Princess Luna volunteered to personally escort me to the supply depot, so I thought it would be a good idea to indulge her. She kept her rambling softly until she wanted me to hear it. "...Should it come necessary for you to abort, that is fine. You can return here and we will discuss on our next move."

Long story short, Princess Luna has requested of me that I go north into the Galloping Gorge reconnaissance base. It's a few dozen miles away and the trains have no coal to power them, so it'll be a long walk. She wants me to retrieve the crew stationed there. Apparently they made some breakthrough in a new strategy to take back Canterlot, but the last carrier pigeon died before it could fly back out to the base.

"I won't fail," I say stubbornly. "It's just about ninety miles to walk here to there. If I keep walking with small rests, I'll be back in two, maybe three weeks."

"Oh, I have little doubt in your abilities," the princess says calmly. She takes a left and I follow. "I just need to make sure you have enough supplies for when you bring back the crew."

"How much supplies will I be carrying?" I ask.

Princess Luna looks upward at the ceiling. "Well, there's you, so supplies for five. There are only three crew members, but you'll need something to eat and drink on your way up as well. A little extra just in case."

"That sounds like a heavy load."

"Nonsense," Luna says loudly. "It'll be mostly water. I'll give you some dehydrated veggie disks. They taste terrible, but they grow with water for a snack." We make another turn and stop at an unusual site; a wooden door. In a castle made of nothing but metal, a wooden door seems kind of out of place. Luna opens the door and duck through. I follow.

The room is small, a storage room really. There are green disks the size of hockey pucks wrapped  in plastic on the shelves to the right, and the shelves to the left hold empty canteens. At the back of the room is another door, one made of steel. Looking around, there must be enough rations to feed the city. And yet most of the citizens here scrounge for the little hay that grows in the corners of the streets.

"You have all this food here and you let the city starve?" I ask the princess as she gathers a few canteens.

She turns her head halfway and, with one eye, looks at me hard enough to chill my spine. "Would you rather have full bellies or a work force that may protect this city from attacks?" She goes back to her gathering. "Besides, starvation hasn't reached Vanhoover yet. The wild plants that grow here are edible."

"This war has turned you into an overlord," I say quietly.

A canteen drops, the lid falling off. Luna swivels and is on me before I could draw my pistol. She basically pushes me up against the door. No, actually, she does. Luna presses one foreleg up under my neck and pins me against the door. "Listen here you little whelp. This war has taken more from me than anything else has. I would rather have been sent back to the moon than let this war start. Because of all this violence, I lost my sister. I have become something better than a ruler, I have become something that may help this cause to end all this fighting. You could help too." My pistol slips away from its holster and I see it floating next to my head from the corner of my eye. "But then again," Luna continues, "you could just be another lost cause."

The look in the princess' eyes say it all. So I gather my senses and speak. "If you shoot me, you'll have to go looking for another to go run this little errand."

Princess Luna keeps her hard look for a while longer, then smiles. "You're right. Besides, only you could do this job." She slips my gun back into its holster and resumes packing my supplies. "Only you. No other living soul in this city has what training you possess."

"If you could read my mind," I say curtly, "you should know that I don't have any training."

Luna slips out of sight, but I still hear her picking things up. "You possess training that can only be found in a state of extreme survival. You've been running for so long, and finally you find this little slice of Heaven, Valhalla, or whatever you want to call it. You loose, you regain, you train, you live." The princess returns to my field of vision. "Now, you are to reach the base and retrieve the reconnaissance crew, that is it. This supply I have prepared should last long enough for you to reach the base and come back with the party. The railways should lead you straight to right to the base."

"I know, I know," I say. "We already discussed this."

Luna smiles at me as she throws me a green backpack full of canteens and food. The canteens are full, but I don't see a water source in here. The princess pats me on the back. "There enough in there for the trip. There's also a compass in there in case you need it. Do you need ammo?" She seems so different than the Alicorn that just threatened to shoot me a minute ago."

I shrug on the backpack. "I always keep two extra clips for my pistol on me at all times."

She raises an eyebrow. "You'll need more than that. What caliber is your rifle?"

"Seven millimeter," I answer.

"And your pistol?" she inquires.

"Point forty," I say.

She nods and walk out of the room, I follow her into the hall again. "Fine, fine," Luna mutters. "I'll have one of my guards deliver some ammo before you leave. I'll find you a room to stay in tonight."

I walk ahead of her. "If it's not too much trouble, I was hoping to leave today."

"Are you so sure?" Luna asks. "Should you not stay and rest before embarking on this mission?"

"The sooner this is over, the sooner I can resume my life," I answer.

Luna's expression stays the same for the longest time. Then, something very disturbing happens; she smiles. "As you wish. Guard!" The mare that guided me into the castle pops around the corner and salutes. "Bring three clips of seven millimeter rifle ammo and six clips of point forty caliber pistol ammo to the front gate. My young friend here will be needing it soon."

"Yes, your highness." She rushes out of sight.

I look at the princess. "What do you mean that I'll be needing it?"

"Just a precaution," she says. "Just a precaution."

After a few minutes of awkwardly silent walking through the metal corridors, the princess and I reach the front doors. The same guards stand nearby, one with a tan sack. He tosses it at me, though its a bit short and falls on the ground near my feet. I open it up, seeing all the ammo, then close the sack up and stuff it into my backpack. I take another look behind me to say something to Luna, but she's already gone.

"So," I say to the guards, "can either one of you point me to Galloping Gorge?"

The one on the right relies, "Head to the center of town, then keep walking south to the train station. Keep to the tracks going east."

"Eventually," the other guard finishes, "there will be a fork in the rails. Keep following the ones that head north."

"After that, just keep following and you'll hit the base in a few miles."

I nod and walk away, slightly annoyed by their back-and-forth directions. Thinking to myself, I recall all the event that had just happened. My whole existence here I've gone unnoticed and then the next thing I know I'm off to do a job set upon me by royalty. Nice, real nice.

The sky begins to lighten as morning comes around, becoming more of a dirty orangish color rather than the night's dark red. Without true sunlight, a lot of the plants that grew on this planet no longer exist. They died out within weeks, and only the hardiest of plants could survive the princesses' light spell's artificial illumination. Of course, looking around the city as I walk to the train station, it's clear to see that some experiments have been happening with the local fauna. The grasses that grow around here are thick like cardboard, and have a tinge of pink to them. And it contains a bit more nutrient that normal grass, so we can live off of eating what grows in our lawns. That also explains my frail figure. Back when Equestria wasn't a desolate war-ridden place of misery, the average stallion would be somewhere around four feet tall and weigh about one hundred pounds. Now, the average weight is eighty, and I'm around seventy or something. I'm "one thin sumbitch", as some have called me. So, with the world in perpetual darkness lit with artificial light and hardy weeds to eat, everything kind of got... worst. But, it made awkward pauses seem less awkward. Especially since most of the time when a pause goes by, you're either alone or the other guy has a bullet in his throat.

The locals seem to notice something different. They are actually coming out of their little homes and standing in their yards as I walk by. I look around and see colts, mares, and foals come out to watch me. I'm pretty sure they all know I've been hired by the princess, as the guards let every living soul in the vicinity know when a new recruit has been, well, recruited. They do this so there are no surprises of who's kid got shot and won't be home by dinner.

As I pass them, I notice various looks in their eyes; sorrow, some form of pity, but some eyes sparkle with hope. They must really need the information this crew I'm going after has. All the more reason I can't afford to fail. I shift the wait of my backpack, readjust my guns, and continue forth towards the train station.

As much as I think about it, the event of today don't really make sense. I received another on of Princess Luna's recruitment letters, to which, for who know's reason, I decide to respond, and then within the hour I've somehow agreed to travel out of the safety of Vanhoover to the info base in Galloping Gorge. I'm supposed to be hard-headed, stubborn, annoyingly so! Princess Luna must know more about me than she lets on. I don't believe she obtained all of her knowledge of me from a simple mind reading.

I'm nearing the station, I can see it now. Weeds grow over every edge of the ceiling of the rain shelter. The cement pillars or crumbling and part of the tracks have warped and broken off of their ground support. Rust covers all forms of metal here, showing the neglect of the decades. This place is nothing but a guiding path and a memory of how we once lived.

I get out the compass that Luna gave me and check the direction. I'm to head east until a fork in the rails, then head north. I turn to the left and the needle of the compass passes over the E. I nod and descend to the tracks, being careful of the sharp breaks nearby. With a deep breath and shuffle of my backpack, I start my mission and begin walking down the unused tracks of the Vanhoover train station.