And so it was that the slave who became a knight, became more still. A leader to his people. Neither callous overseer, nor strict commander. But a true servant of the people. He thought always of the story about the good king. And the man that told him the tale.
His days were spent in service of the people. Moving from one problem to the next. He made time for people every day, no matter what. His office, an open platform in the atrium. A choice made by his predecessor, and not something he would change.
His night were long, cold and lonely. The warmth of his home and wife sorely missed. The grief for fallen comrades bitter and sharp. Some nights he takes a rifle from under his bed. He packs a bag, pulls on his leather coat, and heads up the Vault door. There he goes, and no further. Knowing his place lay here.
There he sits, staring at the Vault door, torn between duty and desire. A man in conflict with himself. Fighting his own war each and every day. And war...war never changes.
The End.
The parcel had sat on his desk for weeks. Wrapped in brown paper and string, the words ‘for John, in the event of.' written on it. In the handwriting of Sentinel Grimm. In the quiet of the small hours in the Vault, John threw back his drink and opened it.
Inside the metal box he found Grimm’s pistol. The Crusader sidearm, forged far from here, stamped with winged swords and cogs of the Brotherhood.
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He moved the cloth, expecting to see a cleaning kit, spare magazines and attachments. Which he did, but that’s not what he stared at. In the bottom of the box, dinged and scratched, lay a pipboy. An older, clunky and worn model, but unmistakable as anything else.
John tore open the letter.
‘John, you pasty mole rat son of a bitch! They used to call me that too. Like you, I didn’t see the sun till I was a grown man. Like you, they filled my head with lies. Told us we’d reclaim the wastes, fifty years after the bombs fell. Things were bad where I was. The first generation of survivors were dead, dying and desperate. Ferals flowed through towns like a flood. Mutated horrors roamed the land. Slavers and raiders went unchallenged and unopposed. All that changed when, like you, I found my way to the Brotherhood of Steel.’
‘The Brotherhood showed me, gave me, the means to bring order to chaos. I know some stepped over the line. I know some don’t care about the line, or the civilians on the other side of it. But I kept my honour intact, and I taught every single man and woman I trained to do the same. In the end, that’s all you can do. Try to make this world better than you found it. It brought me pride to see you do that for people like us.’
‘I don’t know why I kept that damn thing, feel free to recyc it. I suppose I wanted to show it to someone who knew what it was to wear one. In all my years I never saw anyone with one. I’d like to think I may have met a few vault dwellers along the way, and not known, but I don’t think that’s the truth. Coming into this world gives us a perspective no one else has. We see the beauty others take for granted, makes us fight harder to preserve it. ’
‘Well, Anne’s calling me for dinner, and I won’t keep her waiting. I wish you good fortune, John Blake. Trust your instincts and keep focused on what you can change for the better.’
‘Your friend, Mick.’