—tsschohaetenthbnlieasoarcotnetkuddrnretdeceossmrtyimwseoooyfsurearkstunalsdt—

—and my eyes shot open to see moonlight glinting off of fangs.

I might have shrieked as I flung myself sideways, because I have vague memories of silhouettes shooting upright even before my arm exploded into pain. I screamed bloody murder and flailed at the thing with my other arm, but my fist bounced off an unyielding fuzzy surface, and I settled for grabbing one of its armor-hard legs and yanking. It hissed—the vise-grip on my arm clamping down tighter—but didn't fall off-balance. Scratch's swearing reached my ears as I frantically tried to headbutt the thing, hoping to hit a weak spot but merely getting jerked free of my sleeping bag for my trouble. Daylight split the night, and I had a lightning impression of eight cold black eyes before the flash blew out my vision.

It was all a blur of sound and sensation after that. The twang-pok of a magically accelerated missile, and an irritated hiss from the creature. Rocks bouncing into my shoulders and back as it dragged me across the wastes. Hooves galloping forward amid a battle cry—interrupted by a thump, a choked-off exhalation, and the smeared-out crash of a body rolling through brittle leaves. The leg in my grasp jerking around as I wrestled to keep my hand locked around its joint. Wrapping my knees around another of the creature's legs as my flailing feet found a target, and feeling a third leg bludgeon my chest as the ground continued to slide by. Then an unfamiliar yell, a crack that wrenched at the vise-grip on my arm, and an unearthly screech from the creature. For the first time, it lurched and stumbled, trying to flail its front legs out of my grip. I clung to them for all I was worth.

The creature shuddered as another crack split the air by my ear, and pain flared anew in my arm as the vise-grip suddenly unclenched. I let go of its legs and rolled away—listening as its hissing receded, punctuated by the rapid drumbeat of claws on parched earth. By the time I was able to blink the spots out of my eyes and stagger to my feet, the sandspider was a shrinking blob amid the creosote shadows.

A hand touched my good arm, and I glanced over into the pale, sweating face of Megan, breathing shallowly, fingers clenched around my bat. "Oh my God. A-are you alright?"

I breathed in and out through clenched teeth, feeling fury boil over. "You," I hissed. "Rule. Fucking. Three. Drop the bat and sit down." An odd wave of vertigo crashed through my head, and the burning in my arm took on a cold prickling sensation. "Shit, shit, shit. Scratch! Medkit!"

Megan's eyes widened. She backed up a step and pointed off toward a patch of sagebrush, where a white form lay sprawled and unmoving. Oh, hell. My heart nearly ripped in half before I saw the slow rise and fall of her barrel.

"But the spider hit her," Megan said, "and you were going to die—"

Right. Sandspider. Venom. Bigger problems. "Still might," I growled, glancing back toward the twin lights of the campfire and Scratch's slowly fading sunburst spell, and drew in a sharp breath through a sudden wave of nausea. "MEDKIT!"

"On it!" Gizmo's voice called out, and a four-legged silhouette dashed toward the chaos of my sleep-area, and fuck if I wasn't glad to have such a reliable customer on the trip. A few seconds later, his head jerked upward from my pack—teeth clenched around the corner of a small fabric bag—and he was winging toward me at full tilt, a wide-eyed sun-yellow pony galloping hard on his tail. She gasped as they approached—"Vinyl!"—and peeled off toward the sagebrush while I yanked the bag from Gizmo's mouth and ripped the zipper open.

My vision was already blurring around the edges as I wedged the vial of brilliant blue liquid between the limp fingers of my injured arm, twisted the cap off of a hypodermic needle with my teeth, and jabbed the needle's point through the latex cap of the vial. Gizmo lunged in while I fumbled with the plunger, clenching his teeth around it and pulling while I held the body of the hypo steady. I stabbed the needle deep into my shoulder, thumbed the plunger all the way in, and passed the hell out.

There goes our profit, is the last thing I remember thinking.

---

As consciousness slowly filtered back in, the first thing that registered was the warmth and weight of a pony sprawled against my side. The orange glow of dawn stabbed at my eyelids, it felt like there was gauze wrapped around my brain, and my limbs were numb and heavy. But no pain. I groaned, mostly for Scratch's benefit.

She stirred against me, and the weight of her muzzle lifted from my good shoulder. "How're you feeling?"

"Alive." I lifted my injured arm experimentally—seeing two large round scars and a lot of ugly discoloration in the skin, but with the wounds all closed. I flexed my fingers—fire coursed through my veins, but they moved. Scratch's healing spells just kept improving, which would have been much more of a blessing if it hadn't been driven by necessity and fueled by practice. "You?"

"Good."

"Glad to hear it."

She climbed to her hooves and turned away, rose-red eyes smoldering. "No. You're alive. Good."

I sighed. "Vinyl."

Her horn lit. The blanket covering my body balled up and vanished into her saddlebags, and cold morning air rushed in. "Don't 'Vinyl' me in front of the customers," she said with equal chill. "Nearest town is Liberty, half a day north. You're paying for the rooms."

I sat up, fighting off a wave of vertigo and glancing around our campsite. Apple Whatshername, the sun-yellow mare, was up on the mound at the edge of camp, sunken eyes intently scanning the horizon in the direction that the spider had dragged me off. Gizmo was standing over our fire circle, a creosote branch in his teeth, separating the embers and breaking them apart, occasionally hoofing dust over the dead coals. My sleeping bag and camp kit had been crammed inelegantly into my backpack, which was propped against a rock, my bat lashed to its side. Megan was sitting next to it in the typical teenager crouch—arms hugging her legs, silently staring into space—but at my motion, she leapt to her feet.

"Mr. Yearsley," she said. "Tell her. You can't just dump me in Liberty. How am I gonna pay for food and shelter and another guide?"

I scowled at her. "Should've thought of that before breaking Rule Three."

Her eyes filled with tears. "I…I can't believe this. You're really going to strand me in the middle of the wasteland for saving your life after the spider knocked Miss Scratch out?"

"Oh, Celestia, here come the waterworks," Scratch muttered.

I grunted in agreement. "We're taking a crazy risk already, walking you to town. Don't get melodramatic or we're gonna leave you here."

The tears started to fall. "B-but if I'd done nothing, y-you'd be dead."

Gizmo spit out his stick and snorted, flaring his wings. "Celestia's teats, kid, don't you get it? If it wasn't for you, we wouldn't have been attacked."

Her eyes widened. "What?"

I cut in. "You know what they call it when someone gets eaten by a sandspider? Plain ol' shitty wasteland luck. But do you know what they call it when a sandspider attacks a mile from the dunes, takes down a second target after grabbing its meal, and some idiot figures they can jump in and set things right?" I pushed myself to my feet and stumbled over to my pack, pausing for a moment to let a wave of vertigo recede. "That there's a hero story, and the thing about being treefucked is that it doesn't care how many innocent lives you drag down with you."

"B-but…I…" Megan stammered, and then stopped, a funny look flitting through her face. She stood a little straighter, faced me squarely, and spoke with a sudden chilling intensity. "Don't you lie to them. I didn't 'figure'."

"Uh," I said, feeling every head in camp turn toward me, "what?"

"I didn't figure. The voices said I could save you. And that you would help me set things right." She leveled an accusing finger at me. "Don't you pretend you didn't hear them too."

Look out, my brain unhelpfully supplied.

"Scratch," I immediately said, squaring off against her and dropping into a half-crouch, "Code H."

A low bass hum spun up as Vinyl stepped over to me, horn fiercely glowing. A line of force stretched taut alongside her, encased in the light of her field, the back end wrapped around a small, smooth stone. "Alright, hero," she snarled. "First and last warning. One more word out of you and I will drop you where you stand. Nod if you understand me."

Megan's eyes went wide. She opened her mouth. I tensed. Thank God, she glanced at Vinyl's scowl before saying anything, and hurriedly shut her mouth again and nodded.

"Hands where I can see them, and take three nice, slow steps back. Alright. Gizmo, drag Yearsley's pack over here, and you and Bloom saddle up. We're leaving now, and you're going to stay right here until you can't see us any more, because the next time I see your face will be the last." Scratch jerked her head at me, making brief eye contact, and I nodded and lifted her saddlebags to her back. "Don't head north," Scratch continued, "because we're telling the Liberty guards to shoot you on sight. If you jog southeast through the dunes, you might make New Austin by nightfall, but you're probably dead if you don't. I strongly suggest going back west toward Appleloosa, and if you make it, spending a long and boring life tending a farm."

We retreated north, Vinyl backing through the scrub with spell still held at the ready. My last view of Megan was of her standing in our campsite, sad eyes boring into my soul.

---

I'd heard that Liberty had guns, but that was a very different thing than walking toward the town with two human guards in watchtowers pointing them at me.

"That's far enough," the male one said as we got within a stone's throw of the walls, eyeing us through the sights of an assault rifle, his finger resting alongside the trigger guard. "Assume the positions."

I stopped, slowly raising my hands. Scratch lowered her head to the ground, twisting her neck so that the tip of her horn touched the dirt. Gizmo extended one wing, lowering its tip to the ground at his hoof and stepping on the feathers, and Apple Bloom bent her legs underneath her, lying on the cannons.

"Town's closed," the female one said, her cheek not leaving the side of her own hunting rifle. "Scouts saw raiders closing in, and we can't afford to let in a hero. There's some caves up in the hills you could use."

"We just had a run-in with a hero ourselves," I said. "Scratch and I are licensed guides, and I'm fighting off sandspider venom with field treatment. Need a room, and a doctor if you've got one." I raised my right arm, which was developing into a solid wall of nasty-looking bruises.

The guards glanced at each other, then back to us. "Where's the hero?"

"We left 'em in our camp about eight miles south. Your pegasi can confirm it with an overflight. We'll give you a full report if you let us in."

They sized us up for several tense seconds. "Shit," the woman finally said. "I'd better call the loot. You, human. Put your licenses by the gate and then walk back to your friends."

I complied, then we waited in submission poses for several minutes as a third guard—a heavyset older man whose U.S. Army shirt still hadn't had all the olive faded out of it—stepped out of the gate and scrutinized our papers. He finally cleared his throat—a loud harrumph, followed by a strained cough—and spoke. "Well, Mr. Sniffen-Yearsley—"

"Yearsley," I said. "Please."

He glanced at me, then stared back at the two sets of papers, and then his lips quirked upward. "Heh. Very well, Mr. Yearsley. Everything does seem in order, but as the sergeant told you, we just can't risk letting anyone in right now. As a courtesy to a guide, I can have our medic meet you at the gate if your partner and your clients withdraw."

"Have a heart, sir," Scratch said, visibly fighting to keep a snarl out of her words; she had settled to her belly for comfort after it became clear we were in for a wait, but had been sticking her horn in the dirt for nearly 10 minutes, and that was a position which would make anyone cross. "We're victims here too."

"Or you're heroes who just met the first challenge they couldn't handle, and whose doom is closing in," the lieutenant said calmly. "Funny how the raiders are poised to swoop in just as you show up at our gates."

"We're four-year wasteland guides, sir," I said levelly. "We don't do heroes, or we'd be dead."

"The tree can take anyone," he said, squaring our papers back up and angling them back into the plastic of our document pouch. "Heard a forty-six-year-old went rogue in Ohayo."

I was trying to decide whether we had enough money to offer a bribe, or whether he was even angling for one, when a feminine voice carried in from the sky at our backs. "Alicorn shit! Vinyl, is that you?"

Scratch blinked and tried to twist her neck even further before giving up. "Yeah, with my horn in the rutting dirt," she shouted back. "You with the men with guns?"

"Soldiers! Stand down!" the voice barked, and the guards in the watchtowers lowered their rifles. A faded grey pegasus with a comet mark and a mane like a white explosion drifted down in front of us, grinning. "Knew it. There's only one living unicorn with hair that crazy. Get up, you."

Scratch climbed to her hooves, blinking, then her face lit up and she lunged forward in a hug. "Cloud Chaser, you crazy jenny! What're you doing so deep in the wastes?"

"Princess Kay started the 'Bolts back up to see about closing the portals, and so many pegs volunteered that EEJAF is emptier than the dunes," Cloud Chaser said, neckhugging Scratch. "Look at me, a captain doing overflights like an ay-bee." Her eyes scanned past Scratch to the rest of us, stopping at the yellow mare. "Celestia's ghost, is that you, Apple Bloom?"

The mare blinked—her sunken eyes darting around in the way that had raised my hackles since we'd been introduced in Appleloosa—then stood back up and lowered her head. "Yes, ma'am."

Cloud Chaser turned back to the lieutenant. "Sanders, these ponies aren't heroes, they're survivors. Now open the gate and let's get them inside."

---

Liberty didn't even have a proper doctor, just a human M.D. with a shelf of aging antibiotics, painkillers, cortisones, and electrolyte powder. It was enough. He gave me a shot of moxifloxacine and a mattress next to a little electric heater. I drifted off to sleep, enjoying my little moment of luxury, and quickly sank into the blur of jumbled, aimless noises and images that had passed for dreams ever since I'd escaped through the portal—

—stochbaeetatnahcinlsekroaeetntddhtorererewsmieotyspramkyfhioeaunuturrltnts—

—and cracked my eyes open, stirring back to consciousness with a message echoing in my brain that no voice had spoken.

I stared at the ceiling, eyes wide open and heart pounding, for several minutes. Cadance's barren grey moon hovered midway through the sky, shining through the window to produce a cold square of light on the floor, inching toward my mattress and then up the side and toward my foot. I sat up, fatigue shrouding my limbs and sweat beading my brow, and paced toward the door. The fever was kicking in, sweating out the toxins. I knew I should stay in bed, but the last thing I needed right now was seductive signals whispering through the noise.

I cracked open the clinic door, padded out into the dust with bare feet, and closed it behind me with a soft click. There was some motion in the shadows to my right, and my heart briefly stopped. Then a pony throat cleared, a white face looked up, and Scratch whispered: "Hey."

I shifted a leaden hand to my chest, feeling it pound. "Thought you'd be at the rooming-house getting a hot and a cot."

"Couldn't sleep," she said. "Couldn't wake you. Couldn't get the resentment out of my brain. Been sitting here rehearsing how I'm going to chew you out."

"Like you think I don't know that the antivenom puts us in the red for the trip?" I sluimped to the wall alongside her and slid down to the ground, staring out into the endless wasteland sky.

She grunted. "That's the worst part. I know you know. Haybales, if I'd been awake I would have jabbed it into you myself. But we shouldn't have been out there. That shouldn't have been us. You rutting well know that, and one of these days I'm going to be digging your grave and I'll never, ever forgive you for it. Or you're going to be digging mine."

"Hey, don't you lay this on me. We picked up a fucking hero, and—"

"That's exactly what I'm laying on you!" Her voice rose, and she stood up, eye to eye with my seated form. "A lone teenager heading all the way across the country on a fishy family-finding trip? What were you thinking!"

"That we needed the money!" I spat back, my own voice rising. "Just like you were thinking when you broke Rule Two!"

She leaned in, nose bumping mine, teeth curled back in a snarl. "She is a paying customer," Scratch hissed, "who I happen to have grown up in the same town with—"

"You are, quote, 'doing her a favor'—"

"I'm cutting her a deal!" Scratch shouted, and I heard chickens stirring and clucking from the darkened coop alongside the house next door. "And this isn't about me, this is about your faulty judgment. Setting up camp without tripwires on the perimeter—"

"Because you were on watch, and thank you by the way—"

"I was looking toward the dunes, where literally every single sandspider attack comes from!"

"And then after it bit me you charged the thing!" I flung my arms wide. "Do you know what it was like to see your body in the sagebrush, Vinyl? What I felt when I thought you were dead?"

"Yes!" she screamed. "I do, Vincent! I charged it because shooting it wasn't working, and it was dragging you away, and I was about to fucking lose you, and my life is not worth living without you!"

I stared into her fierce rose eyes, seeing moonlight glimmer off her cheeks, feeling my jaw tremble and my own vision blur, and there was nothing left to say.

Slow applause drifted in from the watchtowers. And then from the house across the street. Then the rooming-house, then the public-house, and then a slow clopping of a hoof from the roof directly over our heads. "Get a room!" Cloud Chaser shouted down, to whoops and catcalls and renewed applause.

I sighed and stood up, the moment broken, and pushed the door to the clinic open. "I should sleep off this fever."

"Hey," Scratch said, "hold up," and she trotted after me and sat down next to the mattress.

I sprawled back into the soft embrace of the bed, then lifted my arm to scratch the side of her muzzle. "I love you," I said quietly.

She leaned into my touch, closing her eyes. "I love you too. I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry." I held her for a moment, feeling the damp warmth of her breath on the inside of my arm.

"But we've got to quit," she said softly, "before the job ends us."

"We tried, once," I said. "Remember?"

"The corn farm." Scratch barked out a short laugh. "We were an embarrassment to earth ponies everywhere. We lost thousands of bits." She sighed. "But Equestria needs every farmer it can get. And we'll do better next time."

"We wanted to strangle each other at least six times a day," I said quietly. "You were the one who found us a client again. We're never going to stop fighting, Vinyl, and we need something to fight against together. The wasteland keeps us sane."

She slumped down to the mattress, sprawling against my side again, and I shifted my arm to rest against her barrel, feeling the rise and fall of her breathing. "It always has," she said, sounding very little. "But that's changing, isn't it? Too many heroes. Harmony's getting desperate."

"Can you blame it?" I asked, spreading my other arm wide. "Two planets of refugees crammed into one, physics and magic colliding, and Earth shattered so badly that the fallout is leaking through the portals. How do you fix this?"

"One person at a time," she said, and kissed my arm, and snuggled in a little closer against my side.

---

—sscothahentetnbihsoarleotceaukdntnrdrdetessoietmssywmoohoyfruuseakrratutndlst—

My eyes cracked open through the echoes, and the voices, and the sourceless message, and suddenly I realized. No, I knew.

"Vinyl," I whispered, blinking against the first light of Cadance's morning.

Her blue shock of mane didn't stir against my shoulder, but nevertheless she said, "Yes?"

"You blamed me for pretty much every possible irresponsibility last night," I said, "except for one thing. Except for the one thing that the hero directly accused me of." I swallowed; there would be no going back from this. "Listening to the voices of Harmony."

Scratch was silent for a long time.

"You're right," she said. "I didn't."

"That seems like a curious omission."

The silence had stretched out almost to the point of discomfort when she finally stirred, rolling over to press her chest to my side, two hooves sprawled atop me, her eyes boring into mine. "Yes," she said. "It was."

I returned her stare in silence, then leaned back into the pillow and closed my eyes. "Apple Bloom?"

"I cut my friend a deal," Scratch said, "because otherwise she couldn't have afforded a guide. She has a hard time finding work. A lot of folks won't give an ex-hero the time of day." Her body shifted. "Gizmo?"

"He always gets the loyalty discount," I said. "You'd have given it to him too. He's solid, and predictable, and the closest thing to a best friend we have."

"Mmm," she said, and I felt her muzzle nod. "And he gives us a cut of the salvage we haul back. Yeah. What about Megan?"

I looked back into Scratch's eyes. "You were right, Vinyl. I ignored the warning signs because getting out of there with a third client just meant too much to the bottom line. But look me in the eyes and tell me that we could have afforded to turn her down."

She sighed. "I can't," she said softly.

I let out a slow breath. "The wastes are gonna kill us."

"Not if we survive this job," she said. "I took on another client last night. Headed to Manehattan. If you factor in his commission, if we get past the Eastern Rift, we can buy some land instead of replacing the antivenom."

I raised an eyebrow. "What sort of lunatic wants a guide who already lives in BFE?"

"You remember Jamal? That egg collector from San Palomino?"

"Heh, yeah. He was a character. I think I still have one of the letters he sent when we shipped him the dragon shell. He's here?"

Scratch chuckled. "Fell in love with a frontierist and moved to the edge of the dunes to chase his wife. She died a few months back, and he's bailing out to work his connections back east. Has a standing offer letter from the university, but isn't crazy enough to make the trip on his own, and nobody sane passes through Liberty."

"Truer words have never been spoken."

Vinyl chuckled. "So, you in?"

"Alright," I said, grinning. "Let's do it."

---

"No," I said, face paling. "Definitely not."

"Vincent," Scratch said sharply.

I pointed at the infant in Jamal's arms. "We have both made some questionable decisions—and paid the price for them, I might add—and maybe there are ways in which we can toe the line without getting treefucked, but nobody, nobody, breaks the Rule of Six."

"Uh," Jamal said, his dark face paling. "Maybe I should—"

Scratch sat on her haunches and crossed her forelegs. "She's three years old, Vincent. She can barely talk. That's not a six, that's a five-and."

"No. I'm not going to risk our lives on a technicality."

"Never mind," Jamal edged in, "I'll just—"

"You want to talk technicalities?" Scratch growled. "Sparkle had Spike. They were a six-and. But if you want to look Jamal in the eyes, and explain to our friend that he's going to be stuck here for the rest of his life because you're freaking out over technicalities, that's on you. If you really think that he and his daughter are going to get someone killed, go ahead and be a hero, Vincent, and save us all."

That stung, I reflected, in exactly the way she had intended.

I snatched the wasteland cloak off the top of my pack, shrugging it onto my shoulders. "Don't 'Vincent' me in front of the customers," I said, then turned to face Jamal squarely. "The pony makes a good point. I'm sorry for my outburst, Jamal; the wasteland is dangerous at the best of times, and it tends to instill a paranoia that isn't always helpful. If you're still comfortable coming with us, we'd be happy to have you."

He swallowed, looked uncertainly back and forth between us, then nodded. "I, uh, alright."

"Before we get started, though, there are three rules I expect you to internalize like your life depends on them. Because it does. We might forgive you for disobeying an order, and we might renegotiate your contract if there are parts of it which make you uncomfortable, but these three rules are completely non-negotiable. Do you understand?"

Jamal nodded. "Three non-negotiable rules. Got it."

"One: I don't care what else you've heard. Her name is Scratch. My name is Yearsley."

"Scratch. Yearsley. Right."

"Two: This is a business relationship. We are guides, not friends. It is our job to keep you safe, and it is your job to help us get you safely to civilization."

Jamal nodded.

"Three: At the first sign of heroism you will be abandoned at the nearest town."

"If you're smart," Scratch interrupted, strapping her saddlebags down. "Megan wasn't."

Jamal swallowed. "She the one that got you attacked down south?"

"Yeah."

"Trust me," he said, "I want no part of that. Last I heard of the raiders was they swerved south toward the dunes."

---

We headed north out of town as the sun was cresting the sky, then cut east along the ridgeline after a few hours of climbing. The white dust of the valley floor turned into the powdery red clay dust of the hills, and the sage gave way to ankle-ripping vines gave way to grey-leaved scrub oaks and tufts of grass barely clinging to life. We skipped the caves; without the threat of raiders, it was better not to chance an encounter with one of the few animals remaining that was big enough to dig them.

We set up camp on a hilltop well above a trickling spring. I went downhill with Apple Bloom, checking the water with my pocket Geiger counter before filling our skins with enough for the evening. I built a fire and threw a few handfuls of dried beans into our remaining canteen water while Scratch methodically purified the spring water, bag by bag.

The sky was big and bright, more so than it ever had been at home, and though I'd never been big on astronomy, I spent a few minutes picking out the constellations that Scratch had taught me.

"That's Scorpan, and that's the draconequus," a voice murmured, and it took me a moment to realize that it was Jamal rather than my inner monologue. His moonlit arm glowed against the curtains of the sky as his finger moved from point to point. "And that's the Windmill, and there around the Northern Dark, there's the Unicorn and the Pegasus and the Pony. Those are special constellations, Hope. The ponies say that those stars circle around the Crystal Palace, and one day their fires of friendship will light the North Star again."

Scratch snorted. "You believe that tripe?"

"No," Jamal said. "But she should."

I chewed my lip for a moment, then sat down next to Jamal.

"Maybe that's the way to fix the world," I said. "One person at a time."