Gale Force glided above the ground, following the road back to the town square. He reached the complex to find the market far less busy, but still proceeding.

The pegasus descended to the ground, his metallic prosthetic flexing as it recoiled from the sudden impact against the cobblestone road. Methodically, he scanned the stands again, looking for one in particular.

When he found the only pony he knew in town, she was taking down her stand, packing up in preparation to go home for the day. He trotted over to her eagerly.

"Hey there ma'am. Need any help?"

"Well, I don't need it, but I'll take it anyway. Thanks Gale, and please stop callin' me ma'am."

He worked with Applejack, grabbing one side of the overhanging frame of the stand, and guiding it as it was lowered to the ground.

"So," started Applejack as she threw the wooden components of her stand into a cart, "Why'd ya come back? Did ya miss me?"

"How'd you guess?" he said, prompting a chuckle.

Gale took the remainder of the produce and the parts of the stand not already tied down on the cart, and balanced them on his back as he walked beside the mare, who was pulling the cart, hitched up behind her.

"No, actually, I needed to know some things, and, well, you're the only pony in town I know."

"Well, what is it?"

"You said that most pegasi in town work on the weather team. Where would I go to join that?"

"For that, you'd need to talk to Rainbow Dash. She's the captain of the weather team."

"And where might I find her?"

Applejack pointed into the sky as a characteristic spectrum streaked across the clouds.

"Finding her ain't the problem; it's catching her that's tricky."

"Well, I'll find a way to keep up. I am lighter than most," he explained, gesturing back at his prosthetic.

"That all you needed to ask me sugar cube?"

"No. I was also thinking about trying to get to know a little more about the town and the local area as a whole," he explained, "Is there a library or maybe some records I could access in town?"

"Sure. Golden Oaks Library is right over yonder," said Applejack, nodding towards an immense oak tree separated from them by a wheat field, "My friend Twilight runs it. Heck, she'll probably set ya down and give ya everything ya need to know about this town before ya could even check out a book."

Gale chuckled a bit, as Applejack had hoped, and saw that they were coming up on what seemed to be a large ranch of sorts. It was centered on a large red barn, visible from the road, and the adjacent house of matching hue, and he assumed it belonged to the mare at his side.

"One more thing," said Gale, looking down slightly into the emerald eyes of his companion.

"Shoot," she answered.

"It's about my brother. We're both looking for work, and I was wondering if you would consider possibly giving him a chance as an extra set of hooves on your farm."

"Why don't he just work for the weather patrol too?"

"It's his wing," Gale explained, "Don't tell him I said any of this, but he took some shrapnel in Germaneigh. His right wing was messed up pretty bad and it didn't heal right. He's not such a good flyer now," Gale's tone switched suddenly as he came to his absent brother's defense, "But he's strong as an ox and loyal as a dog, and he'd be a great worker if you gave him the chance."

"I see," said Applejack, stopping beneath the arching gateway to her property, "I'll think about it."

"Just before you meet him, you need to know he hasn't been completely right in the head since we got ba..."

Applejack interrupted him.

"Alright, I've thought about it. If he wants to work, I can give him a chance. Tell him to meet me here at dawn tomorrow."

Gale was taken aback a bit by her abruptness, and as she laid the subject to rest, she turned to continue down the path to home, and Gale followed.

He didn't know whether she was pretending not to have heard what he had tried to say about Flash, or if it had actually fallen on deaf ear, but regardless, it seemed less than important to her.

He accompanied Applejack to the door of her barn, and laid the produce on his back amidst similar contents within. He helped her carry the disassembled stand inside as well, and when the work was done, she extended a hoof to him, the second time that day.

"Thanks for the help Gale."

As before, he took it in his grip, grasped it firmly, and lowered it once, releasing it when it reached its lowest point.

"Any time, ma'am."

"I told ya to quit callin' me ma'am. My friends call me Applejack."

"I didn't know we were friends," he said honestly.

"Well, ya do now."

She clapped him on the shoulder hard enough for him to feel it, and then trotted up the steps of her porch and into her home.

Gale felt himself drawing after her as he watched her getting away, but the slamming of the screen door shook him from the trance.

He looked around in the sky above, trying to pick out the tell tale spectrum of the weather team's captain, but had no such luck. He kicked off from the soft dirt of the farm, and continued the search from a higher altitude.

Rainbow Dash sped through the clouds, racing the wind, as was her custom every time she felt the freedom of the sky's beckoning.

She flew not in loops or spirals; no, no trick flying this time. Now was a time for speed flying. After all, morning was the most proper time for tricks, and this was late afternoon.

She felt herself plateau at a speed just under the sound barrier; she could go into a dive, and surpass it, but creating sonic rainbooms over Ponyville had gotten her some flak from the mayor as of late, so she stayed on a flat plane.

Dash felt tears forming in her eyes as the wind burned them, but it felt good, and she kept pushing.

She saw an oncoming cumulus, and going too fast to weave around it, barreled straight through. Temporarily blinded by the vapor of the cloud, she didn't see what lay on the opposite side.

She pushed out of the white haze of the cloud, and found another pony in her path. He didn't see her, and there was no time to avert her course; she was simply going too fast.

"Look out!" she shouted as she tried to roll to the side, but felt a reverberating shock against her outstretched wing as she rammed into the pony.

She tumbled in mid-air, but promptly recovered and looked back. The other pegasus was hovering in mid-air, looking down disapprovingly at an object descending rapidly towards the earth below.

Something was amiss with him, but Dash couldn't really figure out what it was.

Then, it hit her all at once.

"Oh my Celestia! Your leg!" she yelled, darting back to him.

She hovered at his side, her forelimbs outstretched towards his missing limb, and yelled, "It's gone!" she floated around him, her hooves pressed against the sides of her head in panic, "You need to get to the hospital! Don't worry! Stay calm!"

"Ma'am, I'm fine," he started to say, but was stopped early.

"I SAID STAY CALM!"

"It's all o..."

"Don't worry! I'll get you there in no time!"

The cyan mare grabbed him, and began flying as fast as she could with him in her grip, but he pushed himself away from her early in the trip.

"Ma'am, I'm fine!" he said, causing her to give him a shocked, confused look.

"See," he explained, wriggling what was left of his thigh back and forth so as to demonstrate the absence of tissue damage, "everything's fine."

"But, what was falling?" she said, still confused.

"My prosthetic."

"Oh," she sighed, finally realizing what had happened as an embarrassed blush turned her face from blue to crimson, "Sorry. Did you see where it landed?"

"Yes ma'am, over there somewhere," said the pegasus, pointing to a green field below them.

"I'll help you look for it."

The two came down from the sky in a spiraling descent, hovering just above the blades of grass in the field. They both saw, and made for, a patch of grass flattened against the ground, finding a twisted chunk of metal and springs.

The pegasus stooped to pick up what was left of his leg, his glacier blue eyes looking down disappointedly at the disassembling mass of warped metal in his hooves.

"Yeah, sorry about that," said the mare over his shoulder, rubbing the back of her head in awkward embarrassment.

"No worries ma'am. I'm think I can fix it," said the stallion optimistically.

The prosthetic's spring suddenly uncoiled as it snapped, flinging the remainder of the leg's cogs into the wind, and they disappeared in the grass.

"Maybe not."

He let the remnants of his bionic leg fall to the ground, and stayed hovering to avoid having to hobble on the ground.

"My bad," she admitted, and he looked up at her, blue meeting magenta.

"That was definitely my fault, but what were you doing up there? I gave the pegasi on the weather team the day off."

"You're Ms. Rainbow Dash?" he said, surprised.

"Yeah. You don't know me?" she said, reflecting his surprise, "You must be new here."

"I'm Gale Force," he said, "and I was looking for you up there."

"What for?"

"I was hoping to talk to you about a job."

"On the weather team?"

He nodded.

"No offense, but do you really think you could buck clouds with only three legs?"

He rolled his eyes slightly; everypony he met so far seemed to think he was at a disadvantage.

"Ma'am, all it means is that I weigh less than I would with a fourth leg. If anything, I can move faster than I could with all my limbs."

"You think you could keep up with healthy pegasi?"

"Absolutely ma'am."

"You're pretty confident," she observed.

"No, just gung-ho ma'am."

"I like that. I'll have to use that sometime," she said, seeming to have already forgotten about her destruction of his leg, "I do have a job slot open on the team. If you stop calling me ma'am, I can see about giving you a chance."

He smiled back at her.

"Can you start tomorrow?"

"Sure."

He offered his hoof for a shake, but rather than taking it, she bumped it, gave a sly smile, and started back to the sky, but stopped short of leaving.

"Oh, I almost forgot," she said, returning to him, "the weather schedule is in the old school house. We meet there every morning before we get started."

"Got it," said Gale, nodding determinedly.

"Cool, I'll see ya tomorrow," she said, and sped back into the air.

After confirming she was gone, he silently hoof pumped his success, and flew back towards the town.

Gale came back into the house, and still on the high from getting a job, set down in the kitchen.

"Hey Flash, guess what," he said in an elevated voice.

No response.

"Flash, you're not going to believe what just happened."

Again, nothing.

"Flash! You in here?"

Gale hobbled into the living room, where his brother was asleep in his chair again, a half empty bottle of liquor next to him.

The happiness he had when he came in was routed by anger, and Gale struggled into the living room. He gathered up the empty bottles around his brother, and threw them in the trash. Next was to dispose of the rest.

He limped back into the room and went to his brother's saddlebag, which hadn't moved since they arrived at the flat for the first time. He lifted the cover, which had been left unclasped, and gathered the sum of ten bottles of whiskey and one of scotch in his forelimbs, revealing an all too familiar folded piece of cloth at the bag's bottom.

Gale ignored it, and staggered to the kitchen, and one by one, dumped the contents of the bottles down the drain. It took him long enough, and as he bit out the cork of the last bottle, he heard a stirring behind him.

He turned around as the last drops of the tan liquid disappeared to see Flash awake and searching in his saddlebags.

"Gale, where's the drink?" he slurred groggily.

"Gone."

"What?" he said looking up at him with reddened eyes.

"It's gone. I told you if you didn't find a job, I'd find one for you, and I did. You've got work tomorrow. You're done drinking. The liquor's gone."

"What have you done?" he growled.

"Flash, it's for your own good."

"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!"

The black pegasus staggered towards him, spitting fire along with other obscenities, and lounged for him, but Gale, being sober, easily avoided him.

"You're drinking yourself into an early grave."

"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!"

"You can't show up to work drunk," he said, avoiding another arcing blow.

"I'M GONNA KILL YOU!"

Flash swung at him again, but Gale ducked the blow, and when Flash tried again, he countered, catching him by the forelimb and throwing him to the ground. Gale hovered above his brother as he writhed on the floor, trying to regain his balance.

"Get a grip Flash! This isn't you!"

"YOU'RE DEAD!"

Gale ducked another haymaker easily, and answered with a splitting punch to his brother's jaw. He fell hard, and the sudden force seemed to sober him up, at least a bit.

Gale hovered above his brother, looking down at him through clear, cool blue eyes. Flash tried to ascend to his brother, but as he unfurled his wings, he grimaced in pain, and tried to nurse his crooked wing back into a painless position.

"Flash, listen to me now, and you listen good!"

He seemed to gain his brother's attention, who gave it begrudgingly.

"Do you really think this is the life he would have wanted for you?"

"It doesn't matter what he wanted for me! He's not here!"

"Miles knew what he was doing when he signed up Flash. He fought for you and me."

"Don't flatter yourself!" shouted Flash, rage only building in the room, "He's not here because of you and me, namely you! We should have stayed in that bunker!"

"How could I have known what would have happened! If it weren't for that damn shell, we'd all be here and in tact right now!"

"But we're not, are we Gale? No, because you made the wrong call, I'm half blind and I can't fly, and you're a cripple!"

"You know what," he said, lighting back down to the ground, "you're right. I made a call, it went bad, and things happened. You think for a single second each day, that I don't regret that? Dammit, the last thing I promised mom was that I'd bring you both back! I failed her, I failed you, and I failed Miles! You think I don't REGRET THAT!"

"You seem not to! You're out and about every day living like nothing even happened! Seems to me like you've forgotten him!"

"No! Don't even go there. You know I miss him just as much as you do. The only difference between you and me is that I'm living the life he died to give me, and you're wasting it. You disgrace him!"

Flash knocked him to the ground before he could finish, and threw himself on top of Gale as he hit the floor.

Gale reversed his momentum, and planted his one good leg on Flash's chest and threw him over his head as he tried to pin him. He shot to his hooves, as did his brother, and they stood staring each other.

"I disgrace him!? I'm the only one that keeps his memory alive!"

"You can't keep his memory alive locked up in here! He lives through us now, and if he were here, he wouldn't want to live like this!"

"How can you know?!"

"Because that's how he lived!" said Gale, tears starting to form in his eyes, "He did whatever we did even though he was better than both of us."

Flash's anger began to recede, and the mahogany fire in his eye began to fade ever so slowly.

"Flash, the only part of Miles left is in you and me. We have the same blood, and we need to keep that blood alive. His legacy is us now, and keeping his memory locked up inside with bitterness and whiskey is no way to honor him."

"Well what would he have done?" asked Flash harshly.

"He would have stopped at one drink in our memory, and then he would continue living, saving whatever he had inside for a time and a place, not letting it throw up all over his life the way you are."

Flash seemed taken aback, and he recoiled as he realized Gale was right. He found himself collapsing down onto the floor as something rose in his throat.

Gale flew to his side, and held him in a firm embrace as he fell to the ground.

"Do I disgrace him?" he whispered weakly as he leaned into his brother.

"No," Gale started calmly, stroking his brother's mane, "no, he loved you, and his life. You could never disgrace him, but you can't keep living in the past."

"How? How can I?"

"Well," started Gale, hugging his little brother, "you can start by giving drinking a break, and going to work tomorrow. From there, we'll take it together, one step at a time."

Flash didn't let his brother let him go until hours had passed, and when the moon was high in the sky, he turned upwards to the skylight.

He looked through the window with big, wondrous child's eyes, his one good one sparkling in the moonlight.

"Do you think others will remember him, or is it just us?"

"Well, his name's on the memorial. As long as that wall stays standing, he'll be remembered."

"Honored Glory," said Flash, nodding contentedly as he tried to chase the emotions from his rugged face, "He's Lance Corporal Miles Striker forever."

"He lives as the memory of a soldier there, but in us, he's Miles. We just need to try and live the kind of life he would want, and we'd do him the highest honor we can give. It's not about remembering him, it's about honoring him. That's why our part is more important than the memorial's."

Flash looked at him as if to say he was sorry, but Gale needed no apologies. He only patted him on the shoulder.

"You'd better get some rest."

With that, Flash nodded, and went off to his own bedroom for the first time in a while.

Author's Notes:

hope you like it. Please leave a comment about what you think.