Chapter EIGHT

Winter’s first breath caressed Twilight’s face, stirring her from sleep. It was a natural breeze, different from the winds created by the beats of pegasus wings. Different but in too many ways exactly the same. An odd pang of disappointment resonated within Twilight. She had hoped that natural weather would feel unique in some way: more…natural.

Above her Celestia’s sun smiled approvingly. The sight of it reminded her of an old pony’s tale she had heard when she was just a filly. Legend told that the sun was Celestia’s third eye and through it she could see all the happenings of the mortals below. The scribes of ancient times spoke of her as all seeing and all knowing; but even as a child Twilight hadn’t believed this, suspecting it was nothing more than a means to ensure the citizens of Equestria be weary of their behavior, lest they be spied perpetrating some heinous act. It existed, she believed, to keep ponies in line, and for a long time it had proven effective. Still, Twilight was nothing if not curious, so on many occasions she would bring up the subject with the princess during the hours reserved for private instruction. But always the young filly’s questions were met with cryptic answers. Her majesty had a talent for avoiding questions – a talent honed to perfection by centuries of practice. Myths needed mystery after all, and even if the stories were true, Twilight could at least take comfort in knowing that Celestia only watched during the day, and hadn't spied the moment of intimacy she'd shared with Fluttershy. Absent mindedly she wondered if perhaps Luna had.

Beside her lay a still sleeping Fluttershy. With a gentle fore hoof Twilight traced the curve of the pegasus pony’s cheek and all at once the events of the previous day came back to her, hitting her like a splash of ice water to the face. She nearly laughed out loud at the sheer craziness of it all. In the space of just twenty-four hours, Twilight had made both love with a dear friend and war with a hated foe; failing miserably at the latter but triumphing in the former. A mischievous smile spread across her face as she recalled the lusty moans and whimpers that had played upon Fluttershy’s lips during their love making. Perhaps the prowess of Equestria’s favorite daughter had been greatly exaggerated in regards to her skill on the battlefield, but in other arenas…

…A horrible sound found Twilight’s ears, shaking her from her idol musing: a low groaning like the wail of a spirit as it sheds its mortal coil. It was the kind of sound that didn’t need volume to split the ears. The sound beckoned Twilight, pulling at her the way a lone candle burring in pitch blackness pulls at the eyes. She stood up, shaking the last echoes of sleep form her limbs as she did, then trotted off in search of the miserable sound’s origin, fearful of what she might find.

She was right to fear. The groaning was coming from Rainbow Dash. Carrot Top and the medic, the unicorn with the unusually long horn, were doing their best to lay the injured pegasus pony into a hammock rigged up between a pair of sturdy trees. The medic held Rainbow by the shoulders, being careful to support her injured head and neck, while Carrot Top held her hind legs. The going was rough on Rainbow and she wasn’t making things any easier for anypony else. As they hoisted her up, Rainbow’s hind legs flailed and her head twisted back and forth as if in desperate search of something. Her eyes were wide, unfocused, and feverish. Her groaning grew louder.

“Rainbow please,” said Carrot in as measured a voice as she could muster, “try to settle down. You’re only making it harder on yourself.” She wrestled with Rainbow’s flailing hind legs and for her trouble was bucked several times in the neck and chest. She lost her grip, causing the medic to do the same, and all at once Rainbow flopped into the hammock belly up. Her low groan erupted into a violent tortured shriek.

“No, no – her side!” shouted the medic. “Lay her on her side. You’ll complicate the fractures in her wings!”

Carrot panicked. Suddenly Rainbow’s flailing seemed to double in intensity and she began shouting incomprehensibly. Ever manner of obscenity tumbled from her mouth, loud enough to make it so Carrot could only faintly hear the medic’s instructions. Together they tried to wrestle Rainbow on her side, but the medic couldn’t get a good grip on her. Most every bone in her body from the waist up was in pieces. Carelessness know would only exasperate the situation further, though at this point he wasn’t too sure such a thing was even possible. Nor was he sure from where Rainbow drew the strength to put up such a fight. She was a tuff one all right. Just about anypony else would’ve passed out by now. Impressive. Rainbow Dash certainly did live up to her reputation, only this was one those rare moments where it would’ve been better had she not.

“Horse apples!” shouted Carrot in frustration. “Sit still you stupid, miserable, good-for-nothing …” She went on shouting curses and struggling, attracting the attention of nearly everypony in first platoon. Embarrassing. Somewhere between the seventh fucking ponyfeathers and the ninth horse apples, Carrot Top suddenly became aware of the fact that she was no longer grasping Rainbow’s hind legs. The pegasus was floating a few inches above her head, enveloped by a purple light. The light nestled her gently into the hammock, then vanished. Carrot Top looked away from Rainbow and found Twilight trotting up to meet her; the residual glow of magic still glinting from her horn. She marched right up Carrot Top. A longing for confrontation stirred in her eyes.

“That stupid, miserable, good-for-nothing saved your life last night private,” said Twilight in a voice that was made of ice.

“Sorry sir.” Carrot blinked hard, the way drunks do when their trying to focus on something other than the glass in their hoof. Her stomach twisted. She tried to say more but the words fell into her gut. Twilight’s gaze felt oppressive on her face. She didn’t even try to meet it.

“Twilight…is that you?” mumbled Rainbow Dash, her voice ringing hollow, not even a whisper of its usually boisterousness.

“I’m here.” Twilight turned her back to Carrot Top, forgetting her entirely. It wasn’t the first time. It wouldn’t be the last. “I’m here, Rainbow. Tell me what you need?” She held Rainbow’s bandaged hooves in her own.

“Make them dose me Twilight. Everything hurts, you gotta make them dose me.” Twilight turned to the medic, expecting an answer.

He was reluctant to explain himself at first, but inevitably cracked under the lieutenant’s unrelenting glare. “We can’t do that just yet,” he stammered. “We’re running low on meds. If we dose her now she’ll be difficult during transport.” Twilights eyes softened as they fell on her injured friend.

“You gotta do something Twi,” pleaded Rainbow. Indeed she did.

“You two cover your ears,” ordered Twilight. Carrot and the medic followed suit, pressing their hooves tight against folded ears. Carrot Top watched Twilight’s horn spark. The breeze picked up. It was stronger now, strong enough to set her mane and tail aloft, and as the wind blew Carrot heard – or thought she heard – a tiny sound being carried by the breeze. She pressed her hooves to her ears tighter but the little sound was persistent, ambitious even. It grew, and as it grew so too did the wind. Music. The small sound was a song, a lullaby hummed by the Everfree Forest itself. Carrot tried not to listen. Her eyelids became heavy. Her head nodded. She blinked. Wobbled. Nearly fell over. Blinked again. Waking dreams invaded her mind: muddled thoughts of abstract fluff, the color white, blankets and warm things one could crawl under and get lost in.

Then, as quickly as it had come, the music was swallowed by the forest and in its wake Carrot felt a hollowness in her chest that longed to be again filled by the lonely serenade.

Twilight found herself again tracing the curve of a sleeping pegasus pony’s cheek. Two. That made two friends she’d nearly lost to the Everfree Forest. Two goodbyes she had thought she was ready to make, but looking down at Rainbow now made her realize how profoundly unprepared she was.  

“That was amazing,” said Carrot. “Where’s a pony learn a spell like that?”

“Save the celebration private,” said the medic, his tone stern. “This is just a temporary fix. We need to get Rainbow properly hospitalized, and we’ll need to do it soon. With her fractures being as severe as they are,” he paused to think of how best to explain, “well, if we don’t get them set they won’t heal correctly, and…I’m most concerned about her wings. It’s still much too early to say, but I fear there may be a very real chance that your friend will never fly again.” Twilight sighed. War takes more than just lives, she realized.

“We can’t leave yet. I gave Lieutenant Octavia orders to meet us out here. If the rebels attempt a counter attack they’ll need first platoon to back them up.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way sir, but we are in no condition to back anypony up. We lost more than half of the platoon to the Ursa. Those of us left are injured…tired.”

The medic sighed and placed a hoof on his forehead. His eyes shut like doors in the face of an intruder. His brow furrowed. It was perhaps the saddest look Twilight had ever seen. With that subtle expression of frustration and exhaustion the unicorn medic communicated a feeling he could never hope to put into words. That said, he was a tenacious soldier and tried anyway.

“I’d follow you even in endless night sir, I’m sure Carrot Top here would do the same. But the others – you don’t need me to tell you that you’re not the company’s favorite pony.”

“I appreciate your concern, but this is not a popularity contest. Company Everfree is loyal to its princess and to its country. My ponies would never let something so petty keep them from fulfilling their duty.”

“You put too much faith in them sir.”

“As do you in me.” He was right. He was right and despite that Twilight allowed a smile to grace her lips. So there were still ponies who believed in Equestria’s favorite daughter after all. Fools, she thought. All too willing to follow her into the proverbial eternal night. Never before was she so grateful to be surrounded by fools.

“It’s still early. Go and wake the others. See that they get themselves something to eat, then have a few of our able bodied ponies set up a defensive perimeter around our position. If this is where we are camping then I want it protected.”

“Sir, yes sir!” he gave a salute before trotting off. Carrot Top followed his lead.

“Wait a minute private,” said Twilight. “I want you to stay here with Rainbow Dash. No matter what happens I want you at her side.”

“Yes sir,” answered the earth pony. “And sir, I’m sorry about what happened earlier. The things I said about your friend. I was frustrated. I didn’t mean it.”

“I’m sorry about last night,” said Twilight, surprising Carrot with her forwardness. She didn’t say anymore and within moments her back was to the private as she trotted off in the opposite direction. Carrot wanted to call after her. She didn’t though. Instead she watched Twilight’s tail bounce off into the distance, before returning her attention to Rainbow Dash.

“Guess it’s just you and me hero,” she said, more to herself than to the sleeping pegasus. She laid herself down against one of the trees form which Rainbow hung and tried to recall the melody of Twilight’s lullaby spell. She tried to hum it, and when her memory failed her she hummed something that was almost it, and kept on humming until she too drifted off to sleep – easily, as if by magic.

Stitching flesh was not like stitching fabric. That went without saying – so she didn’t – but Rarity did think it as the point of her needle pierced Applejack’s skin.

“AJ, be a dear and stop squirming. You are making this enormously more unpleasant for the both of us.” That wasn’t entirely true. Some part of Rarity, some ghostly remnant of the old her was enjoying herself plenty. It was a pleasure to sew again, to feel something familiar in this new world that was still so foreign to her. In her past life she had been a seamstress, a designer, a fashionista – the furthest thing from a soldier a filly could be. There was a time when the name Rarity was synonymous with sophistication. There was a time when her afternoons consisted of schmoozing with aristocrats at garden parties, discussing who whore what to whichever high profile event while snacking on hors d'oeuvre and sipping tea that cost more than what the average working class pony made in a month. She had schmoozed for Celestia’s sake! Life had been sweet, if not a bit a shallow, and certainly easy. Much easier than the lives of most.

But never did Rarity wonder how a pony of her former status came to be lowly soldier. She knew with the certainty of a bridge over rushing water how she had come to this place. She’d even come by choice, much unlike many of her fellow MM who were forced to answer the call of duty when her highness mandated the nationwide draft. In the beginning many refused. Those many were branded enemies of the state and imprisoned without trial or any foreseeable hope of release. With the institution of the draft the enemies of the royal house nearly doubled. It served as fuel for the rebellion: further proof that the princess had become a tyrant; the type of ruler who forces her subjects to make war in her name when the battle was not theirs, but her own to fight. Of course Rarity, being a member of the Canterlot aristocracy – if not in title than surely in practice – was exempt from the draft. Equestria would certainly not see her brightest shining sons and daughters lumped in with the commoners to be slaughtered, nor would they be expected to sully their precious hooves with the blood of a rabble as vulgar as the rebels.

Politics. Powerful ponies talking while the week suffered. Rarity cared nothing for politics, her crusade was personal.

She found her rhythm now; remembered the smooth artful weaving of needle and thread through a thin canvas, directed masterfully with mind and magic. Stitching flesh was not like stitching fabric, but the concept was similar enough. She finished with AJ’s first knife wound and moved on to the second. Rarity watched the needle move, encircled in the pale whisper of light that was her own magic, but was scarcely aware of it. By now muscle memory had taken over, allowing her mind to wander back in time. Bittersweet nostalgia swelled inside of her. She remembered all of it right up until the present day. Amidst the cluster of memories from her old life were those that were happy and those that were not so happy, but only one so horrible that she longed to forget it entirely. She remembered the day rebellious fervor took hold of her home in Ponyville. She remembered the riots in the streets, her boutique set ablaze by an angry mob, the bays for her blood, and amidst all the chaos she remembered one pony in particular: a pony whose eyes peered out from holes cut into a black hood. Lonely, soulless eyes. Eyes without a face. That pony she remembered and would never forget.

“There, all finished,” she said with a light sigh on her lips. Applejack twisted her necked to admire Rarity’s handy work and whistled before saying:

“Damn, would ya look at that? Reckon ah gots me ma first battle scars.” AJ jumped up to all fours and struck a dashing pose. She pranced about a bit, feeling like a like a real veteran, bucking at imaginary rebels and looking to all Equestria like a child playing at being a soldier.

“Honestly, Applejack. Settle down before you hurt yourself. You’ve lost a lot of blood and need to rest.”

“What ah need is to find the pony what cut me up and trample the little son of a bitch.” The young farm girl rose up on her hind legs, pretending to kick in the skull of said son of a bitch, when suddenly she suffered a dizzy spell that nearly floored her.

“See, now what did I tell you.” Rarity let a small laugh escape her lips. She moved to help Applejack back up to all fours, but the blond earth pony pulled away sharply, insisting that she could stand up on her own.

“Oh hush all that. Ya’ll ur just jealous of these beauties here,” said Applejack, gesturing toward the pair of scars on her right side. “It’s like a second cutie mark.” Rarity watched her friend with sad eyes. Rarity knew something of scars. They were nothing to celebrate.

“But then ah guess a fancy unicorn like urself wouldn’t want to ruin ur precious hide.” Rarity raised an eyebrow at AJ’s jeer. Perhaps she’d meant for it to sound like a harmless joke, but to Rarity it sounded like an outright insult. Without thinking she put a hoof to her chest and rubbed just under the neck, remembering what the pony in the black hood had done to her. She tried not to be upset. After all it wasn’t AJ’s fault. She knew nothing of scars – at least not the way Rarity knew.

“What has gotten into you Applejack,” said Rarity.

“What’re ya’ll getting at?” she asked. Her face was lit up with a bright and easy smile. Hard to believe she was on the brink of death just last night.

“Nothing. It’s just…you have been acting very unlike yourself lately.” It wasn’t so much what she said, or even the way she said it that set Applejack off. It was the look Rarity gave her as the words were leaving her mouth. There was charity in her eyes; the sort of look passerbys give to the homeless on their way home from the market place. She hated that look: hated it because though there was sometimes real concern in it – genuine love – juxtaposed beside that love was always a subtle air of superiority.

“Let me help you,” Rarity’s eyes pleaded. “Let me help, because you are too weak to help yourself. Let me help, you poor, poor dear.” Applejack was nopony’s poor, poor dear.

“What are ya‘ll getting at?” Her face dimmed. Her tone became defensive. “Ah’m the same as ah ever was.” She stomped the ground hard with a fore hoof and a sharp pain darted up her side that made her wince. Rarity remained silent.

“Well?” said Applejack. “I asked ya’ll a question. Just what exactly are ya ‘ll getting at?” She snorted. Neighed. Shook her head, tossing her long blond mane this way and that.

“See that is exactly what I am getting at. You just neighed at me. At me. Rarity, one of your best friends going on three years now. It’s like you’re always looking for a fight these days. All this posturing and bravado, who is it for exactly?”

“Now ur gonna lecture me too? Ur starting to sound like Twilight. Ah swear all you fancy fuck Canterlot unicorns are alike. The whole damn lot of ya think ur better than the rest of us cause ya got ur magic to make ur lives easier.”

““Excuse me?” said Rarity, taken aback. “I am not some fancy fuck unicorn form Canterlot, as you so eloquently but it. I am from Ponyville, same as you. I –” Rarity paused in the middle of her thought and took a moment to calm the storm brewing inside her. She wanted to play Applejack’s game, trade insults with her – hell she wanted to buck her right between the eyes, but restrained herself. She might have been a soldier these days but she was still a lady, and ladies conducted themselves with poise and grace. She couldn’t fly off the handle the way Twilight had. Her friend was hurting. She could see that Applejack was in a dark place, and right now Rarity knew that she needed to be the bigger pony for her friend’s sake.

“Where is this coming from Applejack? Is it Rainbow Dash? You two have been spending a lot of time together and I know how she can be.”

“Ya’ll leave Rainbow out of this.” Applejack’s voice went up an octave. She seemed to grow even more defensive at the sound of Rainbow’s name.

“Okay. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. But talk to me dear. I can’t help you if you won’t talk to me.”

“Ya wanna help. Ya can start by not calling me dear. Ah aint ur dear.” Rarity sighed in frustration.

“Fine Applejack. Fine. Have it your way. I can see this is going nowhere.” Rarity began packing up her medical supplies. She stuffed the needle and thread back into the box and shoved the box into her pack, which she then threw over her shoulder and onto her back. Not with magic either, but with her own two fore hooves.

“Where ya think ur going. We aint done here yet.”

“Maybe you aren't but I am. I am done with all this,” she said pointing an accusing hoof at Applejack. “The Applejack I know, my friend Applejack, is honest, and patient, and understanding. She’s strong but she doesn’t use that strength to pick fights, especially not with ponies she cares about. So let me know when she gets back, because she and I need to have a long discussion about the state of our relationship. But I’ve no interest in wasting another moment of my time listening to you, whoever it is you are.” With that Rarity turned her back and began to trot off in no particular direction, just long as it was away from Applejack.

“Oh whatever. Forget ya then!” shouted AJ as she watched Rarity leave.

“You already have!” Rarity shouted back. Applejack snorted. Neighed loudly. Shook her head, tossing her long blond mane this way and that. Then she gathered up her own pack, slung it over her shoulder along with her riffle and began marching off in the other direction. Her fight with Rarity had attracted more than a few prying eyes from second and third platoon, though as soon as they realized AJ had become aware of them they feigned indifference. Applejack marched by her fellow MM, eager to jump on the first one of them who said anything. Only one was so bold.

“Trouble in paradise huh?” said Lyra. The unicorn had been standing with Bon-Bon a little ways away watching the whole thing as it happened. “Awwww, why don’t you two spare us the melodrama and just get a room already.” She laughed at her own dig as she took a drag from the lit cigarette that seemed to permanently adorn her muzzle.

“Oh come off it already,” said Applejack, giving her tormentor the satisfaction of a reply.

“You gonna cry, Iron Horse,” said Lyra, pronouncing the words "Iron Horse" as if they were italicized. “Come on give us a tear.”

Applejack saw red. She turned to Lyra and shouted something so dreadfully full of hate that this humble author dare not sully the eyes of his readership, or the sacred written word by granting such a verbal display the privilege of articulation. Lyra, being of the sort that she was, only smiled at the angry farm girl’s cruel words. She stood up on her hind legs, stuck out her tongue, and waved Applejack in, confident that she could take her given the apple-bucker was still recovering from a near fatal wound. She didn’t have anything against AJ personally, but sitting around all morning with Bon-Bon doing nothing had made her restless. That and kicking the crap out of Company Everfree’s Iron Horse would ensure her bragging rights back at the barracks until the end of the war. Applejack was more than happy to oblige her. Lyra spit out her cigarette and just like that the fight was on. Bon-Bon tried to step between them. Pinkie appeared suddenly and did her best to keep AJ at bay, but the rest of second and third platoon were busy egging the two on, encouraging them to even greater acts of violence. One of them tried to shove Bon-Bon (who was biting Lyra’s tail and pulling as hard as she could in an attempt to keep her away from Applejack) and for his trouble she bucked him squarely in his forehead, sending him reeling. Another tackled Pinkie to the ground. More joined in, and before anypony could do a thing to defuse it a brawl erupted. In the space of just a few minutes the once well composed military unit deteriorated into a mob of biting, kicking, and butting.

Some ways away from all the commotion an annoyed Cheerilee trotted up to meet Octavia, who was standing as still as a stuffed dog and observing the confrontation between her subordinates.

“She’s the one you wanted to save. Had it been me out there last night I’d have let her die,” said Cheerilee without even the slightest a hint of self-awareness. Octavia rubbed her chin in thought. She didn't doubt that Cheerilee meant every word.

“What are we doing out here?” she asked her fellow lieutenant.

“You mean literally or in like an existential, what does it all mean kind of way?”

“Do not joke Cheerilee. I am trying to talk to you.”

“Sorry.” The two of them looked out at their unit, watching in stoic silence, not liking what they saw.

“Am I not a capable leader?” Octavia asked.

“Does it really matter what I think?”

She smiled. “I guess not.”

“The brass isn’t going to like you disobeying a direct order.”

“I couldn’t just let her die.”

“We both know that’s bullshit.” Cheerilee spoke the truth – or at least there was a time when such words were true. Octavia had been doing this for a long time; since near the beginning of the conflict. Very few of the Canterlot elite were summoned to serve their country when Celestia mandated the draft. Octavia, however unlikely, had been one of those few. She could have fought it. Her family had connections that reached all the way up to the royal family. Her father had served as an advisory to the princess for most of his adult life, and her mother was one of the most prolific concert pianists to ever grace the capitol with her talents. On more than one occasion her family had used their influence to get her things – things she didn’t deserve. In her youth Octavia trained hard to hone her musical skills, but always she fell short of her more talented peers. If not for her father’s influence she would have never been allowed to play for Celestia and royal court at the Grand Galloping Gala. Her mother had prodded her to use that same influence to dodge the draft but Octavia refused. She had had enough of gaining on the merits of others. She wanted something for herself. Something she could hold in her own hooves, and to have meaning it would have to be something earned with her own ability. For awhile the military was that something. Under her parent’s roof she had lived a disciplined life and under the banner of the Millitiamares that discipline served her well. She rose through the ranks quickly: going where they ordered her to go without question, killing who they ordered her to kill absent hesitation. But what happened in Ponyville raised questions – created cause for hesitation. Before Ponyville, Octavia had known exactly what kind of pony she was. She had been the worst kind of soldier: the kind that killed both enemies and innocents in blind allegiance to a world power that claimed itself infallible. The kind that looked the other way where morality was concerned, but never back. After Ponyville things became different. She was privy to horrors there she had yet to witness even here, in this Celestia forsaken corner of Equestria called Everfree Forest. Ponyville had forced her to look back. Now she found it difficult to look ahead.

“Things are different now,” she heard herself say. “We can’t be as callous anymore.”

“Maybe you can’t.” Cheerilee’s story was a bit less complex. Before the war she was nopony, just an elementary school teacher who couldn’t even earn the respect of a roomful of eight year olds. Now she was somepony, a lieutenant in the greatest military power in all of Equestria, and she had no intention of stopping there. Should things go her way, she would be called general before the end of all this suffering.

“Callousness is what got me here. I have talent for looking the over way.” Octavia deemed that last comment undeserving of a response. “We’re in this thing together Octavia. Don’t go getting soft on me.”

Octavia nodded. She disliked Cheerilee’s attitude but couldn’t deny that she and her fellow earth pony were alike in plenty of ways. They stood on common ground, she and her. Octavia almost considered Cheerilee a friend. The feeling was not mutual.

Octavia took a deep breath, trying clear her head.

“Cheerilee,” she said, her voice authoritative. “Rally the troops. Put a stop to all this nonsense. I want us ready to march as soon as possible. We are overdue for our rendezvous with Sparkle.”

Cheerilee laughed. The sound of it was obnoxious. “Who’re you talking to like that? I don’t answer to you. And you don’t answer to Sparkle.” Octavia rolled her eyes.

“Honestly Cheerilee, you can be insufferable at times.”

Octavia elected to rally the troops herself. How, she wasn’t sure, nor would never know, because just as she was preparing to fling herself headlong into the melee, Cheerilee nudged her side and directed her attention to a pair of incoming friendlys returning from their perimeter sweep. The two returning MM were dragging something through the grass. At first glance Octavia thought it was a body, perhaps a deceased comrade they had discovered and wished to give a proper burial. But as the pair of MM neared she could see that the body was still moving. They dragged the wretched thing by its uniform, biting the ends of its sleeves and pulling at it like scavengers tearing flesh form a corpse. The pony being pulled was bleeding profusely from its head. It didn’t have strength enough to put up much of a fight. Slowly, the other soldiers became aware of the pair’s approach, fascinated by the nearly limp thing they carried between them. A few more kicks were thrown and a few more heads butted before eventually their fighting took a backseat to this new spectacle.

“Oh boy, here we go,” said Cheerilee, not looking terribly amused.

To which Octavia replied with a simple “Come.” She sounded even less amused than Cheerilee looked.

Colgate and Berry Punch drug their wounded rebel hostage to a stop. They looked around and found a battered and bruised second and third platoon standing around them, all eyes fixed on their coerced guest.

“What is the meaning of this?” asked Octavia as she trotted up to them, making an effort to sound calmer and more in control then she felt.

“We were conducting our perimeter sweep – as ordered – when we found this little shit all by her lonesome,” said Berry, sounding very proud of herself.

Octavia looked down at was left of the prisoner. The rebel’s uniform was tattered, and the parts of her that weren’t covered by tattered clothing were covered in bruises and lacerations. Her right eye was swollen shut from being repeatedly struck with a rifle butt, and her nose was broken. Her mane seemed too long and had too many colors in it, and her deep burgundy coat served as an odd backdrop for the blood that ran down her face. Octavia found the sameness of red blood against nearly red skin unnerving.

“Actually I found her,” corrected Colgate. “It was weird too. I was walking, looking straight as I was, turned to say something to Barry and when I turned back there she was. Just lying there, curled into a ball and shaking.”

Octavia glanced back at the body and noticed for the first time a tiny consistent tremor running through the enemy soldier’s body. She shook as though she were very cold.

“She appeared and was shaking?” said Octavia. Shaking. Shaking… shivering. Shivering she knew was a side effect of remaining shrouded in a concealment spell for too long. The spell granted it’s user or, whatever it’s user whished, invisibility. But if the subject was a living creature and stayed concealed for too long they suffered an unbearable internal cold, like a snow storm raging in their chest. Though for this one the storm seemed to have died down by now.

“She was hiding. A concealment spell,” said Octavia.

“A what?” asked Cheerilee. Octavia explained. “But that’s impossible. She’s an earth pony…” A cold realization came over both lieutenants. At first glance Octavia had thought so too, but looking now she could see that wound on the rebel’s head poured blood form the spot where a unicorn’s horn would have been. Should have been.

Berry smiled big, the expression displaying a self pride that would have put even Rainbow Dash to shame. She said:

“She tried using her magic on us when we found her – so I cut her horn out of her head.” Octavia grimaced. There still existed those cruelties that even she was not numb too.

“If she attacked you why didn’t you kill her?” asked Octavia.

“We thought we could take her prisoner…you know make her tell us stuff about the enemy and all that,” said Berry, sounding considerably less sure of herself now. She shrunk under Octavia’s glare.

“Company Everfree does not take prisoners. And we certainly do not torture them in the aims of attaining information, if that’s what you were insinuating.” Berry didn’t answer. Instead the rebel did. Hollow laughter floated up from her broken body like the last wisp of smoke from a newly extinguished fire.

“A mercy I wouldn’t show you, loyalist.” The rebel laughed more. Longer. Louder. She laughed until eventually that laughter was interrupted by a fit of coughs – and then she laughed a bit more. The crowd bayed at the rebel’s audaciousness. They shoved each other, fighting for a better view of her last few moments, and probably would have pounced on her and trampled her into the dirt had Octavia not held them at bay with a humble raise of her hoof. She wanted to hear the rebel out.

“If it were me in your place, I’d have you scalped – maybe weave that pretty mane of yours into my own.” The texture of her voice was grating, as if sandpaper were being scarped along the inside of her throat. She was having trouble breathing.

That voice. Rarity remembered it. She shoved her way through the crowed, desperately. She had to see for herself; had to know.

“Big words for a dead pony,” taunted Cheerilee. At this the rebel burst into uncontrollable laughter. Her stomach contracted and expanded rapidly, she wheezed, coughed; her one good eye began to tear. She rolled unto her back. Her legs flailed, kicking at the empty air. She rolled back onto her stomach. Her laughter faded for a second. Another second. Then it picked up again, suddenly and with renewed vigor.

“Dead pony,” she repeated between great whooping laughs. Slowly, and with great effort, she manage to stand up on all fours. Both Colgate and Berry drew their side arms, but again Octavia raised an authoritative hoof and immediately they holstered their weapons. Now the rebel stood up on three legs, as straight as her injuries would allow, clutching her stomach with the fourth. She wiped a tear form her good eye and said:

“Dead pony...how true, how true.” She spoke in a Fillydelphian accent. She was small, even standing fully erect she still had to look up at Octavia.

That accent, thought Rarity. She did recognize it. Rarity burst through to the front of the crowd as if bursting through the surface of an ocean. Her eyes found the rebel and she had to stifle a panicked shriek, pushing the noise back into her throat with her fore hooves. It was her. She was one of them. One of the rebels from the raid in Ponyville. Rarity recognized the burgundy coat, and the mane that was a weave of several different manes, trophies taken from the hides of her victims. Even the uniform was the same. Like those worn by the MM, except they traded the camouflage motif for dark blues, blacks, and purples. Rarity’s heart raced. Suddenly she felt nauseous, on the verge of vomiting. It was her all right, but there was still one more thing. One more tell, and then she would know for sure.

“True indeed,” continued the rebel. “But then, I’ve been dead for a long time now.” She locked her one good eye with Octavia’s, and in the rebel’s face the MM lieutenant could find no hint of fear. She had cornered rebels before: trampled them into submission, broken them, watched then grovel shamelessly at her hooves, begging for their worthless lives. But not this pony. She was different. No fear in her eye and not much of anything else either. Octavia stared so closely that she could see herself reflected in that one pupil, and in that moment she understood something – something that she’d always known but had never been brave enough to face. In that moment she saw that the eyes of her enemies were not windows into corrupted souls, but rather a reflection of her own. And not a contorted funhouse mirror either. Before her now stood a flawless mirror, hoof crafted from the finest glass, and in that glass there she was also. Trapped in the visage of her enemy.

“How long have you been dead, Loyalist?” With a movement swifter than the wind Octavia stood up on her hind legs, drew her side arm, and leveled it at that flawless mirror. The rebel didn’t flinch. A betraying bead of sweat rolled down the side of Octavia’s forehead that made her enemy smirk. The rest of the unit was silent, even Cheerilee said nothing. They watched on edge, sensing that something important was transpiring between their lieutenant and this nameless villain.

Octavia took a deep breath. She tried to keep the gun form shaking in her hooves. This pony knew! Somehow she could see into Octavia’s mind and in her heart, and she knew of the atrocities Octavia had committed in the name of the crown. She knew about Ponyville. Worse she knew about it all: her love of the cello, her failures in music, how her father had made her way for her, of her crippling fear of authority and her compulsive desire to do everything in her power to please that authority. That one haunting eye could see right through her; see that she was just as empty and depraved as the enemy she had sworn to rid her country of.

She stood paralyzed. To strike now would be to strike herself. Octavia wasn't strong enough to do that.

“No! Wait!” shouted Rarity, as she made a lunge for the rebel soldier. “Don’t shoot, not before I know!” She grabbed hold of the rebel’s already tattered uniform with her teeth and tore at it from the waist down. Having already been worn so thin the fabric gave easily and below it the rebel’s last tell – her cutie mark – was revealed. Rarity looked upon it. Now she new for certain.

Murmurs rose up from the ranks.

“…a…a cultist…” gasped somepony.

“…Fucking disgusting…” said somepony else.

“My Celestia,” said Cheerilee with a startlingly self conscious laugh. “I guess nothing is sacred anymore.”

Beneath the rebel’s shredded uniform was what remained of the symbol of her special talent. On her right was an image of the sun being partially blacked out by a crescent moon. The artist who rendered the tattoo had been a talent one because the sun was a near perfect replication of the princess’s own cutie mark, every detail captured down to the technical proportions. The Crescent moon was also as close to Luna’s cutie mark as could be without being the genuine article. A partial eclipse. The sun behind the moon. Such was the holy insignia worn by those who swore allegiance to the cult of the Moon Goddess.

On her left flank there was not another image of an eclipse. There was nothing but a hide marred by horrible scars: some of them long, thin, and winding, some of them short and fat. Some were fresh and looked as though they’d only just healed, while others appeared to be as old as the pony to whom they belonged. The scarring crept a little ways down her leg and also covered a bit of her lower back and hindquarters.

The outraged soldiers of Company Everfree looked upon her scarred hide and learned of what it meant to be an enemy of the crown. To stand against Celestia was to stand against the self: to relinquish one’s individuality –  to give up that special something that makes you who you are in service to a cause greater than yourself. She was nameless now. Faceless. Free.

“Where is she! Where is my sister!” shouted Rarity as snatched Octavia’s gun from her shaking hooves, unintentionally shoving the lieutenant to the ground as she did. “If you’ve hurt her I swear I’ll…” Colgate and Berry raised their side arms but were unsure of who to aim at. Cheerilee, who had seen more than enough, cocked the rifle that was slung around her shoulder and aimed it at the lot of them.

“All of you stand down! Now!” she shouted, but Rarity didn’t listen. She kept the barrel of Octavia’s sidearm trained on the rebel soldier, her eyes wide and hysterical.

The rebel flinched. Too many sudden movements. Too much noise. She took a defensive stance. Her head whipped back and forth as if she had only just now become aware of that fact that she was surrounded. It was the first bit of weakness she had shown in the presence of her enemies. Her sudden jumpiness was contagious. It spread throughout the ranks of second and third platoon, and within seconds just about every rifle, pistol, shotgun, and sub-machine gun in the unit was level with the rebel soldier’s head.

So it can fear, thought Octavia as she rose back to all fours. With a humble raise of her fore hoof, all under her command lowered their weapons.

“Attention,” she said quietly. They obeyed. She looked around at what passed for soldiers of the proud Millitiamares these days, and was embarrassed. She’d seen enough of this. “Lieutenant Cheerilee, rally the troops. I want them ready to march when I give the order and not a second later. We’ve wasted enough time. I’ll finish things here.”

Cheerilee looked to her fellow lieutenant. Her lips came apart to speak her protest.

“Now!” shouted Octavia, her voice climbing well above its usual monotone. No pony in the entirety of Company Everfree had ever heard Octavia raise her voice before. Without hesitation they obeyed. They marched off, leaving her to deal with the rebel soldier. All them but one.

Rarity stood her ground, refusing to give an inch. She kept the gun trained on the rebel. Her eyes flicked from the rebel’s bruised face, to Octavia’s, then back to the rebel’s. She made a conscious decision that should the lieutenant try anything funny, she would shoot her on the spot.

“So you know this pony,” said Octavia as she calmly approached Rarity.

“Y-yes. I’ve seen her before,” answered Rarity, her voice quivering as she spoke. “She was there at Ponyville, with that monster in the black hood.”

“Is that right?” Octavia read the rebel’s body language. She looked nervous now, ready to make a run for it. Gently, Octavia took the gun from the unicorn’s shaking hooves, and with the casualness of a housewife watering her plants, she shot the rebel twice, putting a bullet through each of her forelegs. The burgundy pony wailed and fell to the ground. She laid down on her stomach and strained to look up at them through her one good eye. For a moment Octavia took satisfaction in the look of sheer terror in that eye. Her invincible façade had faded completely. For too short a moment she looked just like all the others who had groveled before her. But then as she looked up at Rarity her fear gave way to a look of surprise; then surprise became bewilderment, bewilderment turned to recognition, and recognition to pure – almost childlike – amusement.

“I remember you,” said the rebel. Her voice little more than an oxygen starved rasp. She was dying. “You’re the pretty one. The one who makes all the pretty little dresses. Not so pretty now are you?” she tried to laugh but only succeeded in choking on a few nearly debilitating coughs. “Never would have taken you for the soldier type.”

Rarity started to say something but Octavia shushed her with a look.

“This filly said something about her sister,” said Octavia. “Talk, or the last few minutes of your life will be very unpleasant.”

“Nothing to say. The boss took her. The one you loyalist named Butcher. Kid’s probably dead by now.”

“So you kidnap children do you?” Octavia ejected the clip from her sidearm, letting it fall useless to the ground. “You weave the manes of your victims into your own, and wear them like trophies. You willingly disfigure yourself, scratching off your cutie mark and swearing allegiance to a goddess who does not sympathize with your cause.” She pulled the slide back, spitting out the chambered round with an audible ping before discarding the gun itself. “And if that were not egregious enough you scoff at the sacred law of your homeland and attack your fellow Equestrians with magic. Worse you hide yourself with it, just as you hide behind that smile. Am I right, defector?”

She kneeled down in front of the wounded rebel so that they were eye level. “You are undeserving of the mercy granted by a bullet. So I am going to let this filly here kill you with her own hooves.” With that Octavia backed away, making room for Rarity to do what had to be done.

The unicorn stood over the rebel, angry tears staining her cheeks. She rose up on her hind legs. When she returned to all fours her fore hooves found the soft midsection of the defenseless rebel. The rebel wailed in agony. Rarity rolled her onto her back and stomped her stomach again. She coughed. Blood sputtered from her bruised lips. A hoof landed on her throat. She gasped. Twitched. Another blow struck her across the face. Another. Another. Again to her stomach. Her body convulsed under the unrelenting beating. Rarity rose again and again returned, this time finding one of the rebel’s wounded forelegs. The bone splintered under the full weight of her body like a dry autumn leaf. Hard unforgiving hooves fell upon fragile muscle and bone like a storm of hailstones. Pounding. Pounding. Pounding.

With an expressionless face Octavia watched Rarity trample what was left of the rebel under hoof, completely numb to the cruelty. She remembered Bon-Bon’s kind eyes illuminated in the campfire as they sat at Applejack’s side, talking while they waited for help to arrive. She envied those eyes. Still so full of hope for a future for that wasn’t coming. Still soft – not hard and cruel like her own.

Rarity was beginning to learn of that cruelty as she made an even bloodier mess of the rebels face. She stomped with reckless abandon, scarcely even aware of what she was doing, until finally she wore herself out enough to slow down and take in the scene before her. She breathed heavy. A cold sweat rolled down her forehead as if she had just awakened from a nightmare. Beneath her the rebel lay on her back, completely limp, her body little more than a bag of flesh full of broken bones. Rarity looked down at her blood stained hooves and was ashamed. She had taken lives before –many, many lives – but always while looking through a scope form several yards away. This, she knew in her heart, was her first real kill. She’d never had any blood on her hooves until now. Hooves that used to sew: stitch, mend, patch, knit, repair, create – now bloodied; reduced to the sordid act of destruction.

She looked to Octavia with sad pleading eyes, expecting her to say something. But the lieutenant did not answer. Instead the rebel did. Hollow laughter floated up from her broken body like the last wisp of smoke from a newly extinguished fire. She had a talent for enduring hellacious beatings and not dying – though now she was as close to death as a pony who was still breathing could be.

With her one good eye she squinted up at the sunlight that made its way through the tree tops. Then, as slowly as a thing could move without being still, she extended one broken foreleg, pointing accusingly at Celestia’s sun.

“Death…to the false Goddess…” she murmured as her final act of defiance. It was perhaps the most powerful gesture Rarity had ever witnessed. Then the foreleg fell until it pointed at the unicorn that stood over her.

“…and you…” she continued. Her chest heaved as she forced the words from her mouth. Each one uttered seemed to carry with it a drop of her remaining life force. “May your days be short…and your nights…last…forever.” Then the accusing hoof fell limp and rebels gaze clouded. Finally she was gone.

“Well done soldier,” said Octavia, placing a gently hoof on Rarity’s shoulder. “Now go meet up with the others, I’ll be along shortly.”

Rarity stood shaking for awhile, as if she hadn't heard the lieutenant’s order. Then she trotted off solemnly, looking down at the ground as she went.

Octavia stood over the corpse of her enemy. Her one good eye was still open, squinting up into the sunlight that she had loathed so deeply. Octavia looked down into that eye, that flawless mirror, but she could no longer see herself in its refection. She saw nothing now. Somehow that seemed infinitely more bleak.

Second and third platoon marched in silence. After all that transpired earlier that morning no pony had it her to say much of anything. They marched for all of the day, and by night fall they were still a ways away from the rendezvous point. It had taken each separate platoon little under a day to clear the distance, but together they proved to be a great sluggish mass of hoof dragging wretches. It would take them two days to get back; a detail Octavia may not have overlooked if not for her own mental and emotional fatigue. When night fell the weary officer gave the order for her unit to halt, set up camp, sweep the perimeter – the usual. As she undid the sleeping bag from her pack and laid it on the floor, some part of her hoped for a monster of the Everfree Forest to appear from out of the shadows and make a quick meal of her. When this failed to happen she crawled into her sleeping bag like a wounded animal crawling into its den and shut her eyes. She tried to sleep but couldn’t.

Rarity had just picked out a spot to lie down herself when she was approached by somepony familiar.

“Howdy miss Rarity,” said AJ. Rarity found her accent more charming than usual. “It’s me, ur friend Applejack.”

Rarity smiled. “Well now you have been gone an awfully long while,” she said, her tone playful. “You’ve missed a lot in your absence you know.”

“Have ah now?” answered AJ, playing along.

“I should say yes. Why I’ll have to catch you up to speed. While you were gone I met this absolutely dreadful earth pony with a blond mane and three apples for a cutie mark – a lot like yours dear – oh but the temper on this one, and the mouth. Would you believe she referred to me as some, and I quote, ‘fancy fuck Canterlot unicorn?’ Me. Rarity! Why I have never been so insulted in all my days.” She ended her monologue with a sassy humph and a toss of her purple mane for good measure.

Applejack laughed. “All right, ah guess I deserved that. Ah have been a touch out of sorts lately.” She laid down beside Rarity so that the two of them were eye level. “Rarity…Ah’m real sorry,” she said earnestly. She would have said more but Rarity shushed her, placing a delicate hoof over the earth pony’s mouth.

“You are forgiven, friend.”

“Not just about that. About ur sister too…why didn’t ya tell me sooner?”

Rarity looked away from Applejack and said: “I don’t know. Maybe I wasn’t ready to admit it myself.”

“She and ma little sis were pretty close if ah remember right. She was a regular sweetheart, that one.”

“She was perfect. She was perfect and I was dreadful to her.”

“Don’t say that Rarity.”

“But it’s true. I was always shoving her aside – making room for all of my oh-so-important engagements.”

“You were a busy pony. She was young but she understood that. She knew what all those ‘engagements’ meant to ya, and I’d bet ma whole orchard she was proud to have ya for a big sis.” Rarity sighed. She wanted to believe what Applejack said was true but in her heart she knew it wasn’t.

“No, she resented me. And when she needed me most I couldn’t do anything for her. I guess I just…just figured there would always be more time. I was young and in love with life. I just figured there would be more time.”

“And now there aint any at all.”

The two of them fell quiet for a while, sitting in silence with the memories of lives long lost.

Rarity stood up suddenly. Her horn sparked, and from it there came a small light, an illumination spell, no brighter than a single match.

“Applejack I need to show you something,” she said, her voice practically a whisper. She took a deep slow breath, it was the kind of breath one takes before doing something very brave, or very foolish. “Before I do you have to promise not to tell anypony else.”

Applejack nodded, not entirely sure she was comfortable with Rarity confiding something so personal in her, but given all the unicorn had been through today she was hardly in a position to refuse. Now it was her turn to be the bigger pony for the sake of a friend.

A magic spark took hold of Rarity’s uniform, peeling the layers of clothing back, leaving her upper body exposed. She pulled her mane back and twisted her head away as to give AJ a better look at her bare neck. The natural winter cold nipped at her naked coat.

Applejack’s eyes widened. “Oh Rarity…Ah – ah didn’t know.”

Rarity knew something of scars. Beneath her coveralls was where she hid them. Form where the base of her neck met her collar bones, down her chest and back, all the way to her cutie mark, crept a long trail of scars; not unlike those that marred the hide of the cultist with the burgundy coat. On that fateful day it hadn’t been enough for her oppressors to take all that she had ever held dear – they also found it within in their hearts to give her something. A present to remember them by: a master piece really, immortalized on a living canvas, crafted with the care of an artist who traded brush for blade. And like any good work of art it revealed to those who looked upon it a higher truth. Each stroke of the artist’s brush told a story of violence, and loss, and pain, and shame, and struggle – and all of those things that result in the meeting of conflicting convictions – all of it carved into flesh, scribbled sloppily in a language best understood by warriors.

Rarity hadn’t been a warrior upon receiving this: her enemy’s gift. She was one now.

As Applejack stared at Rarity’s naked imperfection she became ashamed for having celebrated her own war wounds. She self-consciously looked down at the spot on her uniform that concealed the pair of stitches in her side, and all at once understood what sort of thing a scar was. It was change: something beautiful made ugly by loveless hooves. Yes Rarity knew something of scars. Now Applejack knew as well.

Next Chapter: Chapter NINE Estimated time remaining: 1 Hour, 6 Minutes