Fallout: Equestria - Rising Dawn

Chapter 9 - A Cold Hearth

Chapter 9

A Cold Hearth

"I could've just walked away. I had what I wanted, anyways. "

I half limped, half stumbled through the snow, trying to blink away the stars in my eyes as Candy Cane led me up a lonely street.

For hours she navigated the streets for me, turning corners or leading me through dark, dimly lit underpasses that tunneled through the collapsed city. Every twist and every turn were detours she steered through with absolute confidence. It became apparent to me that she had been through that place countless times.

She led, and I followed closely in silence. I wasn't exactly the kind of pony who reveled in small talk, so much of the walk up till then had been a quiet one. It seemed like she wasn't, either. Candy Cane would spare me a few curious, furtive glances every now and then, but besides that, no one said a word.

We were still just two strangers.

Our pace was beginning to slow, however, all thanks to my exhausted state. A wheezing breath erupted from my lips, and I stopped for a moment, falling to my haunches, too tired to continue onward.

Candy Cane heard the hoofsteps behind her stop, and swung her head around to see me lying there in the snow. She knelt next to me, and I heard her speak for the first time in nearly an hour.

"What's wrong?" she said, her voice nearly a whisper.

"Just ah ... heh ..." I chuckled, face-hoofing tiresomely. "I'm just feeling a little under the weather, right now." She gave me a worried, yet exasperated look. My bitter sarcasm was lost on her. Being hurt in any sort of way didn't seem like a laughing matter to her. But it took a certain level of clarity to act like my usual self.

It felt good to know I wasn't actually comatose.

She regarded my long, weary face with soft eyes. "That detour we took out of that sinkhole was rough ..." she sighed, dabbing a hoof in the snow.

'My, she was a mind reader,' I thought.

After that stunt we pulled off to heave ourselves out of that hole in the ground ... Goddesses. I never knew I could rock-climb.

"No-no, it helped get whatever blood I have left in me flowing," I said, grinning at her as I lay at her hooves. My muscles ached and my eyes begged me to shut them closed. I nearly passed out in that sinkhole. I felt like passing out right then and there.

It was difficult to do anything after getting my ass beat in a brawl, getting shot twice, and getting my head torn apart by yet another magical burnout.

"We can't stick around for too long," Candy Cane said quickly and quietly, double-taking over both her shoulders. "This part of town belongs to the cafones."

"Lovely," I crooned, staring blankly at the snow. A yawn parted my cracked lips, and I winced as I inhaled a breath too large for my lungs.

I looked up, groggily. "Didn't you hear them, earlier? They think we're dead."

She crossed her right foreleg over her left. "I'd rather be safe than sorry."

"Okay ... but let me just lie here for a bit," I groaned, the snow biting deep into my livid flesh.

'Sleep. I sleep here now.'

"Red Dawn, you shouldn't be lying there ..."

Her words passed through deaf ears as I lowered my chin into the pale. I clenched my eyes shut and shuddered violently. "Damn that's cold." My eyes fluttered open at the mare's hooves. "It's alright," I murmured faintly as I shivered in the snow. "The cold reminds me that I'm still alive."