Fall Out: Equestria By: Kkat

Chapter Forty-Five: The Virtue of LittlePip

Chapter Forty-Five: The Virtue of LittlePip

"But it was not until the end of this long road that the Stable Dweller learned the true meaning of that greatest of virtues: sacrifice."

Sacrifice.

The Wasteland will try to tear you down, make you a monster or strip you of your will to fight. The Wasteland... and to a lesser degree, life itself. Every day is a struggle against the forces that attempt to compromise and erode anything good in your heart. It helps to have a cause, a purpose; but I have seen too many who have put their faith in those alone and been lead grievously astray. Every pony has a virtue, whether they realize it or not. And it is your virtue and your friends, together, that form your greatest defense.

Raiders are those who failed to weather the moral ravages of the Wasteland. Velvet Remedy was wrong: they dohave a reason for existing. The Wasteland is the cause to their effect.

I had finally discovered my virtue. I should have realized it when I first looked into the mirror of the soul. But I was too blinded by what I saw -- a blood-coated, dying raider -- to recognize what the mirror was actually showing me: the first time I truly acted in the spirit of sacrifice. The time when, even though I stood no chance of survival, I placed myself between a helpless caravan and what I believed to be a pegasus raider intent on slaughtering them.

That "raider" had been Calamity. And that act had initiated the first and closest friendship I have ever known. I should have recognized the truth in the mirror, but it took Pinkie Pie to help me see how to see.

You're just looking at it wrong, she told me, pointing to the mirror, but not to me. Pointing instead to the approaching caravan and the family I was giving my life to protect. Look behind you.

My virtue is sacrifice.

I believe in Pinkie Pie, in sunshine and rainbows. But of all the Ministry Mares, I think it has been Rarity, not Pinkie Pie, that I've felt the greatest connection to. The mare whose last act was to save her dearest friend. Who tore apart her own soul for those she loved.

My feelings are not surprising, for sacrifice and generosity are closely tied. But generosity is a much grander virtue with a much wider scope. I am not generous. I have never given anything but myself; and upon reflection, my sacrifice was often selfish -- a vehicle to protect those I love from facing harm even when it was their right to do so. My mistakes in Fillydelphia are perhaps the most brutal example.

After my final discourse with Red Eye, I began to realize that I had been like an over-protective mother, stifling the growth of those I loved. Only now, finally, was I learning to let go. And still, it was the hardest and most painful thing for me to do. Sending my friends into battle against the Enclave without me... putting Ditzy Doo, the spirit of laughter and one of the most beautiful souls in the Equestrian Wasteland, on the front lines... it tore my heart out to not merely allow others to sacrifice, but to ask them to.

No, I was not truly generous. I was not Rarity, not even Red Eye.

Nor was I truly Applesnack. But sacrifice lies in that space between generosity and perseverance -- between the desire to give so that others don't have to and the drive to never give up, no matter the danger, no matter the cost.

I cannot give enough thanks for my friends. They guided me, protected me, and allowed my virtue to blossom into something that just might, in a small way, help save Equestria itself. Without my friends...

Virtues can become corrupted, metamorphosing into dark and twisted shadows of themselves. This is a truth I have both seen in others and felt in myself. Without the fortifying strength of friendship, sacrifice becomes self-destructive, the sort of false nobility that drove me to blindly leave Stable Two, even though part of me believed all I would find beyond the door was oblivion. I quiver to think what I would have become, and what would have become of me, had I not met Calamity when and how I did.