Of Taint And Colts - Fallout Equestria

The Haze

All day every day it's the same routine. We walk through the halls following our Hazemaster, a pony whose special talent is to keep the sky pink. We chat about our day. We talk the same words, we walk the same paths, we think the same thoughts. I thought these thoughts yesterday. I'll think them tomorrow. It never changes. Every day at 13:43 sharp, as well as every other hour, minute, second and millisecond this pattern stays.

Thus saith the Crusader in my Stable.

She calls herself Crusader Babs Seed, a half-finished computer program from eons ago. She guides all our actions from her Purification Hall. Few have seen her. Only I have ever repaired or improved her. I'm the only one who can - I have the logo of the Crusader maneframes on my flank, a blue four-point star angled at thirty-five degrees with a sharply italicized "C" in yellow. This makes me rather important to her as far as ponies here go. About the only one who is more important are the security detail she keeps near to her. Everyone enters the Communication Hall to talk with her via hologram. Few enter the Control Bay, where the machine is kept. Only two ever enter the Overmare's Room, where the Mare herself resides - myself and the head of security.

I don't like him.

I light up a cigarette and plug it into my petite mouth. I take a long drag and blow the smoke into the pink cloud as I round a corner to get to my workstation.

"Hey, Crusader Candy..."

A sultry voice weaves its way to my ears. I turn my head slightly to see a slender mare, thin but athletic in build. Her mane is a golden yellow, tinted by the haze. Her coat is a soft periwinkle blue, matted to her in places, burned off in others, and appearing to drip from her body like molasses in a couple other spots. Two ribs on her left side show through. A small loop of intestine dangles from another. Her eyes burn with purple intensity, and they lock suggestively with my own teal optics.

"Cloud Kicker," I state flatly.

I knew of her reputation. Back in the days of Equestria, she had been a wicked bang mare. Stress relief? Yup. Feeling lonely? Absolutely. She was always trying to get some new tail. That didn't change because she had become a ghoul. In fact, it seemed to have exacerbated the problem and erased all her so-called "rules".

"You up for a little roll in the hay later?" She winks with a half-toothed grin.

I had gagged in the past, especially after she had come on to me the first time. Now, however, I simply shake my head and walk on.

"Babs Seed doesn't like interruptions to the schedule of those who are Purified," I state. "I have free time scheduled at twenty-one hundred forty-five next Thursday. However, I'm planning on utilizing that forty-five minute break to work on the Crusader Herself."

Translation: I am not into ghouls. Buck off. Cloud Kicker gives an exasperated grunt and flies off.

In some ways I'm envious of my pegasus friend. She doesn't have to keep to a regimen like the rest of us do. She can leave the Stable at will and open her wings to fly. I can only do so on my scheduled free time or as part of my regular routine. In others I am dreadfully afraid for her. What did that kind of freedom do to a pony? Did it make them go insane? Did it open their eyes to a world beyond their own? I could never think of such a thing!

Freedom... what is it, exactly? Scary, that's what. It was scary when I had it a few decades ago, before I was Cleansed. It's still scary. I like my Overmare, my Crusader. She keeps things nice and neat and peaceful and pink. Pink is nice. Pink is normal. I like pink.

I throw my pale yellow head up, tossing the stray strands of long ramrod-straight blue and pink mane from in front of my face, the thoughts flying from my mind into the haze. I begin comforting myself with repetitions of my mental schedule, taking refuge in the monotony.