The safe popped open with a whisper.

Inside was my prize: the Party-Time Mint-al recipe!

But it wasn’t mine. I scavenged. I looted the homes of slavers and raiders. But this was stealing from some poor young earth pony not yet a mare.

But... Party-Time Mint-als! And really, all I had to do was take it long enough to copy it onto my PipBuck. It’d put it right back. And that wouldn’t really be stealing, right?

Except Pinkie Bell was offering it as a reward for helping her with something. And that made it feel like stealing. Like I was taking a reward I hadn’t earned.

I sat, staring into that safe for I don’t know how long. Finally, I focused my levitation magics... and picked up the one other item in the safe. A recorder with a single imprinted message. I copied it into my PipBuck and started it.

Fo:E - Chapter Nine: The Moral of the Story