The Becoming

Just one more, Breeze, just one more and I can call for a cut. You've done great, just need to make that final leg. The mare charged again, making one final effort. It started beautifully, a powerful buck to his throat that made him gag and stagger. When she went to finish it, finish all of it, she stumbled. Her hind legs seized up in a painful cramp that would take minutes to pass. Long enough for the stallion to clear his throat and start slowly marching her way.

Her legs siezed. She couldn't move them. Fuck, fuck, fuck, she thought in her head. She noticed the stallion coming toward her now, and she thought fast. If I can't move my back legs, then I'll just smash them into him.

She whipped around as he approached, using her forelegs to control her weight and balance. She flung her back legs toward the stallion's head. If this hit, it should be all she needed. It would hurt like crazy, but anything goes.

Breeze flung her back legs at the slowly approaching buck in desperation. Trails raised an eyebrow in disbelief. That was an interesting tactic, to say the least. It worked though, her back hooves landing on the buck and driving him to the ground. The dust quickly settled, showing an unconscious stallion lying in the sand. It was impossible for Trails to hide the grin on his face as he yelled out for the fighting to stop.

He looked for a cut, none had been provided. They hadn't even bothered to feign interest of belief in the mare. Trails shrugged and walked to the center of the ring, taking his own off and draping it over the tired mare. He gave Breeze a warm smile, then looked to the Khans gathered around.

"Welcome to the family." He said extending a foreleg. "Unless you wanna keep going, we'll go on back to my yurt and get you cleaned up."

Breeze was clearly out of breath and exhausted. Had she not still been utterly pissed off, she would be jumping for joy and proud of herself. She looked at Trails, now seeing him as an ally and not some pony she felt suspicious of.

"K-keep going," she growled. "I wanna keep thith--"

'Thith'?

Breeze stopped for a moment, suddenly realizing that she could taste blood. With her tongue, she searched for the problem.
"M-my front teeth are ...mithing....? Aw thit. When did thith happen," she groaned. "Four teeth... mithing. Thith ith gonna thuck. Fuck it. I wanna keep up the pathe. Let'th keep goin'!"

She coughed, accidentally spitting some blood onto the sand. "I'm ready for another fight!"

Trails gave Breeze another grin and nodded. He sauntered back to his place at the gate and waved for the next stallion to step up. Tired of this game, the Khan next to Trails walked to the center. WHelp, she had a good run. The stallion, Brass Hoof was his name, spent every waking hour in the arena. He constantly asked Trails to spar, knowing that the buck had taken on 10 khans at once and taken half of them with him. Brass wanted to see where he measure up.

He didn't wait for Breeze to attack first like the others. Instead he hit her across the muzzle with a viscous backhoof that sent her flying. Before she could even think of getting up he was on her again, a punch to the temple was all it took for lights out.

Hoof paused at Trails' side, looking back at Breeze. "I think I'm in love."

Trails laughed and went to collect her. He flipped her on to his back and went to his yurt. The gaggle of spectators quickly dispersed, going back to their lives Trails made a mental not to go and grab Breeze a cut next chance he got, for now busying himself with laying in his bedroll and doing pouring a bottle of black broth down her throat.

Breeze gulped and awoke, feeling dizzy. She put a hoof to her head and hissed in pain as she sat up.

I'm a Khan, she realized. I made it in.

"I guethh I bit off more than I could chew," she said quietly. "Well, I'll have to jutht prove mythelf further later. Thank you, Trailth. I can take care of mythelf for now."

Trails took a step back to let Breeze have some air as she stirred. She seemed understandably dazed but otherwise fine. Well fine except her newly acquired lisp, but she was staying pretty upbeat about that too. Maybe everything was working out like it should for once. Then she said she could take care of herself and he had to fight the urge to laugh, more so she wouldn't think he was laughing at her lisp than anything.

"They must've knocked you around harder than I thought," he mock checked her head for fever, "cause you've forgotten everything Papa Khan said to me before I took you to the ring. You're in, congrats and welcome, but you're still lowest on the totem pole. What's more he gave me the oh so fun task of being your baby sitter throughout your life here in Red Rock. So a few things are in order, first being getting you a cut of your own. After that we'll let you rest until tomorrow and then see what Papa wants you to do for your first assignment. My guess would be making rounds with me, but since I already did that for the half-month it's probably gonna be a chem run or something."

Breeze sighed. "Thorry about that. He altho thed that I'd be thharing your capth. I apologithe for being thuch a bother...." She ran her tongue over her gums where the teeth were missing. "I'll jutht have to prove mythelf to Papa Khan, too. Being babythat ithn't ekthactly an entertaining thought. I'll pay you back, if I can, for all the capth you uthe on me."

Trails just shook his head. "I'm not giving you grief or complaining, just reminding you of the way things are. Until Papa says otherwise you might as well be my foal. Don't worry about owing me one or any of that shit, there's no debts between family in my books." He sat down next to Breeze and patted her on the back. "We're gonna be thick as thieves you and I from here on."

Breeze wasn't so sure how she felt about that, but she had made it into the Khans. She let that sink in as she lied back down, feeling sore and exhausted.
"I'm in. I made it..." she whispered. "I'm a fuckin' Khan."

She put a hoof over her face, shielding her eyes from any light. Her head hurt massively, as did the rest of her body. That fight had been incredibly taxing, and her endurance had never been very high.

Trails couldn't help but smile at Breeze's outpouring of pride, at just how much it resembled his own after the initiation. He chose to let her rest for now, let the aches sink in and the shock if it all wear off. Outside the tent, he saw the gaggle of spectators huddled in the center of the ring. They looked to be shooting the shit and icing their collective pride after being beaten by the small mare from the right side of the tracks. The sight made Trails smile to himself as he trotted towards the longhouse looking over the encampment.

Kick Start stood outside, his jug of tequila empty after a day of his usual drinking. The stallion waved Trails over, wordlessly, Trails pulled out his pack of smokes and gave one to the him. Start nodded a silent thanks as he lit it, looking at the stars as the smoke wafted higher into the air.

"So the mare made it." he said.

"Eeyup." Trails responded in his usual way.

"I'll have a cut for her by tomorrow morning, a job too, so feel free to take the rest of the night off."

They pair stood there for a few minutes, Start catching up with his friend and the goings on outside of the canyon. Since the massacre they'd both been on the clock almost constantly. Trails took all of his down time to go visit Stableton, Start chose to visit the brothel on the strip with his. The news report of the desert was the same it always was: Legion and NCR are in a pissing contest and everpony else is caught in the crossfire. Overall, nothing to write home about.

When the conversation slowed to a lull Trails couldn't help but ask, "What've you got in mind for Breeze's first job?"

"That 'er name? I thought it was Bees or something, guess Breeze is a better name isn't it." Start rambled to himself, more of the usual. "Anywho, there's a settlement in need of muscle to keep raiders off their flanks. I just got back last night after working out a deal, they'll be paying with a share of their crops, hoping it'll help alleviate some of the shortages we've been running into."

"Sounds good, it'll be nice to do something other than shake ponies down for caps."

Kick Start laughed loudly, nodding as he walked off to his yurt.

"You have fun pretending to be a good stallion for a while, I've got a day full of figuring out a deal with the fucking strip for the next three years. Celestia dammed casinos are threatening to start supporting the Everfreeside cooks."

"Heavy is the head that wears the crown."

"Bull fucking shit, Papa gets to sit on his throne and get drunk all day."

"Isn't that what all you Lieutenants do?"

"Hey, I get drunk while running. You got any idea how hard that is?"

Trails laughed and trotted off to his yurt, ready to get that nap he'd been looking for at the start of the day.

Breeze was asleep in the corner again. She barely ever used the cot or anything, but did little but sleep since her initiation into the Kahns.
She wasn't dreaming much, but when she was, she dreamt of nonsense. It meant little to her, but it was all somewhat frightening.
She stayed asleep, curled up in the corner, even as Happy Trails came in.

Trails entered his tent and saw Breeze curled up asleep. With a tired grin, he tossed a blanket over the sleeping mare before falling back into his cot, listening to the lullaby of the crickets as he drifted away. It didn't take long.

When the sun rose, so did the big brown earth pony. He found the sight of Breeze snoozing in his vest a little funny. Not because she didn't earn it, nor simply because when he had known her before she was a scared nurse back in Stableton. It was more of how he saw himself reflected in the mare. He hoped that she too would find that the cut, and the ponies who wore it, helped give a meaning to the random.

He found the vest Hangfire had gotten for her sitting on the ground outside his yurt. It was like Trails' had been a few months ago: bare save for the back patch. He'd gone through hell to earn the Bitter Soul, Dog of War, and Nomad patches that had been added to his. Each told a story, each their own kind of scar and badge of honor. He carried Breeze's vest in and draped it over her before exiting again to start a fire.

Breeze woke up and stood groggily. "Hey, Trailth," she yawned. Her body still ached and her front teeth were forever gone. She frowned. Still feeling tired, she sat down.
"Ith my own vetht here yet?"

Trails raised his gaze from the fire to Breeze and smiled. "It was sitting on top of you, guess you didn't notice in the course of waking up." He poured a cup of coffee and rested it on the ground next to him. "You can go grab it after breakfast, then we'll be on our way to help some ponies get rid of a raider problem."

She rubbed her eyes and yawned. She got up again, and walked closer to the fire. "I'm pretty tired after thothe fightth..."
She turned her neck as a small snapping noise was heard, and Breeze sighed lightly. "I'm thtill tho thtiff..."

She looked up at Trails with a blank look, possibly a bit sheepish, and then looked back at her corner. "I'm not... quite hungry ath of yet..."

"You should eat something, we've got a big day coming up." Trails said, pouring out a cup of coffee for Breeze. "Hopefully there wont be much fighting, we're just there to act as more of a deterrent than anything. Plus this helps us get cap flow that isn't drugs, which I think everypony can get behind."

Breeze stayed silent. She took the coffee and simply stared at it.
Not drugs. That was good. No fighting would give her more of a chance to heal from her initiation. But that was only a hopefully. There still may be fighting.
With a sigh, Breeze put the coffee down and curled up in the corner again.
"I don't want to eat."

Trails almost frowned for a second before trotting over to Breeze's side and plopping down next to her. "Then let's just relax for a bit, I'm still too damn tired to even think about trotting up to some backwater and playing the whole 'Mr. Tough Pony' act. We hardly know each other, let's fix that."

Breeze looked up at him again. She quickly looked away.
"I'm... not a very interesting pony. I just want to be able to protect those I care about. I haven't even seen anypony like that in a while though. Winter Bell, ponies like her..."
Breeze sighed. "I kept getting angry at myself. I wasn't strong enough to do anything for anypony. I hope to prove myself wrong. What about you?"

"Oh come off it, that's not all you are." Trails said as he poked Breeze in her side playfully. "If we're only defined by our mistakes then I'm lord death destroyer of worlds. Here, what's your special talent? The one thing you like to do more than anything else in the world?"

Breeze winced at the poke to her side, but made sure to keep it quiet. Lord Death Destroyer of Worlds? Hah.
"My thpecial talent ith thtuff I can do with a penthil. You know, writing, drawing...."
Breeze took her saddlebag from the corner and opened it, taking out a notebook and pencil, and handed the book to Trails. In the notebook were sketches of gryphons, pegasi, dragons, birds, and butterflies. There was also a short story in the notebook, named, 'The War of Lions". It was about a war between manticores and gryphons, which all turned out to be the imaginary play between a very young gryphoness and a tiny, nearly newborn manticore the gryphoness had kept as a pet.

Trails flipped through the notebook with a bemused look on his face that quickly turned to quiet awe and admiration. "This is really good." He said. "No, really, really good. Reminds me of blown away I was by some of the trench art back in grad, especially compared to my shitty little doodles. Even then, none of that stuff was as good as this. You sure you picked the right career, doctor and all?"

Breeze gave him a slightly annoyed look, like she'd heard it all before, too many times.
"What elthe wath there for me to do in a thothiety like thith? Be a full-time artitht? Thtoryteller? Thothe don't pay well at all, do they?"
Breeze sighed. "My parentth were both doctorth. They pathed their clinic on to me back at the thtable. When I left, I wath a fully trained doctor already. Thure, I have thome meanth of being 'entertainment,' but how ith that utheful at all?"

Trails' reaction was immediate, like he'd come to the conclusion long ago and held to it firmly since then. His voice was firm with conviction when he spoke. "We don't need ponies like me that can only kill, and a wasteland full of doctors only let's the cycle continue. We need ponies who can create, ponies who dream and care about something intangible. That's how the wasteland's going to be cured, by a vison and a dream. Not by some buck like me wiping out the raiders."