Fallout Equestria

Chapter 12.

Breakfast.

I hoofed a small pile of bottle caps across the sheet metal counter while a scarred pony with a dark tan coat and a roasting meat cutie mark pulled a rabbit shish kebob from the barbecue grill. Guests or not, we were expected to pay for our food; I'm not sure why I had expected otherwise. I picked up my meal, the savory aroma assaulting my nostrils, and carried it over to the table where Calamity was already digging into a bowl of oatmeal.

"Littlepip, what are you doing!??" Velvet Remedy nearly shrieked as she saw me approach. I stopped short, looking at her quizzically. Velvet Remedy looked stricken. "You're not going to eat that are you?"

I nodded, unable to respond with the shish kebob still in my mouth. My stomach was rumbling. I sucked up a bit of escaping drool and was hit by the flavors of barbecued rabbit. It wasn't quite what I was expecting, and made my stomach do an odd lurch, but it was good!

"Littlepip..." Velvet raised her hoof to her chest in exaggerated offense. "That's meat!"

"uhf-huf," I mouthed through my breakfast, hoping in vain that having established this fact, I would be allowed to eat in peace.

Velvet Remedy's eyes narrowed. "We're vegetarians," she said flatly.

I paused at that. True, all I had ever eaten in Stable Two was apples. But I had assumed that was because it was the only thing we had for eating. And I felt I would be perfectly happy never eating another apple as long as I lived. I thought back to my first meals outside... how I had found cooked meat stored in a refrigerator, and simply assumed that's what ponies ate in the wasteland. My stomach had fought it uncomfortably, but I figured that was more the result of a lifetime of apples, and that outside food would just take some getting used to. For the most part, I felt I'd acclimated well.

Of course, now that I thought about it, it had been a raider refrigerator. So diet was suspect.

Calamity finally pulled his head out of his oatmeal bowl, winging in on the conversation. "Oh, we c'n eat meat all right. Jus' don't much like to. Ain't really good for our diet." Calamity looked sideways, his oatmeal-covered lips curling into a frown. "Muh brothers used t' challenge me t' hotdog eatin' contests. Which mostly meant them shoving the disgustin' things down muh throat."

Velvet Remedy looked appalled.

"'Course, they were prob'ly disgusting more cuz they were two hundred years old than cuz they were meat."

I felt my appetite slip. Ugh! By Celestia's grace, I hoped that they'd at least been kept frozen that entire time!

Velvet Remedy turned up her nose and trotted away from our table. She was just leaving as Gawd alighted next to us with a plate of roasted rats. She watched Velvet shudder in disgust and quicken her pace. Sucking up a rat by the tail and swallowing it whole, Gawd turned to me and asked, "What's her issue?"

*** *** ***

"I suppose you'll be heading out after breakfast then?" Gawd asked. Between bites of grilled vegetables and rabbit meat, I had told Gawd about Red Eye's forces. She'd taken it in with a grave expression. "Did you want that escort?"

It was a question that had plagued me all night. (Not the escort issue, but leaving now in the first place.) We could leave now, put Shattered Hoof behind us completely. Get out before the impending drama, and leave these ponies to the fates they had created for themselves. It was, I had to admit, not without its appeal. Especially considering that the alternatives almost certainly involved getting shot at, with a high chance of dying.