And All You Could Have Been (Social, Wild wasteland)

Kestrel procured another earthen mug and filled it, passing it to the Pegasus with a cold calm about him. The motion was fluid, effortless even.

"You could say that." the griffon replied enigmatically, turning to take another bite of his food before offering the tea towards the newcomer.

"Tea?"

Ale took a seat upon the rock and gave the griffin a look over. "Big, strong, experienced, could kill everypony here, yeah lets not get on his bad side." Allowing himself to get comfortable on the rock or as comfortable as he could on a rock, he nodded to trails, "Sup smokey," then to dash, "Chicken shit," and finally to the griffin, "I don't think I caught your name. Mines Ginger ale." He said with an outstretched hoof.

Kestrel offered a respectful nod but did not shake the ponies outstretched hoof, instead he just spoke. Tone just as cold and serenely calm as before.

"Kestrel." he said, a simple introduction to say the least. The griffon set the tea kettle down again for now, and finished up his first bowl of soup; pouring another shortly after he did so. The last of the soup that was present. A heavy bite passed down his gullet moments after that.

Dash narrowed his eyes and furrowed his eyebrows when Ginger Ale called him Chickenshit, he took a single sip of his tea before setting the drink down for a moment, "Well howdy-do to you too, Dipshit." Dash countered, "My real name is Galactic Dash, as I was telling Kestrel, here. What's yours?" he said, taking the tea back up to take a few more sips.

Ale looked to the pegasus as if he was an idiot, "I just said my name was ale, clean the crap out of your ears chicken." He looked back to the griffin who was currently enjoying his meal and saw the kettle. "Never heard of "tea" but i'll give it a shot," he stopped himself just short of picking up the earthen mug on the ground and added, "So long as it's not slang for psycho or some shit like that, I don't do chems."

Trails simply lit a smoke and nodded as Dipshit joined the little group forming around Kestrel's campfire. He wasn't much in the mood for tea, choosing instead to take a swig from his canteen of Black Broth. The saltiness of the drink biting at him as it trickled down his throat.

"You said you're from Friendship City," he said to Chickenshit, or Dash or whatever his name was. "been years since I was there. Used to be one of the caravans that visited regularly. Can't help but wonder how everything is their. I imagine the council's still struggling to keep the black market their underwraps."

Kestrel poured another mug of the hot fluid and passed it towards Ale without question or comment. Already working on finishing his soup. Midway through a bite Kestrel found one of the meaty chunks had refused to tenderize and he had to snap it down. The action was preformed silently, and without hesitation.

Just like everything Kestrel did.

Dash and Ale, assuming the latter had taken a sip, would find the tea Kestrel served to be uniquely flavored. Smokey, sweet, and bold all in one. A well balanced base of something akin to apples and cinnamon made up the base, a sweet, smokey, blend of something else leaving a delightful aftertaste on ones pallet.

Ale picked up the mug, balancing it on his hoof. For any other unicorn this act would have been awkward without the aid of magic, but this unicorn had spent so long without it that he had time to master manipulating objects with his hooves and mouth. He took a sip from the mug and came to a rather decisive conclusion. "It taste like hot leaf juice." Ale placed the cup on the ground and tried not to think about the taste it left in his mouth.

As he sat there he noticed that the pot of soup the griffin was currently eating had some chunks of meat floating around in it. It didn't look like bramen, or gecko meat, it looked like... Ale suddenly remembered where he had smelled that before, the soup that was served to the slaves in filly, the one meal that actually contained meat, the meal that was served when somepony failed to meet the work quota. "Kestrel is eating pony soup!" The giant killer bird, that was just an arms reach from ale, was eating somepony. "Shit, shit, shit, now what? Do the others know? What will he do if he knows i know? Oh fuck, did i just insult his tea?" Ale's mind was racing he needed to find someway of getting away but he has to be cool about it.

Kestrel ignored the comment about his tea and continued eating. At least he did until he felt a slight disturbance in the air around him. Gaze flickering about the area for a few scant seconds Kestrel looked for the source of the energy disruption, his cold predatory eyes focusing on the source of the disruption; Ginger Ale.

The birds soup was not the same as the one served in Filly. Filly's version of the soup was little more than groul really. No taste but pony and water. Kestrels recipe was far more refined, and contained more healthy ingredients. The main subject of which being the most disturbing.

Pony flesh.

The griffon didn't say anything, he just gave the buck an unreadable stare and asked a simple question. "Something wrong Ale?"

"Oh celestia fuck me with the sun! Now what? O.k don't bring attention to yourself. Just, just say something, but don't be stupid about it!" Ale tried to look calm, knowing that if he said the wrong thing then this bird would have no problem killing him on the spot. Sure the others were here but the track record shows that they would probably not care about the unicorns well being and wait until kes was finished before acting.

Finally ale opened his mouth to respond to the griffins question, "N-nothing, just, I guess i'm just hungry, yeah, haven't had a good meal in a few days." Ale mentally facehoofed, "Why did you say that now he's most likely going to offer you some soup, then what?"

Dash rolled his eyes when Ale quipped at him. He was pretty sure he had said his name back at the Khan's 'pow-wow'. Speaking of which, he turned his attention to Trails when he asked about the Black Market and the Friendship City council, "I don't know all that much about what you said, but it has and probably always will be, a nice and safe place to live..." he said. He sighed heavily and took another sip of the tea, "This is good tea, by the way." Dash then said timidly to the griffon.

"I'd offer some soup..." Kestrel started, finishing up the last of his bowl. "...but I am out for now." The look that Kestrel was giving the stallion was still just as unreadable as before, and his tone just as even.

The stallion was acting anything but calm. Kestrel could see it, he knew what was in the soup, and it scared him. Fear...such a strange little emotion, but one Kestrel was far to used to being the source of in this world. He did nothing to show he knew that Ginger knew what he did however.

Instead the big cloaked griffon just pointed at the mug of tea he'd poured for the buck and said "The tea should help ease that, so drink. And be merry."

Ale let out a mental sigh, "Thank celestia, wait, he said he's out...for now.That means he's planning on making more. Shit, o.k. new objective: become this griffins new best friend, he won't eat you if he's your friend." He reached down to pick up the mug of tea and lifted it to his muzzle, "Maybe it's an acquired taste." he said trying not to insult the bird's hospitality. It was not an acquired taste, it still tasted like leaf juice and it still left ale with a bad taste in his mouth. However he didn't say anything and just continued to drink. The griffin was right in one respect though, the tea did help ease his hunger, with the liquid in combination with the can of peaches he'd had earlier his state of hunger had gone from starving to snackey. Turning to trails he asked, "Hey smokey, that pot of chili you made still open to the public?"

Kestrel said nothing as Ginger asked for another pony's food, judging by the way the stallion had acted he was not going to take anything from Kes anyway.

Pony eating pony was unnatural, Kestrel would not be endorsing such an action.

Trails had been occupying himself with mixing himself up another cocktail of black broth and whiskey when Dipshit piped up. "What's that?" He mumbled, staring intently at his flask."Oh yeah, go help yourself. If you wanna spice it up, I've got some more jalapenos, just made it mild for the mares of the group. Namely, all of you."

Ale smiled and got up to go get some chili. As he passed by trails he said, "Hell with the shit I had to eat in filly, I think I could handle a little extra spice." Ale was being a little bit boastful. When he reached the pot a chili he looked down at the spicy gruel and the hunger that had be suppressed by the tea came back, and it brought friends. *stomach growls* "Oh this is going to hit the spot." ale thought aloud as he spooned some of the food into his bowl and looked down at the small pile of jalapenos trails left out for the others. Ale didn't know anything about spicing up his food so he had no idea what amount would would give that bole a little extra kick without setting it on fire. He finally shrugged an picked up 4 jalapenos, chopping them up before stirring the chunks into his bowl. "Food looks good by the way." he yelled back to trails as he trotted back over to the group, sitting on his little rock next to kes.

Kestrel perked a mental brow at the mention of Filly, a city he had spent roughly 29 years of his life in or around. It was his childhood home, and through its fires he'd been forged into the being he was today.

"Filly's food was indeed foul." the griffon commented as Ginger took a seat again, just a few feet from him.

To himself however Kestrel was thinking something else. "So thats how he knew..." the predator thought, making a mental note of Ginger's little statement. The gruel they'd served there in Filly had been horrible, and often times it had been made of those that had failed or died.

"Yeah no kidding but it was still better than my aunt's cooking." Ale said with a chuckle as he raised a spoonful of chili to his muzzle. "Wait how does he know about filly food?" Ale thought as he seized raising the spoon and looked over to kes. The griffin in no way looked like a former slave and somegriffin like that would surly have a reputation in filly if he escaped. "But if he doesn't look like a slave then he must have been..." Ale's heart skipped a beat, if this griffin was a slaver and he saw the brand on ale's face then he was probably planing his capture right now. But rather than jump to conclusions and ending up in a firefight ale decided he would ask first. "Wait how do you know about the food in filly, were you a slave at one point?"

"For Nineteen years my will was not my own. Three years ago, I escaped." Kestrel said, choosing his words carefully. He revealed as little as possible, giving Ginger another of his signature, eerily calm stares.

The proof to his claim was on his hide, currently hidden beneath both armor and cloak. Hopefully the Griffon would not have to go showing off such painful trophies to make the buck believe him.

Ale was surprised by the griffin's response, "Nineteen years? Shit I though i had it tough when I was only there for a few months." Ale was dumbstruck by the thought of being in filly for just one year, let alone nineteen of them. "I can only imagine what you had to go through." he said when he finally found his voice again. Ale suddenly felt a cretin... kinship to the griffin, hell he could almost forget about him eating pony soup, after eating that shit in filly for so long he probably grew used to the taste, and on top of that he was a griffin, they eat whatever food is available, even if it is something that probably held a conversation with him earlier. "Why were you there for so long? I mean I broke out as soon as I saw an opportunity, was their security tighter back then?"

"My reasons are my own Ginger, but one of the biggest factors was my Father. He needed me and I him. When that factor faded, I began to leave." the griffon explained casually. He'd long since mourned and gotten over his loss, and now he acted as he did. He'd found religion, and begun enforcing it to brutal and reputation gathering effect.

Dash shook his head and rolled his eyes when Trails basically called them all losers, "I took out an entire camp of slavers without any of them even seeing what was hitting them. So, speak for yourself..." He continued sipping his tea, once again finding himself wanting to ignore the Khan pony. He listened to Kestrel's story about his time in Fillydelphia. It was a place that Dash had been glad that he didn't have to go. But his performance at the Slaver Camp had proven that he was way ahead of such creatures anyways.

Ale looked down at his bowl of chili as a very painful memory came back. "Then maybe i do know what you went through in there, loosing somepony you care for in that hell." He inhaled deeply as he contemplated sharing his past with the others, he finally decided that the best way of getting over it was to talk about it. "There was a mare in there with me, a young thing, practically green to the wasteland. She was scared and lost and i was the only other slave to offer her aid." Ale laughed a bit as he thought about the next part. "We became fast friends in there. We helped each other with our work loads, we shared our meals if one was shorthanded by the cook, and we made each other laugh. We must have spent the better part of a month planning our escape," His tone suddenly dropped to a depressed level. "But in the end she never got to see the outside world again. She died in there, beaten to death by a drunk slaver looking for a lay. I-I was too slow to save her." A tear rolled down ale's face and landed in the bowl of chili quickly dissolving in the spicy liquid.

"It is a city that claims much, and gives nothing. Yet you survived. Rejoice in this." Kestrel advised, his gaze focusing on the fire before him; watching the flames lick and dance about the wood.

Casually he reached back and put some more water on to boil, his tongue and belly craving a bit more tea before the evening passed.

Ale thought about kestrel's words, "Yeah, Yeah your right." he said as he wiped the moisture of of his face and turned to the griffin. "In the end all that maters is living to see the next day." Ale had lived by this believe ever since glimmering died but his conscious always seemed to object to some of things ale had to do in order to survive. However, now that ale had meet another who had survived filly and seemed to live by this same code, well, that voice in the back of his mind could just go buck himself now. The unicorn reached down and picked up the half empty mug of tea and held it up towards the griffin, "Here's to surviving in this hellish landscape that our great, great, etcetera, grand parents left to us. May we always live to see tomorrow."