The Great Blue
Fallout Equestria: The Great Blue
[by InLucidReverie]
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“I-I’m a treasure hunter, I’m b-b... brave and I’m here t-to hunt treasures.”
He’d been staring at this building for hours, daring himself to enter; it was just a matter of time until he could build up the courage, he was sure.
The building itself was little more than one of the many run down shops found in and around Manehattan, but this one, his brother had assured him, contained a ghost pirate’s treasure. A treasure of caps and pirate booty!
“I’m a t-treasure hunter.”
It hadn’t been hard for Little Piggy’s elder brother to convince him as this part of Manehatten had once overlooked a large body of water. A haven for small yachts, the tourist attraction had stretched on for almost a kilometer. Dried up over the years, the lake had become a ship graveyard. Amongst the innumerable wrecks disfigured through wear and rust, broken hulls display scattered furnishings, ruined artworks and countless pony bones. Recently colonised by feral dogs, the lakebed had become an incredibly dangerous place for anypony. For this reason young Tenpony colts were often told stories of the many ghosts, madponies and pirates that inhabited the area in the hopes they wouldn’t take the real risk too lightly.
“Right!”
With a sudden, decisive buck Piggy launched both hooves at the ancient door. Finding no resistance from the weakened wood, his hooves breached the board and carried on through, his tiny body following in short order. He landed flat, all four hooves spread out in the dust. Such a good start.
As the only light source, it took some time for the colt’s eyes to adjust to the gloom offered through the broken door, though his ears spoke of a creaking, unsteady structure that, to his mind, said it would collapse with him inside (but… pirate booty!). As his eyes adapted, he finally began to pick out details about the room. First, a counter littered with tin cans, kitchen instruments and the odd ball of fluff Piggy could only assume was once food. Through a large doorway to the right, though hard to recognise from the multitude of pieces the furniture was in, was situated what appeared to be a dining area.
As Piggy picked himself up and began to explore he found that, despite the ruined tiling, rotten furnishings and peeling decor, the general layout - dining room, preparation area and the big clunky till on the floor in the corner- seemed to fit the pink colt’s understanding of restaurants as he’d seen them in Tenpony (though generally the till wasn’t on the floor.) Piggy had no idea whether Tenpony's denizens had made up the word restaurant or not, but this was certainly the same kind of place.
At this point the small, pink pony’s courage ran out. He had just been wondering what a ghost pirate would be doing in a restaurant, which led to the inevitable reminder that he was, in fact, in a restaurant with a ghost pirate. A mean, fat, probably bald ghost pirate with a gigantic, curved sword in his gnarled grin. Scarier than grandma! Right behind him!
Piggy bolted.
In an irrational bout of panic, the pony sprang up the bizarrely intact stairs (apparently the builder pony didn’t make the tables), screaming a high pitched note the whole way. Behind him came the pirate. The beastly stallion grinned at Piggy from behind, his beard blowing in some imaginary wind as his ratty tail shed hairs with every step.
Atop the stairs and round the corner, Piggy madly galloping across the balcony area and through the door to what, if the few storybooks he had read held true, would likely have been the owner’s home. As he passed the door’s threshold, the clumsy colt tripped. He was done for! He was going to get cut to pieces by the pirate-ghost and his gigantic sword!
Frantically, Piggy searched the room for something, anything, he could find to keep out of sight.
Twenty minutes of hiding under the filthy remains of a bed later, Piggy decided that perhaps he had outwitted the ghast. Dusting off his now very un-white mane, the pony crept slowly into the center of the room. Once there he deemed it safe to take a more thorough look around.
The room was, or rather it clearly had been, a colt’s wonderland! Countless broken toys of all kinds scattered the room, while the walls were covered in faded pictures of wonderful machines in all shapes, sizes and colours. Piggy would have been in awe, had he not just realised this was the only room upstairs. He had been duped!
Deciding that his brother was a liar, that the pirate was never here and that there was in fact no treasure to be had, Piggy could only feel cheated. After all that courage and heroics, he was left with an empty store and feelings of complete betrayal.
Piggy cried. He cried quite a bit.
While tears poured down his cheeks, Piggy’s sniffles slowly gave way to coughs. The dust was getting to him and he needed a hug. It was time for him to leave.
As the pink colt picked himself up once again, his eyes fell on a picture strewn among the clutter. The picture was old and faded, but it was still pretty easy to see what the focus was; a blue pegasus pony with a lightning bolt cutie mark that took up a good deal of the frame.
Her shapely, athletic rump was the focus of this candid photograph, with her head turned cheekily back towards the lens in an expression of playful mocking. Her eyes had told the camerapony he would be punished later, for sure.
His worries forgotten at the amusing picture of a pony’s bum, Piggy giggled, picked up the picture and trotted off. Down the stairs and out of the front door he went, only to find the tall, imposing form of his mother immediately beyond. Behind her, the colt could see the smug face of his brother at a cautious distance, eyes firmly on the prize gripped in Piggy’s mouth.
“Piggy! what have I told you about running off?! I had to scold your brother for the same just this morning! I don’t know what you boys find so fascinating about that ruin, but you really mustn’t go in there! It’s dangerous!”
“Sorry, mother, it won’t-”
Upon a sudden embrace, Piggy’s voice is lost in the fuzzy warmth of his mother’s long mane and coat.
“And you!” her voice came again, harsher and this time directed towards the buck attempting to sneak away, “That was reckless and cruel! A daft prank is not worth your brother’s safety!”
The smug grin long replaced with a scowl, Piggy’s brother stops in his tracks.
“Can I at least have my picture back? I saw it first.”
Traitor! Pirate! Meanie!
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