Fallout Equestria

Chapter 44.

Faith.

We are all called, at one time or another, to have faith.

Faith in the Goddesses.

Or faith in ponykind, as Velvet Remedy was struggling to regain.

Or, as with Homage, it is faith in heroes, and the value of the Good Fight.

Sometimes the faith you are called upon to have is faith in yourself.

Faith doesn't require us to be willfully blind or dogmatically stupid. But it does require us to take risks. To put our trust in something we know might not be true. Even when the cost of failure could be very high.

Especially then.

For some of us, faith becomes our central reason for living, for pressing on. Faith is what allows us to believe in a happy ending, even in our moments of greatest sorrow. It is what allows us the hope of rescue even in the most suffocating darkness.

And faith, more than anything else, is what the Wasteland is ravenous to devour. More than kindness. More than innocence. The Wasteland does its best to tear away your ability to believe in anything other than itself.

When you no longer believe things can get better, when you stop trying, that's when the Wasteland has won.

The Wasteland can kill us, but so long as we die trying... as long as we die believing... then its success against us is a pyrrhic victory at best.

I had been thinking of a story Spike had told us that night in his cave, one of many tales of the Mares before the Ministries. This particular tale was about a time when Twilight Sparkle's magic had failed her...

Do you know any spells for turning a hydra into a mouse? How 'bout a squirrel?

No! No small rodents of any kind.

...and she had been asked to rely on Pinkie Pie's irrational Pinkie Sense.

You'll be fine. It's your only hope. You have to take a leap of faith.

I am, almost certainly, about to die.

This is my leap of faith.

*** *** ***

Two days ago:

"It's time to end this."

I thumped my forehoof on Zecora's table for emphasis, causing my Sparkle~Cola Rad to bounce. The contents of the bottle fizzled brightly. I still had the soda from... from when? Just after Old Appleloosa, wasn't it? Found it in the wreckage of Ditzy Doo's original delivery wagon. Goddesses, that felt like so long ago. Well, I might as well drink it now. I wasn't expecting a lot of opportunities later.

It was the wee hours of the morning. When we arrived at Zecora's Hut late yesterday evening, Life Bloom and Velvet Remedy had done everything they could for Reggie. Fortunately, her wounds only mimicked those caused by magical energy; and through exhaustive work, they had been able to heal her. But the trauma and the restoration had taken a great deal out of her. Life Bloom had warned us that she needed rest, a lot of it, and wouldn't be in any condition to continue with us for a good while. Right now, she slept on the cot next to Xenith's. The one we'd kept the hellhound on the previous night.

Most of us, myself included, had taken the chance to get some sleep. Even Calamity took a nap after tending to very important hat-recovering. The escapees, those who hadn't left on their own, had bedded down outside -- the followers of Red Eye on one side of the hut, everypony else on the other.

Several of the ponies from the Overcast's prison had worked together to dig a grave for the foal who had died in captivity. The child's mother fashioned a remembrance marker by pulling a stone from an ash-clogged stream not far away and wrapping it in vines of softly glowing phantasmal flowers.