her belly, and made her way shakily from there onto Sea Salt's neck, scaling it until she was on her head, looking slightly tired and utterly proud.

I wanted to say something, possibly along the lines of 'Don't use her shoulders as a springboard' or 'Goddesses, Candy Cane, do not walk on her neck!', but Sea Salt was practically sharing Candy Cane's grin, carefree and completely engrossed in what was going on.

"You are adorable!" she exclaimed, seemingly not uncomfortable about the filly standing upright on the top of her head.

"No I'm not!" said little filly squeaked, "I'm adorevil!"

Sea Salt broke into a big, goofy grin.

"Oh, yes, you are probably history's cutest monster."

"Yep!" the filly chirped, now leaning over the right side of Sea Salt's face, looking her in the eye.

"Heh, she is, isn't she?" A dark, almost mocking voice spoke up, causing me to raise my head and look around for the speaker.

I was confused for a moment, wondering if I was hearing things, until I looked up at the balcony.

There was a mare close to the railings, dusky-colored and lithe, a comparatively skinny one that was built like a runner, a little shorter than average but looking like a wire frame wrapped with lean cords of muscle. Sleek and spiny, with dark purple fur and short roughly cut black hair.

She was also on the wrong side of the railings, something that made me profoundly worried until I saw the yellow color of her eyes and the bat wings that adorned her back, flapping every so often to stay afloat.

"Hello miss batsy!" Candy Cane said happily, waving a free hoof at the bat pony happily.

"Oh, hello there, thank you for the cow." Sea Salt said amicably, tilting her head upwards slightly so she could see the floating not-pegusus above her.

"Hey Candie." it said fondly, giving the filly a affectionate wave of hoof, "And no problem, Sea Salt."

The floating creature then looked at me, and it's casual expression wavered slightly. "Blueberry Cream, right? Doin' better now?" it said, frowning. I saw a fang peak out from under it's lip.

I nodded, noticing that my mouth was starting to dry.

"Yes. Much better."

After I said that, I looked at the radio tower, a ways away past Sea Salt, and then I looked at the book that contained my Amulet that was a few length's away from the small roasting brahman.

Then I looked at the giant seahorse with the tiny filly on top of her head.

Then I looked at the floating bat pony that was looking at me like I was the strangest thing in this entire scenario.

Then I realized that my life officially made no sense.

Comments

[Pokonic]

3225290 The huggles needed have roughly doubled over the course of the story.

[Oubliette]

Yeah. The sense committed suicide after the Emerald Sea incident.