The Torch be Ours

by The 24th Pegasus

First published 28th of July, 2015

Rainbow Dash has spent nearly five years away from Ponyville, fighting and dying alongside so many other Equestrians, when a piece of home unexpectedly appears at her hooves.

Five years ago, the Free States seceded. Five years ago, the Princesses were taken captive. Five years ago, Equestria embarked on a bloody war that would cost hundreds of thousands of lives.

For five years, Rainbow Dash has fought to save her friends. For five years, the sun and moon have hung overhead, motionless. For five years, Rainbow has lived in that wan glow, while every day kills her a little bit more. The peace and happiness of her youth are but faded memories, and now she hardly recognizes the town she once called home. A hardened mare, Rainbow knows only pain and suffering...

...until one day, a reminder of what life used to be like lands at her hooves, and gives her something to live for once more.

---

Cover art provided by Ruirik. Editing provided by Solidfire and Pega-Ace. Written for the 101st anniversary of the beginning of World War I

The Torch be Ours

The pegasus stared at her rifle. Ugly was what it was. Not in its maple stock, which was covered in mud and dirt she’d grown tired of cleaning day after day. Not in its mechanisms, which could only be polished so much with spit and whatever oil they had left on the front. Truth be told, it was a beautiful weapon, designed by unicorn engineers and built so anypony could stand on two legs and fire it. What made it ugly was its purpose, its intent. What made it ugly was that it had to be made in the first place.

What made it ugly was that it was supposed to kill other ponies.

The ground shook around her, and she shielded her face as dirt and stone tumbled off the wall above her head and pinged off her helmet. Those dirt walls had become her world; the artillery the sickening pulse of a dying land. Her shoulders trembled and she licked parched lips. Even as a veteran, she still shook before attacks. It both embarrassed her and reminded her she was still alive.

Still alive… she looked around her. Terrified ponies of all kinds clutched their weapons and pressed their bodies as close to the trench walls as they could get. Their once-proud blue uniforms had long ago adopted the gray of the land, and their colorful coats were all plastered with mud, some of it dry, most of it wet. The pegasus knew that these colts and fillies were hardly more than that; colts and fillies. The war had dragged on for years, and the replacements were younger and younger every day.

Rainbow Dash leaned back and stared at the cracked wood of her rifle stock, the scratches and dents that covered the barrel, and, like so many other days, thought back to the day she signed the paper that claimed her youth.

Terror. Hatred. Greed. That’s what the news claimed started the secession of the eastern territories five years ago. A large group of ponies, in the state of Germaneigh and its surrounding provinces in the east, began to riot and protest for their freedom. Culturally distinct from the ponies of central Equestria and dissatisfied with the Princesses’ rule, they attempted to separate from Equestria and form their own independent state. A state founded on the idea of equality, the elimination of classism, nobility, and royalty. On paper, it sounded perfect. An ideal utopia for all to enjoy. No princesses, no rulers. A nation run by councils and grounded in order. Just one big community of ponies living in harmony.

Of course, Rainbow Dash knew it was all a lie. She’d seen as much a long time ago. And so it was her and her friends who came to Celestia to tell the princess that she couldn’t let it happen. Warnings were issued, followed by threats. The Free States, as they called themselves, responded in kind. Tensions rose between Equestria and the Free States. The former claimed that this was an internal dispute; the latter claimed that it was a dispute between two nations.

Back then, some still thought there was a chance to reconcile. Twilight had hoped as much. She’d spent weeks preparing a special emissary mission to the Free States to try and invite their leaders to have peaceful talks with the royalty of Equestria. With an optimistic outlook and the other princesses at her side, Twilight departed for the Free States in the middle of spring, five years ago.

The war began less than a week later.

The princesses never came back. Twilight never came back. As the Equestrian delegation entered the Free States, they were attacked and taken captive by the secessionists. The Free States and their leaders demanded their unchallenged secession and large swaths of land from Equestria in return for Equestria’s rulers, and as a further threat, the alicorns were stripped of their cutie marks. The moon and the sun ceased moving, instead hanging high above the land and shrouding it in perpetual twilight. They would not move again until the secessionist demands were met, they claimed.

Equestria was outraged. Equestria was terrified. Equestria looked for a response. They found it when Prince Shining Armor took control of the nation. With Equestria’s finest at his sides, Shining Armor told the stunned and grieving nation that such aggression could never be forgiven, and that Equestria would fight to free their princesses and put an end to the Free States once and for all.

That was five years ago.

Rainbow Dash, like so many other young mares and stallions, had been eager to enlist and fight to rescue the princesses. For her, it was personal. The Free States were holding one of her best friends; how could she not fight? The very first day that enlistments were open, she said goodbye to her friends and family, flew to the nearest recruiting station, and signed her life away.

The artillery shook the earth once more around her, and she looked up towards the sky. That same otherworldly glow still bathed the land, not quite day yet not quite night. There were no more natural clouds overhead; they’d all been replaced by smoke and supercharged thunderclouds that’d strike at anypony who flew too close. It was the reason Rainbow was stuck in a trench on the front lines instead of soaring high above the battlefields below. She’d much rather be flying high than be stuck fighting and dying in the mud. But nopony flew these days; it was too dangerous.

Rainbow remembered her first battle. Back then, she was what the drill sergeants called a greenhoof; the only combat she’d ever seen was between her and wooden targets at the other end of a field. Her unit was offloaded at the front, and like giddy schoolchildren, they’d spent the day in the trenches buzzing with excitement at what was to come in the following weeks. The veterans who’d been on the front lines for a few months had only looked at them and slowly shook their heads. Whenever Rainbow had tried to be friendly with them and ask them how they were doing, they turned away and talked bitterly amongst themselves. It was the same up and down the trenches. Nopony talked to the greenhooves.

She found out later that it was because the greenhooves were the most likely to die. No sense getting attached to something you’ll lose the next day.

The artillery early that next morning had woken Rainbow from her sleep. There was no sergeant ringing bells to rally his soldiers. The pounding of magically-charged cannons for a solid hour against the enemy trenches did that for him. Eager and raring to go, Rainbow had been the first to hop from bed, to slither into her uniform, and to grab her gun and meet the sergeant at the rally point. The rest of the greenhooves followed her. The veterans only wandered out ten minutes before the whistle was blown. When the artillery finally fell silent, and that whistle finally did blow, Rainbow had spread her wings and hopped out of the trenches, turning around only long enough to see that some of her boot camp buddies were with her.

That was when she saw her first death. A bullet struck a stallion under the jaw, went into his helmet, bounced around the curved interior, and exited from a different direction entirely. He fell like a sack of meat, rifle and blood spilling into the muck around him.

For the first time ever, Rainbow truly understood what fear was.

The rest of the day was a blur in her memory. She vaguely remembered running, screaming, shooting, crying. Bits of flesh caught in barbed wire. The wounded begging for help. Vivid scenes, without rhyme or reason, stood out to her, but she hardly remembered how it ended. In all likelihood, it ended with a retreat and then the defense against a counterattack, like so many of the battles she’d seen since.

There was always one scene that resurfaced whenever she thought of that first battle. Her first kill.

Rainbow turned her rifle over and found the notches on the side. Thirty-seven of them in all, across five years of fighting. The first and oldest one was nearly completely worn away from years in the trenches. Greenhooves that sought her out always commented on how great of a soldier she was to have survived so long and gotten so many kills. To Rainbow, however, the notches only made her sick. Each line carved into the stock of the rifle was another reminder of a sin to ask Celestia forgiveness for. A crime that she’d beg Twilight to not hold against her when it was all over.

When she was still a greenhoof herself, she always thought her first kill was going to be something exciting. Some dramatic moment in her life that’d make her heart pound. But it really wasn’t. In her first battle, when she’d finally dropped into the trench on the other side, she’d come face to face with a Free States soldier. He raised his rifle to shoot her. She raised hers faster. One shot and he fell to the ground dead, motionless. At that moment, Rainbow felt… nothing. She’d taken her first life, but she didn’t have the time to dwell on it. Almost immediately after, somepony took a shot at her, and she felt the trench wall behind her explode as the bullet barely missed her shoulder. She lowered her bayonet and charged, screaming, terrified, into the vicious hoof-to-hoof fighting that followed, and before she knew it, Rainbow was flying back to her own trench as fast as she could.

It was such a whirlwind of events that it all blurred together. In the years of fighting since, she’d seen many more vicious fights than her first, and many, many more boring days of sitting and listening to artillery thunder up and down the front. On those days, she grew restless, and her wings endlessly fidgeted at her sides. In the desperate search for something to do, she’d taken up drawing. It was something she’d never imagined herself doing in peacetime, but in the boredom between battles, she found it took her mind off of things. She’d even gotten pretty good at it over the years—so long as there was paper she could use. There was always a shortage of paper on the front; on the other hoof, it wasn’t too hard to make makeshift ink or charcoal with the mud from the trenches.

Did she ever show her friends her sketches? She couldn’t remember. It’d been so long since she’d gone back on leave. She went back for a rotation in the beginning after several months of bloody, brutal fighting. A chance to see home after so many days spent in hell was like a dream come true. Like so many other survivors, she’d loaded on the train that morning full of excitement and relief, and spent the rest of the journey sleeping the soundest sleep she’d had in months. The tolling bell of the train when it pulled into Ponyville woke her immediately, and she’d broken out in a cold sweat before realizing where she was and that she wasn’t under a laughing gas attack.

She’d gotten off the train and immediately regretted it. Ponyville wasn’t the same anymore. It was duller, sadder, grayer. There wasn’t even a ‘welcome home’ party for the soldiers like Rainbow had been expecting. There was only the grimness of a town pouring all its resources into the war effort. As her brothers and sisters in arms wandered off to their own families, Rainbow was left alone at the train station.

Still, that hadn’t completely put her down. The first thing she did was swing by Sweet Apple Acres. The fragrance of the apple blossoms in the breeze was probably the first thing to really make her feel like she was home. She’d found Applejack out back tending to the crops as if nothing was different about the world. Rainbow called out Applejack’s name, and the orange earth pony did a double take, as if not really believing what she was seeing. When Rainbow fluttered over to her friend, however, Applejack took her Stetson off her head and collapsed into Rainbow’s forelegs, holding her friend in a tight and desperate embrace as she hiccupped and let months of stress decompress from her shoulders. Rainbow Dash, hardened as she was, couldn’t help but sniffle a little too.

When they’d gotten the tearful reunion out of the way, the two mares went back to the porch and shared some cider. Applejack told Rainbow everything that’d happened in Ponyville since she’d left. Most of the stallions had left to go fight, Big Macintosh included, and that left the mares to try to keep up the daily routine as best they could. Applejack was stuck in the fields every day, toiling under the perpetual twilight almost without rest, and the Equestrian government had commandeered nearly the entirety of her fields and orchard to send food to the front. Rainbow remembered making some little joke about how the food reminded her of home. She couldn’t quite remember what it was, though. All she remembered was how happy she felt to see Applejack laugh.

Applejack had then asked her about the war, and Rainbow got real silent. No matter how she tried, it wasn’t something she could bring herself to talk about. After several failed attempts to answer her friend’s question, the pegasus had hung her head and started crying. Applejack never asked about the war again.

She’d quickly caught up with her other friends in Ponyville as well while she was back. She found Rarity making uniforms for the soldiers at the front and experimenting with different fabrics and stitches to try to find something to stand up to the punishment of trench warfare. The unicorn gladly took any suggestions Rainbow had to offer, and every other second she’d comment on how worried she was for Rainbow’s safety at the front. Rainbow had done her best to try to brush it off and prove to Rarity that she was okay, while inside, she knew she’d never be the same after everything she’d seen and done.

Later she’d found out Fluttershy volunteered at the hospital to take care of the wounded that’d come back home, and what she’d seen served only to make the quiet yellow mare somehow quieter. Still, Fluttershy had been the only pony who Rainbow felt she could talk to about the war. After the blue mare had bawled to Fluttershy for an hour straight about the front, about what she’d done, about everything, Fluttershy had held her close and gently rocked her back and forth, whispering that everything would be okay. Somehow, her soothing, melodic voice had convinced Rainbow that things would get better when she went back to the front, and it took a great deal of pressure off of Rainbow’s soul, even if deep down both mares knew it was a lie.

The only pony she hadn’t really talked to when on leave was Pinkie Pie. She’d been on her way to Sugarcube Corner when she overheard conversation about how Pinkie Pie helped invent laughing gas for the war effort. Rainbow had seen what laughing gas did on the front lines. It was one of the great terrors of trench warfare. Once a pony inhaled a lungful, there was no way to save them. The only thing they could do was laugh, which made them inhale more of the gas, which only amplified the effect. Giggling became hysteria; hysteria became bloodcurdling screaming as the victim slowly laughed themselves to death. Suffocated by laughter. A cruel, cruel joke to bring to the front lines, especially when the Free States had captured a shipment and figured out how to make it themselves.

Rainbow Dash pointedly didn’t see Pinkie the remainder of her leave.

That first rotation back home had been Rainbow’s only rotation back home. Ponyville held too many painful memories and painful questions to answer. She couldn’t bear to see the war slowly squeeze the life out of her town as ponies left to fight and never came back. Whenever she went on leave again, she opted instead to go to Cloudsdale, or Manehattan, or some other city where she could lose herself in drinking, dancing, and gambling. Still, all it did was make her sick to see ponies who had no idea what she was going through dance and gallivant like nothing was wrong with the world. During her last rotation, just before the holidays, she’d flat-out refused to leave the trenches, and military command instead stuck her in an extended stay at the reserve lines. As terrible as it was, the front was the only place where she could be with ponies who understood her, and at least in the reserve lines, it was quiet enough for her to sketch all day without interruptions. She just wished it wasn’t so damn cold in the winter.

An undercharged shell struck no-mare’s land about twenty meters away from Rainbow’s head, showering her in dirt and detritus and making the greenhooves jump in alarm. Rainbow just grimly shook her head and stood up straighter. Magical artillery was notoriously unreliable and shot only as far as the unicorn gunners charged the shells; she was used to such mishaps by now. Once, a shell landed no more than a fifty meters further down the trench from her, right on top of a rally point, and completely obliterated everypony standing there. That was the tragic end of the Baker Company. They were one of the more storied units of the 32nd Division, and Rainbow was proud to know a few veterans from it. Now the company itself was just a story…

Rainbow’s own company, Easy Company of the 54th Division, once had a hundred ponies to its name. As a newly formed division, they’d all entered the war with a chip on their shoulder and something to prove. As greenhooves, they’d been placed in some of the thickest and toughest fighting there was all along the front, and it showed in the numbers. Out of a hundred fresh recruits in Easy Company, only seventeen were still alive five years later. Only one of those seventeen was left on the front lines; wounds had taken the other sixteen out of action, permanently.

For the longest time, there were only two ponies from Easy Company on the front; Rainbow and her bunkmate in boot camp, Lightning Dust. The two slept together, ate together, climbed the trenches together, and shot together. There were a few more activities they did together in their free time that made Rainbow blush just thinking about them. That lasted until seven months ago when a grenade landed right between the two of them as they cowered in a foxhole. Both stared at it in surprise for a second, then both opened their wings and lunged forward. Lightning Dust had been faster, leaving Rainbow to scream and cry as the explosion coated her with her marefriend’s blood and gore.

Then there was only one, and a company of one pony is no company at all.

With the 54th Division utterly destroyed and disbanded from fighting, Rainbow had been reassigned as a sergeant to the 89th Division, another greenhoof regiment in desperate need of somepony with experience to be a leader. Even still, Rainbow still wore the patch of the 54th, and hardly talked to the greenhooves under her command. She’d already suffered enough pain watching ponies she knew and love die; no sense getting attached to something you’ll lose the next day. Still, she made her rounds to make sure that her soldiers were well prepared and equipped for a fight, whenever the next one would happen to break out.

Rainbow turned her eyes upwards, and she could see the glowing shells arc through the smoke and clouds before landing somewhere behind her and out of sight, shaking the earth with each thunderous boom. The artillery following the offensive was the newest in the Equestrian military, with a much longer operational range and the capacity to deliver a heavier payload than anything that had come before. The generals were saying that it’d help bring an end to the war before winter. Rainbow could only hope so. The Equestrian advance into the Free States was losing steam, and she wasn’t too keen on spending another winter scraping ice from her rifle. It was late March right now, but she was hopeful the fighting would be over in nine months. On the bright side, the Free States were starting to lose the will to fight. Despite owning nearly half of Equestria’s industry and ponypower, five years of vicious and bitter warfare were finally wearing them down.

The shattered alarm clock nailed to the wooden post of a bunker began to ring. Instinctively, every soldier checked their rifles and stood up a little straighter. They all knew what that alarm meant: five minutes until the whistle. The artillery several kilometers to the west seemed to redouble their bombardment, almost with a sense of urgency, trying to send as many shells downrange as they could before their soldiers climbed the ladders. Again Rainbow licked her parched lips and idly scratched at some dried mud caked to her cheek with an even muddier hoof. At least it meant plenty of foxholes to hide in. Free States machine gunners could put bullets downrange faster than anything Equestria had. Her greenhooves would need all the cover they could get.

“Alright, greenhooves, listen up!” Rainbow Dash shouted. Her voice sounded like sandpaper; her throat felt like a desert. Too many years screaming over artillery shells, too many nights drinking the memories away, too many afternoons with a cigarette between her lips had robbed it of its youth. She used her rifle like a cane to help her stand, and she looked up and down the line at her soldiers. “It’s a hundred kilometers from here to their capital! This is the closest Equestria’s been to ending this war in five years! We’re on their doorstep now; if we secure these fortifications here today, then we’ve already got a hoof in the door!”

She turned left and right to inspect her greenhooves. They were all shaking and either looking at her with fear or looking at their rifles... with fear. She already knew the latter would be dead before the week was over; experience had shown her as much. Those who were looking at her at least had the tiniest of sparks in them, that nearly invincible desire to stay alive. She smirked to herself; there seemed to be more of them than usual for once. She’d grown tired of having to take new replacements under her wings.

“At the sound of the whistle, we’re going over the ladders,” Rainbow reminded them. A particularly loud volley made her wince, and several of the more jittery greenhooves jumped in surprise. “Check your guns, check your ammo, and make damn sure your helmets are securely fastened! Now… fix bayonets!”

The clattering of bayonets being drawn and attached to the end of rifles echoed up and down the trench. Rainbow watched and waited until all of her shaking greenhooves had fixed the blades with trembling hooves and chattering teeth. Somepony fumbled and dropped his in the mud, and Rainbow shot him an annoyed glare as he tried to dig it out. With one smooth, fluid motion, she drew her own bayonet and fixed the notched blade to the end of her own rifle. Like her weapon, she’d had that bayonet since day one. The only equipment she’d ever had to replace was her helmet after it stopped a sniper’s bullet and her canteen after it’d been shot clean through. She’d given up on trying to replace her uniform; it was much easier to roll the sleeves up and clean her fetlocks than try and scrub mud out of coarse fabric.

Rainbow turned and peeked over the edge of the trench behind her. In the middle of a bombardment was the only time she didn’t have to worry about a sniper taking her head off for doing so. Plumes of dirt and mud shot into the air with each shell impact at the enemy trenches. She had to admit, the new artillery did seem much more powerful than last year’s. From the size of some of those explosions, she wasn’t sure how anypony could survive it. Then again, she didn’t know how she managed to survive five years huddled in bunkers while the very earth shook and trembled around her. At least the bombardment had flattened most of the barbed wire in front of the enemy trenches.

A strange feeling settled in Rainbow’s gut, and one last time, she decided to walk among her greenhooves. They all watched her with wide and terrified eyes, unable to understand how she could remain so calm with the sounds of death all around her. Rainbow in turn gave them each a small nod, but never a smile. Now wasn’t the time for smiles.

Halfway down the line, Rainbow did a double-take and stopped in her tracks. She turned around and eyed the small orange pegasus curled in the fetal position, shivering and trembling at the bottom of the trench. The little orange mare noticed Rainbow’s hooves stop in front of her, and with a squeak, she looked up, letting Rainbow see the pony’s face.

“…Scoots?”

Scootaloo stopped trembling and her eyes widened as she saw Rainbow Dash. She swallowed hard and did her best to scramble into a sitting position. The sudden movement made her drop her rifle in the mud, and wincing, Scootaloo picked it back up and wiped it off on her wing. “R-Rainbow D-Dash?”

Rainbow opened her mouth but no words came out. Completely at a loss, she blinked several times and shook her head. “What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be in school? This is no place for you!”

Scootaloo winced and curled up a little tighter. “I-I’m sorry, R-Rainbow! I-I-I just wanted to help! You’ve been g-gone for so long, I was hoping… was hoping…” Her ears flattened as another undercharged shell fell close to their trenches and showered the two with dirt.

“For Celestia’s sake, Scootaloo, you’re only fifteen!” Rainbow exclaimed. “How in Tartarus did you even get in the army? Only ponies eighteen and older are allowed to serve!”

“N-no, not anymore,” Scootaloo said, shaking her head. “They lowered the standard to sixteen. They said they needed everypony they could get! I wanted to help, Rainbow, just like you!”

Rainbow shut her eyes and grit her teeth. At her sides, her muddy and ragged wings flexed and relaxed, the twisted and dirty feathers sticking to each other with each motion. “So you lied about your age,” she muttered, nearly inaudible over the sounds of the barrage. She opened her eyes and kneeled down to Scootaloo’s level. “How long have you been at the front? Have you fought in any battles yet?”

Scootaloo shook her head. “N-no, Rainbow. I just got to the front a few days ago. I don’t know anything about fighting! I’m scared, Rainbow Dash!” She lunged forward and wrapped her forelegs around Rainbow’s shoulders. “I don’t want to die!”

Rainbow jolted and stood stiff as a board at the surprise contact. Scootaloo felt the blue mare’s muscles tense, and she immediately let go. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m—”

“Scootaloo,” Rainbow said, her voice as tender as she could make it. “Don’t. There’s nothing you can do now. You were an idiot…” The older mare sighed and brushed Scootaloo’s plastered mane out of her face. “But I admire your courage, kid. You remind me of… well, me.”

The trembling orange filly brightened and looked at Rainbow with wondrous awe in her eyes. “Really?”

“Yeah,” Rainbow said with a smirk. “It takes guts to come out here and fight. Double for you; I didn’t break the law to be out here.” Scootaloo blushed, and Rainbow helped her stand back up. As she did, the older mare caught a glimpse of something colorful on Scootaloo’s flank, just below the mud plastered to her coat. Blinking a few times, Rainbow reached forward with her hoof and lifted the folds of Scootaloo’s uniform up to reveal the large purple butterfly on the filly’s flank.

“Well, would you look at that,” Rainbow murmured, a small grin on her face. Scootaloo shifted in anxiety and excitement as her idol saw her new cutie mark for the first time. “That’s pretty awesome, Scoots. Wish I could’ve been there to see it you get it!”

“You really mean it?!” Scootaloo shouted, her wings buzzing her forward onto her forehooves. Her fellow soldiers glanced at her outburst, but she paid them no mind; her attention was solely focused on the blue mare in front of her.

“Of course I mean it! It looks great!” Rainbow replied in her raspy voice. “And I bet you did something pretty rad to get it. I’ll have to hear the whole story after the fight.”

Rainbow’s ears twitched at a shrill whistle, and she quickly raised a wing to block the shower of dirt from an undercharged shell. When the rain of mud and dirt finally stopped, Rainbow slowly withdrew her wing and shook what she could out of her mane. Scootaloo, meanwhile, had fallen against the wall of the trench.

“Friggin’ magic artillery, I swear,” Rainbow muttered. Glancing towards Scootaloo, she bent over and slapped the filly’s helmet. “We’re gonna get you out of here, kid. Just stick with me and you’ll get through things okay.” She smirked and brushed some mud off of her old company’s emblem. “I’m pretty much a good luck charm if you think about it.”

Scootaloo smiled just the faintest bit. Then that smile fell away and she looked towards the sky. Rainbow Dash did the same, and her ears flicked back and forth. The artillery had stopped firing.

The orange filly started shaking again, and Rainbow bit her lip. Reaching a hoof into her uniform, she pulled out a worn and muddy pocketbook and dropped it in Scootaloo’s lap. Scootaloo looked at it with awe, afraid that if she touched it it’d turn into dust. Rainbow only gestured to it with a wingtip. “Take it,” she said. “Give it a look when the battle’s over. I’d love to hear what you think of it.”

Scootaloo only nodded and clutched the book between shaking hooves. She stared at it with reverent worship for a moment before she stuffed it in her uniform. Rainbow smiled at her, and she smiled back.

Then, with grim resolve, Rainbow stood up straight and waved her hooves. “Alright, greenhooves, get ready!” She was answered by the clattering of rifles into hooves and bayonets bouncing off of helmet brims. Up and down the line, her ponies stared at her with wide eyes; more accurately, they stared at the tin whistle hanging from Rainbow’s neck.

Rainbow took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and muttered a quick prayer. She’d never been religious before the war, but there was an old saying that there were no atheists in foxholes. Rainbow Dash had been in plenty of foxholes.

She dug her hoof into her uniform and pressed the second pair of dog tags she wore against her heart. They felt warmer and closer to her than they ever had in the last seven months. Rainbow could almost see the aquamarine mare’s face, and that made her smile just a little bit.

The first shrill whistle echoed across the barren and dead plains to the north. It was followed by another, then a third, a fourth, a fifth. Spreading her wings, Rainbow grabbed her whistle, stuck it between her lips, and blew it as loudly as she could. Almost immediately she jumped halfway up the wall and frantically waved her hooves. “Come on, Equestrians! Let’s bring the fight to them! For the princesses!”

The ponies around her screamed a battle cry that was more fueled by terror than valor, but up and over the trench they went. Machine guns a hundred meters away opened fire, cutting many down where they stood, and the spotty flashes of rifles lit up the entirety of the enemy trench. Still the Equestrians charged on into the face of death, and soon the trenches were empty except for one or two stragglers. Rainbow Dash paused long enough to make sure everypony was out, and she happened to catch Scootaloo shaking and staring up at her with fear.

“C’mon, Scoots!” Rainbow said, waving one last time. “We got a job to do!”

Then the blue mare turned and disappeared into the hail of machine gun fire. Scootaloo clutched her rifle, stunned, before swallowing hard, spreading her wings, and jumping out of the trenches after her.

The Siege of Marebeuge was one of the bloodiest battles in the Spring Offensive towards the capital of the Free States, claiming more than a hundred thousand lives over several protracted battles. It took several months of bloody, bitter fighting, but the Equestrian army finally pierced the inner ring of defenses in the seceded territories. The success of the brave mares and stallions that gave their lives in the battles made the unconditional surrender of the Free States and the safe return of the princesses nine months later a reality.

That was five years ago.

Scootaloo limped along the cobblestone roads of Ponyville, her left hind leg supported by a brace. Today, like every Armistice Day, she wore her army uniform proudly. Even though she was only twenty, she carried herself with the air of a pony twice her age, and the citizens of Ponyville respected her as such. Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle usually were by her sides for much of the Armistice Day celebrations every year, but for now, Scootaloo had asked them for some time to herself. They of course understood and left her to wander the town alone.

The orange mare smiled to herself around the flowers she held in her teeth. When she’d left to fight five years ago, she was so worried that her friends would have changed while she was away. But when she came back at the end of the war, she found that their time apart had only drawn them closer, not made them more distant. Scootaloo was infinitely grateful for that. Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle were always there for her. They never asked her about the war, but they would always sit and listen whenever she felt she had to get something about it off her chest... even if she happened to tell them the same story three or four times in a row.

The town that Scootaloo had grown up in ten years ago was nearly gone, but not quite. While Ponyville had modernized itself during the war as a central rail hub for handling trains full of soldiers and materiel heading to the front, there were still little bits here and there that reminded her of how things used to be. The occasional thatched roof cottage and bridges with delicate woodwork over small rivers reminded her of her adventures as a little filly. The edge of the Everfree Forest was still wild and untamed, and the newest generation of colts and fillies still stared at it in awe, wonder, and a little bit of worry, just like how Scootaloo had done ten years ago. In a town that had evolved ugly brick buildings and rail yards, whatever memories from before the war that she could hold onto were infinitely precious.

Ponies waved to Scootaloo, and she nodded back. It felt nice to be honored and appreciated for what she’d done all those years ago, and she was happy that the colts and fillies that stared at her crippled leg would never have to go through what she did. Some days she’d still break down into hysterical laughter when she remembered that she was only a stupid fifteen year-old filly when she left to fight and follow her idol to war. She would have been in the fighting until the very end if an artillery shell hadn’t filled her leg with shrapnel three months before the war ended. Still, six months of fighting had been enough hell to last a lifetime. She had no idea how Rainbow Dash did it for five years. It was something she asked the mare every year on Armistice Day.

The modernized cobblestone road took her to the center of town, right outside Princess Twilight’s shiny castle. An enormous, larger than life monument dominated the center of the square, with a foundation made from chiseled marble and a dozen different statues cast from brass. Benches ringed the perimeter of the square, and finding one facing the front of the monument, Scootaloo sat down. She set the flowers in her mouth to her side for now and stretched out, letting her crippled leg relax. Even walking a mile was painful, but she went on long walks every day to try and keep it from atrophying. It never hurt like it did when it was still full of hot shrapnel, anyway.

The square was busier than normal, yet much quieter. The war memorial made it a particularly reverent place, especially today. Scootaloo let her eyes wander over the memorial as she sat back with a solemn smile. It depicted twelve ponies, three of each race: earth, unicorn, pegasus, and crystal, each carrying a rifle and moving in unison towards the viewer’s right, towards the east. Each race had one member lying in the dirt and mud, wounded; another stopping to help them up or administer first aid; and the last member continued onwards, leading the charge. Princess Twilight had designed it after her rescue and the end of the war. It showed sacrifice, it showed compassion, and it showed determination. More important than that was the overarching feeling of unity, watching each race work together, fight together, and die together in a grand struggle to reunify the nation.

Not only that, but the movement in the piece drew the eye on to the unicorn holding the flag at the front, and then to the pegasus flying just in front of him and holding her rifle in two hooves, leading the charge. Even though her colorful mane couldn’t be conveyed in the single color of brass, everypony recognized Rainbow Dash by the sheer determination in her eyes and the two patches on her shoulder; one for the 54th Division, the second for the 89th. Scootaloo even made sure that the rifle in the haggard mare’s grip looked like the real thing now on display at the Ponyville War Museum, down to the last of its thirty-seven marks in the stock.

Scootaloo sighed and leaned back on the bench, a contented smile on her face. Today, just like the previous four Armistice Days, she’d simply sit on the bench and talk to the colts and fillies who always came up to her and asked her about the war. They’d ask her about her first battle, and she’d tell them about the Siege of Marebeuge, or at least as much as she could without getting too graphic or touching on matters that hit too close to home. But no matter what they asked, she always, always told them about Rainbow Dash, Ponyville’s greatest soldier and a true war hero.

The day dragged on, and soon the colts and fillies headed off to their houses for a solemn dinner with their families. Scootaloo knew that Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom would be looking for her soon enough, and so she sat up straighter and pulled out a worn and mud stained pocketbook from the folds of her uniform. The spine of the pocketbook had all but fallen apart and been reinforced a few times with masking tape, so Scootaloo opened it incredibly carefully and gently flipped through its pages. The sketches in the beginning almost always made her laugh because of how bad they were; ponies were little more than round and flat figures, trees consisted entirely of random scratches and scribbles for branches and leaves. But as the images went on, they slowly grew more and more refined, and the subjects widened. Beautiful sketches of birds appeared, in stark contrast to the desolate emptiness of the front lines during winter. Rainbow Dash had even drawn up an incredibly lifelike sketch of Lightning Dust, her last surviving squadmate in the 54th, looking out over a trench, rifle at her side and her weary face plastered with mud.

Scootaloo turned to the very last sketch in the pocketbook, and almost immediately she sniffled. It showed a much younger Rainbow Dash, possibly from before the war, holding a filly Scootaloo in a headlock and mussing her mane with a hoof. There were smiles on both ponies’ faces, and not a trace of the war could be seen. If it weren’t for the war, Scootaloo liked to imagine that that was how life would’ve been like. Of course, life wasn’t fair.

She gently closed the pocketbook and slid it back into her uniform. Once more she looked at the determined likeness of Rainbow Dash, and after several seconds, smiled softly. She stood up with a groan and winced as she put pressure on her crippled leg. Then, taking the flowers in her mouth, she slowly limped over to the statue. Adorning the front of the marble were almost two hundred little brass nameplates, each one with a name, two dates, and a location. Above them all, cut into the marble and painted in black to help it stand out, was a short little epitaph:

Scootaloo’s shoulders shook as she looked over the names. Many she recognized, some she didn’t. They were all from Ponyville, all ponies who left to fight and never came back. Thankfully there were some names that she didn’t see on the monument, like Big Macintosh. Others, though, she couldn’t remove with no amount of willing. Her eyes traced the right side of the monument until they settled on a name about halfway down:

That was it. Nothing more was written. No kind words about the mare who’d willingly given the best years of her life to save her friend. No heroic retelling of all of her battles, no count of all the medals she’d earned in life and in death. Just a name, two dates, and a location. Of course there was more on her tombstone just outside of the town, but Scootaloo could almost feel her idol shaking her head with a small but amused frown. A larger than life monument was all she got? Well, it would have to make do, she supposed.

It made the orange mare smile.

With a deep breath, Scootaloo set her flowers down beneath Rainbow Dash’s nameplate, adding to the beautiful and colorful bouquet that’d been left there by ponies throughout the day. She took a hobbled step backwards and looked up at Dash’s likeness, still staring into the east with the setting sun at its back. The statue was so lifelike, so real. It somehow managed to capture everything about the mare in life, down to the cocksure half-grin on her face.

Scootaloo felt her lip tremble and her eyes water. Hiccupping, she pulled her hat down over her face and sat on her flank in front of the memorial.

“Why…” she croaked. It was a question she’d asked too many times. “Why’d you have to go?”

Some foalish part of her hoped that one day the statue would give her an answer. She asked it the same question every year, but it was always silent. Rainbow never gave her an answer. She didn’t have to. Scootaloo already knew it.

“Scootaloo?”

Scootaloo turned her head at Sweetie Belle’s voice. Sweetie and Apple Bloom were standing several yards away, giving the veteran her space. Seeing Scootaloo turn towards them, Sweetie smiled softly and gestured over her shoulder. “How about we get dinner, huh, Scootaloo? It’s getting late.”

“Yeah, we could use your veteran’s discount,” Apple Bloom teased.

Scootaloo couldn’t help but smile lightly. With a few grunts and groans, she managed to stand on aching limbs and get her crippled leg back underneath her. Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle watched from the sidelines, knowing fully well to let the pegasus stand on her own. The orange pegasus coughed once into her hoof and wiped away the tears in her eyes. “Yeah, yeah, I’m coming. You guys should be paying for me, anyway! I fought for your rights, you hear?” She made no effort to hide the grin on her face.

As Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom giggled, Scootaloo turned one last time to Rainbow Dash. Her hoof touched the rectangular lump under her uniform and she let one last tear fall from her eyelashes. “Thank you, Rainbow,” she whispered, smiling at the brass mare towering above her head. “For being there.”

The statue didn’t respond. Rainbow Dash continued to stare into the east, determined, willing, and ready to die.

With one last nod, Scootaloo turned away and rejoined her friends, and together, the three went into town, leaving the sun to finally set on the monument behind them.

Bonus Chapter: Joyeux Noel

Cambray, Prance
Three Years of War

Rainbow Dash yawned at her post. She hated being put on sentry duty. She hated sitting in one place, watching the churned-up muddiness of no-mare’s land under the glow of the eclipsed sun and the flash of distant artillery. She hated sitting out there by herself or sometimes with only one other pony for company, denied what little opportunity she had to sleep in the lulls between fighting. And now that it was winter, she hated the cold, she hated the wind, she hated the snow, and she hated the ice that clung to her helmet brim or tried to freeze the mechanisms of her rifle shut. Nothing about winter was enjoyable at the front. At the very least, the snow and frigid temperatures had similarly cooled off the chateau generals’ desire to feed more good ponies into the meat grinders of the Free States’ trenches.

Yet here she was, because the war never ended. There wasn’t a break in the killing when you lived on the front lines, only a pause in the fighting. Every second of every day, somepony lost their life to a sniper, or an artillery shell, or a knife in a foxhole. Every second of every day for three years, ponies had been dying out here, far from home. The only difference was sometimes your mile of front was peaceful while another mile was drowning in blood.

And tonight, Rainbow’s stretch of the front was decidedly peaceful and still. Freshly fallen snow decorated the mud, the fortifications, the barbed wire, the trenches, and not least of all, Rainbow herself. She’d been stuck at her post since dinner, and she’d be stuck there until well after midnight. And of all nights to be stuck on sentry duty, she had to have drawn Hearth's Warming Eve.

She supposed it could have been worse. After yesterday’s ferocious artillery bombardment against the Free States’ trenches, there hadn’t been any sign of movement or activity on the front. Trench scouts like Lightning Dust hadn’t reported any concentration of secessionists in their sector. It seemed like the Free States were willing just to wait out the holiday and go back to killing Equestrians afterwards.

Sighing, Rainbow hunched over and huddled her forehooves under her jacket, propping the trench periscope against a wall of frozen mud. She could see her breath in front of her muzzle every time she exhaled. It was blisteringly cold at night, but at least the wind had subsided. It would have been so much worse with the wind.

Hooves crunched along the fallen snow, and Rainbow instinctively straightened her posture an inch in case those boots belonged to an officer. But when she turned her head to the side, all she saw was a muddy turquoise mare shuffling over to her. “Anything to report?” Lightning Dust asked, folding her coat under her hindquarters and sitting down at Rainbow’s side.

“Not a damn thing,” Rainbow muttered, leaning against the other mare. Even though their coats were separated by several thick layers of cloth, Rainbow decided she was much better to lean against than the icy, muddy walls of the trench. “They’re sitting there enjoying the holidays while we’re stuck on sentry duty.”

“You mean you’re stuck on sentry duty,” Lightning said with a quirk to her eyebrows. “I could be back in our bunker where it’s at least a little warmer.”

“But you’re not, so you’re on sentry duty with me.” Rainbow closed her eyes and nuzzled Lightning Dust’s exposed cheek. “Let me guess; couldn’t spare to see me out here by myself, right?”

Lightning snickered and shrugged. “Whatever you want to believe, RD. That, and the greenwings were getting annoying, bellyaching about missing Hearth’s Warming and everything.”

“I’m bellyaching about missing Hearth’s Warming,” Rainbow grumbled. “Can you really blame them? They want to go home and spend time with their families, not manning our mile-long stretch of dirt and ice. Only the lucky ones got to go home on leave for the holiday.”

“The lucky ones are the ones who never had to set hoof into a fucking trench,” Lightning grumbled. “Everypony here’s unlucky. Some more than others.”

Rainbow shook her head. “True enough,” she muttered. Sniffing the air, she leaned away from Lightning and raised an eyebrow at her. “Wait… are those…?”

“Oh, you finally noticed?” Lightning chuckled and opened her jacket. The mouthwatering aroma of baked apple tickled Rainbow’s nose, and her stomach, hardened off of hardtack and military rations, growled in anticipation of actually palatable food. An aquamarine wing darted into her jacket, and a moment later, Lightning pulled out a parcel of wax paper. “Apple strudels. Some fillies from the nearby town brought them over a little while ago. I made sure to nab two for us before I found you.”

Rainbow snatched the strudel out of Lightning’s wing and tore the paper open. She shivered when a fresh dose of apple aroma entered her nose again and could hardly resist bringing the pastry to her mouth right then and there. “Celestia, bless the Prench. They make fighting out here actually tolerable.”

“If it wasn’t for their wine and their food, I’d have thrown myself on a grenade ages ago,” Lightning joked. “I wouldn’t have had anything to keep me going.”

“Oh, what am I then, chopped cabbage?” Rainbow gave Lightning’s shoulder a friendly punch. “I see how it is.”

Lightning rolled her golden eyes and leaned back against Rainbow. “Shut up, RD. Eat your stupid strudel before the snow freezes it.”

“Way ahead of you,” Rainbow said, and in a split second, the strudel disappeared into her mouth. The overwhelming sensation of flavor, actual flavor, was an ecstasy all its own. For almost a minute, Rainbow was lost in that sensation, tasting every gooey morsel of appley cinnamon. When she opened her eyes, she saw an almost identical expression to the one she figured she’d had on her face reflected in Lightning’s features. “Fuck, that was good.”

Lightning swallowed the last morsel in her mouth and licked her lips. “Yeah. I wish I hadn’t eaten it so fast, but it was so tasty.”

“Think we can snag any more off some Prench filly?”

“I doubt it. I bet they’re all gone now.” Sighing, Lightning stretched her bundled wings, the joints stiffly popping and snapping as they reached their full span. Within moments, though, she tucked them back at her sides to conserve their heat. “I used to love flying in the winter. The world was so calm and peaceful then. So quiet.”

Rainbow’s ears flicked toward the south, where a distant artillery barrage added its own thunder to an otherwise tranquil twilight. “How the world has changed,” she muttered, shaking her head. “The damn sun doesn’t even go down anymore. Night and day are all messed up.”

Lightning chuckled and nodded along. “I never would have thought three years ago that I was taking the sun and moon for granted. The world’s so much bleaker when it’s just the same stupid glow for twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. You’d think it’d get the other nations to intervene.”

“Yeah, well nopony wants to get involved in our spat with the neighbors. A lot of them trade with the Free States now. They owned sixty-three percent of Equestria’s prewar industry, you know.”

“When did you become a historian?” Lightning teased.

“When I got really fucking bored on the front lines,” Rainbow shot back. “Which is always. We spend more time fighting trenchhoof and killing rats than actual fighting. It’s bullshit. At least fighting is something to do.”

“Doesn’t look like there’ll be any tonight. Or tomorrow, for that matter.” Lightning shook her head. “Guess you aren’t getting that for Hearth’s Warming.”

“Well, I wasn’t a good filly this year, so that figures.” Rainbow scoffed. “Heck, I would’ve taken the coal. At least you can burn coal.”

Lightning chuckled and fell silent at Rainbow’s side. She was like a ghost on such a silent and peaceful night; even though Rainbow could feel her weight on her side, she felt like she had to blink and rub her eyes to check that her partner was still there. Life was so fickle in the trenches, and there were a million ways it could be snuffed out in the blink of an eye. Lightning Dust was one of the few soldiers from Rainbow’s company that had survived the three years of Tartarus they’d suffered through together, and she didn’t want to lose her. Some part of her believed that if she just held onto Lightning, the turquoise mare would never leave her.

So that’s exactly what she did, wrapping a wing around Lightning’s muddy barrel. The other mare raised an eyebrow in response. “You got something you want to say, RD?”

“Yeah,” Rainbow said. “I’m fucking cold, and you’re fucking warm.”

“Can’t argue with that logic.” Lightning’s eyelashes fluttered a few times and she grunted as she snuggled in closer against Rainbow’s warmth, interlocking like two pieces of a puzzle. Their cloudy breaths joined into one rhythm, their beating hearts synchronized in a cold piece of mud in a frozen wasteland of death, simply reminding them that they were both alive.

A quiet cheer and applause faintly crawled its way across no-mare’s land, perking Rainbow’s ears. Lightning rolled her eyes and pressed her face against Rainbow’s neck, frigid strands of her goldenrod mane tickling Rainbow’s chin. “Sounds like the secessionists are having a good time,” she muttered. “Bastards.”

“It’s Hearth’s Warming Eve,” Rainbow quietly retorted. “Just be glad they’re drinking and celebrating instead of shooting at us.”

“It could just be a front,” Lightning grumbled. “Make us think they’re not going to attack, then cut our throats while we’re drunk on cider and eggnog.”

“Do you always gotta be such a downer?” Rainbow nuzzled the top of Lightning’s frigid mane and smirked at the scout’s dour expression. “They’re ponies like us, LD. They hate being stuck in the trenches as much as we do.”

“Those fuckers have been trying to kill us for three years,” Lightning insisted. Her jacket ruffled as she crossed her forelegs. “If there was any good in them, they’d have surrendered long ago instead of fighting this stupid… stupid war.”

Rainbow shook her head and sat up, shedding Lightning’s weight. “I bet they’re partying over there right now and we’re stuck here doing nothing. Lemme see what they’re up to.” She put her hooves on either side of the trench periscope and raised it back above the edge of the trench. Squinting through the scope, she moved it up and down until she finally saw what she was looking for in the glow of the perpetual twilight.

There were the Free States trenches, separated from the Equestrian trenches by only about fifty or sixty meters of no-mare’s land. They were brightly lit up with torches and gas lamps, way more than they usually were, and she could see helmets and colorful manes moving around just beneath the lip of the trench. Several hooves shot into the air with a cheer, and each one carried a tin tankard of some liquid Rainbow figured was probably alcoholic. Something green flickered near the edge of the trench, and Rainbow adjusted the periscope just in time to see a stallion place a tiny Hearth’s Warming tree on the forward edge of their trench and duck back down in case an Equestrian sniper was watching for him. Rainbow knew he didn’t need to worry, given the snipers were enjoying the peace and quiet just like everypony else, but old habits were hard to break, and you never peered over the trench for more than a split second if you wanted to keep your skull.

“What do you see?” Lightning asked. “What are they up to?”

“I told you, LD, they’re just celebrating Hearth’s Warming,” Rainbow shot back, lowering the periscope. “They’ve got fucking mini-trees and everything.”

Lightning blinked twice. “Well, damn,” she said, shaking her head and chuckling quietly to herself. “And we got squat. Now I kinda want to defect.”

Rainbow rolled her eyes. “Last time you said you were gonna defect when you saw they got fresh shipments of beer from Brayvaria every Sunday.”

“Can you really blame me? We only get shit out here. Their military command at least treats them like ponies, not rifles with legs.”

“Go complain about it to Shining Armor if you want,” Rainbow said with a shrug. “You know I can get a letter through to him whenever I feel like it.”

“Maybe I’ll take you up on that. Just you wait.” Blowing a foggy breath out of her mouth, Lightning pulled back a frigid fold of her winter coat to look at a cracked watch around her fetlock. “It’s twenty-three hundred. Only a few hours left, right?”

“Yeah. Honestly, I could leave my post and be confident that nothing will happen. Too bad I can’t make the officers see it that way.”

“I’m sure they’d see it that way if they were stuck out here like us.”

“Yeah, right.” Rainbow set the trench periscope aside and rubbed her numb hooves together. “I could almost believe that. Almost.”

Lightning opened her mouth to respond, but a distant melody cut her off. Her frostbitten ears pointed toward the east, and Rainbow blinked and looked over her shoulder. The Secessionist trenches had fallen silent, save for a stallion’s voice ringing out over the frozen killing grounds. It was beautiful, rich, and carried a mournful timbre to it that betrayed the joyous song he’d taken into his own words, in the native tongue of Germaneigh.

Rainbow blinked as she picked out the melody. “That’s the Heart Carol,” she murmured in wonderstruck awe. “They’ve got the same songs we do.”

“It’s an Equestrian song,” Lightning said. “And three years ago, they were Equestrian, too…”

The air hummed as a mournful cello began to play from the Equestrian trenches, somewhere off to Rainbow’s right. Both her and Lightning gave each other confused looks and craned their necks in that direction, trying to figure out why that was playing. Within a few seconds, however, they realized the cello had picked up the next verse of the song in a more upbeat key, the way Rainbow remembered it from the Hearth’s Warming carol she’d performed in so many years ago. Not only that, but several Equestrian soldiers, mares and stallions alike, joined the cello and added their voices to the song.

As the attitude of the song shifted, so did Rainbow’s. She felt a smile worm its way onto her frigid and frozen face, and she stood up tall to peer over the edge of the trench. Lightning Dust immediately sprang to her hooves and put a hoof on Rainbow’s shoulder, trying to press her back down. “What are you doing?!” she hissed at Rainbow. “You’re gonna lose your fucking head!”

But Rainbow didn’t pay her any mind. As the next verse of the song arrived, she added her voice to the growing chorus in both trenches.

Something shifted at the other trench, and soon a stallion in Secessionist uniform climbed halfway out. He looked surprisingly clean for fighting in the trenches like everypony else, with what looked like a freshly pressed and ironed uniform, and no mud matted to his coat or clumping his mane together. His pale magic picked up a Hearth’s Warming tree, and he turned to project his beautiful singing voice across no-mare’s land as he finished the song.

The clopping of hooves up and down both trenches marked the end of the song, joined by a few whistles and shouts. Smiling, the stallion trotted into the open, put the miniature Hearth’s Warming tree on a rock in the middle of no-mare’s land, and bowed to the Equestrian side. To Rainbow’s infinite astonishment, nopony shot at him, and nopony had taken the chance to take her head off as well. It was almost like nopony wanted to fight anymore. There’d been too much death the past two Hearth’s Warmings, and even Rainbow, hardened as she was, felt sick of it. Ponies shouldn’t be killing ponies on Hearth’s Warming. It was a holiday of togetherness, of friendship, of remembering how the three tribes came together to found a new nation and save their people from the windigoes.

The stallion with the beautiful voice bowed once more to the Equestrian trench and turned around, ready to return to his side. But before he could, Rainbow snapped her frigid wings open at her side and fluttered out of the trench. “Wait!” she shouted, catching the stallion’s attention. “Don’t go just yet.”

“Rainbow Dash, you fucking idiot!” Lightning hissed at her from her trench. “You’re gonna get yourself killed!”

Rainbow ignored her, her eyes instead settling on the singer and the ponies from his trench. The Free States trenches were lined with curious, mud-streaked and snow-covered faces, watching her every move. She saw a few sparks of recognition in some of their eyes, and swallowed hard. She knew she was a big target on the battlefield, given her connection to the princesses and her status as a former Element Bearer. Any one of those ponies could grab a rifle and drop her with a single shot if they wanted to. But the longer she stood out in the open, standing on frozen mud and gray snow where so many had died before, the more confident she became that it wasn’t going to happen.

And then she was standing across from him. It was a strange feeling; Rainbow almost thought she was dreaming. Here was a Free States soldier, a secessionist, standing no further than two or three meters from her, and they weren’t locked in a fight for survival. They were just two ponies, separated by ideals and language and the tiny tree between them. Gulping, Rainbow put on a nervous smile for the stallion. “Your voice is beautiful,” she said. “I didn’t know secessionists could sing like that. I thought when they took your marks you just… I don’t know, became bad at everything.”

To her surprise, the soldier answered, and in Equiish. “I still have my mark,” he said. “Many of my comrades do. Though the Equalists spurred us into action, I fight for Germaneigh, my home, not for their ideals.” Chuckling, he added, “Perhaps, the irony is that I fight to make us equal to you. All we ever wanted was to be seen eye to eye with Equestria, not treated as a client state.”

Rainbow nodded. “I only wanted to rescue my friends,” she said. “I don’t want to fight. And honestly, I hate politics.” Sighing, she looked up at the pallid, twilight sky, with the sun and moon hanging motionless above them. “It’s such a shame that we have to fight.”

The stallion nodded. “It’s der wärmende Vorabend des Ofens—Hearth’s Warming Eve. Ponies shouldn’t fight tonight.”

“I can’t agree more.” Looking over her shoulder, Rainbow was surprised to see a number of Equestrian soldiers standing at the edges of the trenches, watching the exchange in the middle. Across from her, the secessionist soldiers had done the same, some with their rifles close by, but many forgotten in the trenches. On both sides, everypony, even the officers, seemed too enthralled by the magical moment in no-mare’s land to care. It was like the war had disappeared.

“We should petition our officers for a cease-fire,” the stallion said. “Just for the night.”

“That’d… I’d like that a lot,” Rainbow said. “I’ll talk to mine.”

“And I, mine,” the stallion said, touching the lapel of his uniform.

Rainbow lifted a hoof to start walking back to the trench, but instead offered it to the stallion. “Rainbow Dash,” she said. “But I feel like you already knew that.”

“I did,” the stallion said. “Call me Ruhe. Hopefully we’ll be able to talk more in a moment.”

“Yeah,” Rainbow said, finally beginning to step away. “As friends, not soldiers.”

“Ja,” Ruhe replied, turning back to his trenches. “Freunden.”

And then they wandered away from each other, the formalities of the military forgotten and ignored; they were simply two ponies tired of fighting and death, and too tired to care about military pride. Almost immediately, Rainbow recognized Lieutenant Spitfire watching her from a throng of dirty, war-weary soldiers. She shifted course accordingly and prepared herself for the court martial of a lifetime.

“Fraternizing with the enemy is treason,” Spitfire warned Rainbow. The orange mare’s already raspy voice had only gotten worse through years of fighting, and every so often she’d be seized by coughing fits, old wounds from a laughing gas attack four months ago. Now, however, she simply glared at her soldier. “You could have been killed going out there.”

“I could have,” Rainbow said, figuring she was already in enough trouble that failing to salute her superior officer wouldn’t land her in any worse. “He could have, too.”

Spitfire held her stern gaze for a few seconds, but it collapsed with a weary sigh moments later. “Come on, let’s get back down,” she said, wrapping a wing around Rainbow’s shoulders. “You heard me, that’s an order!” she shouted to the rest of the Equestrians sitting on the edge of the trench. “Everypony back down before they start shooting or—!”

The former Wonderbolt immediately doubled over as a bout of coughing stole her voice. Rainbow seized the opportunity to share the secessionist’s request with her. “The Free States want to negotiate a ceasefire,” she said. “Only for tonight, and only for our stretch of the front.”

Whispers and murmurs broke out among the Equestrian soldiers gathered around the edge of the tent, but it was a little longer before Spitfire recovered enough to speak again. “A ceasefire?” she croaked, whipping scarlet-flecked phlegm off her muzzle. “Why?”

“It’s Hearth’s Warming Eve,” Rainbow said. “Ponies shouldn’t be killing each other.”

“Yeah, if only the war worked that way.” Still, the lieutenant slowly scanned over her soldiers, gauging the hope and exhaustion in their eyes. Then, looking back out over the trench, she saw a Free States officer marching over from his side. Ultimately, she shook her head and flexed anxious wings at her sides. “Ah, Tartarus, why not.”

She marched away, on an intercept course with the enemy officer while Rainbow and the rest of her comrades watched with bated breath. Somepony bumped into her side, and she saw Lightning Dust standing next to her. “What’s happening?” she asked. “Why’s everypony just standing around?”

“Because something magical’s gonna happen,” Rainbow said. “We’re gonna celebrate Hearth’s Warming like ponies, not like Equestrians and Free Staters. The way it was meant to be.”

All eyes from both trenches were glued to the scene taking place in front of them. Spitfire stopped right next to the Hearth’s Warming tree in no-mare’s land and waited for the other officer to approach her. When he did, they both pulled sharp salutes with their wings, but quickly tucked them back inside the warmth of their heavy winter coats before too long. And then they talked.

The seconds seemed to drag on like minutes. Rainbow idly bounced back and forth from hoof to hoof, much to Lightning Dust’s annoyance, as she kept bumping against her. But a little bit of broken Equiish here, and a little bit of broken Germane there, and the conversation toiled on.

And then they shook hooves and smiled. That was all Rainbow needed to know that the cease-fire was a success.

The exhausted, relieved cheering from both trenches thundered like no artillery ever could.

It felt weird to be standing out in the open. Nopony was left in the trenches tonight. Everypony had climbed into no-mare’s land, but there wasn’t any fighting to be found. Instead, there was only laughter, smiling, and singing.

Rainbow and Lightning sat side by side on the snow, watching the scene unfold in front of them. Ponies from both sides mingled together, talking where they could despite the language difference. It wasn’t uncommon to see Equestrian blue mixed with Free State gray in small clusters. Some had even taken to dancing on the mud and ice, moving sore limbs and tired bodies to jovial music played by cello and lyre and violin, the performers brought together from both sides of the divide.

Everything was peaceful. Everything was happy.

The Secessionists had broken out their beer stores, and the Equestrians added cigarettes and chocolate to the mix. Everypony took what they wanted freely and shared with the soldiers at their sides, regardless of faction or creed. Somewhere in the background, some soldiers had organized a game of buckball, using potato sacks for baskets and an old rubber ball somepony had produced from somewhere as the buckball.

Lightning nuzzled in closer against Rainbow’s neck. “This is beautiful,” she murmured. “We don’t deserve this.”

“Why?” Rainbow asked. “Because we’re murderers and terrible ponies?”

“Yeah. It’s so sweet I feel sick to my stomach.”

Rainbow rubbed Lightning’s shoulders with a frigid wing. “Cheer up, LD. You know I don’t like it when you get all mopey.”

“Can’t help it I’m a pessimist,” Lightning muttered back. “I still feel like I can’t let my guard down or something bad will happen.”

Rainbow planted a tiny kiss below Lightning’s ear. “Get over yourself, eh? It’s Hearth’s Warming, and all I want is a happy green mare.”

“Some Hearth’s Warming wish. I would’ve asked for a puppy.”

“I’ve already got a tortoise back home, you know.”

Rainbow’s eyes lifted as a gray uniform approached her. “Oh, hey,” she said, lazily waving a hoof. “Happy Hearth’s Warming.” She did her best to ignore Lightning’s tensing against her side.

The secessionist nervously looked around. “Do you mind if we join you?” the navy blue pegasus with a white mane asked.

“Sure,” Rainbow said. “Pick a snow pile, any snow pile. It’s better than mud, and it’ll keep your ass clean.”

The other soldier chuckled a little at that. As she sat down, Rainbow felt like she was looking in a mirror. She was a soldier just like her, suffering just as much as she was, wishing the war was finished like she did. Mud, snow, scars, and dried blood sticking to matted hair settled into a semi-comfortable position on the hard and frigid ground. Rainbow imagined she looked much the same way.

“Thank you,” the navy blue pegasus said. “I just… well, I was wondering where you were. I was a huge fan before the war.”

Lightning Dust rolled her eyes. “Don’t give her any more than that. Her ego can only get so big.”

“You’re wrong about that one,” Rainbow quipped. “But thanks,” she said, smiling. “You speak pretty good Equiish too, by the way.”

“Not all of us are from Germaneigh,” the Free States soldier said. “I’m from Equestria. I’m just helping ponies fight for equality.” After a moment, she extended a wing. “Night Glider.”

“Nice to meet you,” Rainbow said, briefly clapping her own against it before quickly pulling it back into the warmth of her winter coat. “The grumpy green one’s Lightning Dust.”

Lightning rolled her eyes but didn’t change her position or make any effort to bump hooves or touch wings. “Great to put a name to a face I’m trying to shoot from fifty meters.”

Night Glider faltered but tried to maintain a friendly smile regardless. “Well… at least we aren’t shooting each other tonight, right?”

“That’s all that matters,” Rainbow assured her. “Let’s enjoy the time we have now before we go back to trying to kill each other tomorrow.”

“Hopefully not tomorrow,” the navy pegasus said with downturned eyes. “It’s still Hearth’s Warming then. It wouldn’t be right.”

“It’ll never be right,” Lightning grumbled. She shrugged and looked away, watching the buckball game being played out in the snow. “Can’t do anything about that.”

Rainbow hummed her reluctant agreement and let her eyes fall. “Yeah… I’m certainly not looking forward to that.”

She remembered the pack of cigarettes she had under her coat and decided to break them out to fill in the void in conversation. Prying one out with her lips, she first offered one to Lightning, who accepted, before holding it out to the Free States soldier. “Smoke?”

“If you’ve got a light,” Night Glider said, taking it from Rainbow.

“Yeah, LD’s always got matches. They might be a little chewed up, though.”

Lightning Dust rolled her eyes and took out a dirty matchbox. “Can’t smoke when you’re scouting the trenches, or somepony will smell it and find you. At least chewing on matchsticks keeps me busy.”

“You’re a trench scout?” Night Glider asked, watching Lightning fumble with the matches before managing to get one lit. “I don’t envy you.”

“Consider yourself lucky,” Lightning said, sucking down a lungful of smoke from the cigarette before offering the matches to Rainbow. “You make a noise and you’re dead. I’ve fought ponies with knives before, both of us too scared shitless to yell or make a sound in case machine guns tear our foxhole to ribbons. Most of the time, though, we just pass each other by.”

“It takes a special kind of stupid to go out there all the time. To volunteer to go out there, even,” Rainbow said, quickly lighting up her own cigarette before passing the light to Night Glider.

“What can I say, maybe I’m hopeful somepony will kill me and end my misery out here.”

Night Glider grimaced as she drew on her lit cigarette. “I hate to admit it, but sometimes I feel the same…”

“How long have you even been out here, though?” Rainbow asked, feeling a lot more satisfied now that the heat of the smoke started warming her from the inside. “Me and LD have been here from the start.”

“Same,” Night Glider said. “Me and the other ponies from our town, we were the first to start the movement to make ponykind equal. We helped spread it, and from there, things just took off.”

Lightning Dust narrowed her eyes at Night Glider. “So it’s your fault we’re in this mess to begin with.”

“Easy, LD,” Rainbow said, intervening before things got messy. “Hearth’s Warming Eve, remember? Let’s not be at each other’s throats.”

“Mmmrrffff… Fine.” Lightning sucked some more on her cigarette and raised an eyebrow at the secessionist, who was frowning at the cancer stick between her lips. “What’s the matter, don’t like Equestrian cigarettes?”

“I haven’t smoked in a long time,” Night Glider said. “We can’t grow tobacco in the Free States. I picked up smoking shortly after arriving on the front, and then we ran out of cigarettes for two years. Figures.”

“Same,” Rainbow said. “Except we’ve actually got smokes. But you guys get beer though, so it’s not all that bad.”

“Not like we can actually drink it,” Night Glider muttered. “We get maybe a tankard a day if we’re lucky. Officers won’t let us have more, because they don’t want us to be drunk on patrol. And it’s all watered down anyway to make it last longer.”

“Oh.” Lightning blew a cloud of smoke out her nose and chuckled. “Maybe I won’t defect now.”

Rainbow laughed and nuzzled the mare’s cheek. “Good, then I won’t have to go with you.”

“Sometimes I think about doing that,” Night Glider said, “But then I remember that my mark is back in the Free States.”

“You’re markless?” Rainbow asked, raising a brow. “Really?”

“Many of us are, though not all.” Night Glider shrugged. “It’s not so bad when you get used to it. And unlike what you guys think, it doesn’t make you terrible at everything. Just average, and you can still learn and improve. Not having a magic picture on my butt doesn’t mean I’ll always be awful at everything I try.”

“But it’s who you are,” Rainbow insisted. “Don’t you miss that?”

“Sometimes. But I don’t need a mark to define me. And considering we’re holding even with Equestria and many of our soldiers are markless, I’d say we’re doing just fine fighting for equality.”

“It’s mechanization,” Lightning interjected. “You don’t need a cutie mark in shooting a rifle or driving a tank to do it. Modern warfare is something else.”

Rainbow hummed and let her eyes wander as a cheer went out from the buckball game. Apparently, the Equestrian team had just won, judging by the reactions of the soldiers involved. While soldiers from both sides clapped and happily chatted with each other, Rainbow shook her head and stood up. “Wanna get in on the next game? We’ve still got plenty of night left…”

“Sure,” Lightning said, rising to her hooves. “It’ll feel good to do some running and flying without dodging bullets.”

“Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking.” She waved a wing at Night Glider. “You in? It’ll be fun.”

“I don’t see why not.” Grunting, Night Glider stood up and shook some snow off of her muddy and torn coat. “It’ll be fun.”

“That’s what I want to hear,” Rainbow said, smiling as she and the two other pegasi set off toward the center of no-mare’s land. “That’s what Hearth’s Warming is all about.”

The festivities slowly died down as the hours beat on. Though the sun and moon never moved, Rainbow knew by her internal clock that it was approaching four in the morning, and she doubted that Spitfire and the other officers would let her catch any extra sleep even after the peaceful night. But even though she was tired, she didn’t want to go to sleep, because she knew that when she woke up, the war would return in full force.

But before both sides returned to their trenches for the night, all the soldiers gathered around the single tree in no-mare’s land to share a prayer. Nurse Redheart from Ponyville, now an army medic and chaplain during the war, led the prayer service in Old Ponish, a language that both sides were familiar with for religious services. Seeing another pony from home unite two groups that had been trying to kill each other just the day before was the definition of something holy and sacred to Rainbow Dash. It was the culmination of a miracle of unlikely circumstances that had made the night a reality.

And then it was over, just like that. Redheart closed her pocket-sized book of Equestrian religious texts and gave the Hearth’s Warming tree standing next to her one last sad look. Then, tucking the book into her uniform, she reluctantly trudged away from the center of no-mare’s land, the center of a Hearth’s Warming miracle. All sorts of colorful eyes attached to ponies from different trots of life, wearing one of two uniforms locked in a titanic struggle of life and death, watched her melt into the Equestrian lines, and with her exit, the magic of the night began to take its leave.

Lieutenant Spitfire stood up and walked to the center of the circle. Shivering, she let her orange eyes wander over blue and gray uniforms, mingled and intermixed like nothing nopony had ever seen before nor would likely ever see again. Rainbow could tell that Spitfire wanted the moment to last as long as possible, to linger until the end of the war… but it was something that was never meant to be. Coughing once or twice, she held up a yellow wing. “Alright, soldiers. It’s about time we return to our trenches. In another hour or two, somepony’s gonna start shelling our section of the front. This was nice, but we can only escape the war for so long.”

The soldiers were slow to move at first, but one by one, blue began to stand up and separate from gray. Rainbow, Lightning, and Night watched everypony begin to disentangle from where they sat, too reluctant to move and accept the night was over. But it was clear that it was, so the three mares unwillingly stood up.

And then Night Glider was standing across from Rainbow and Lightning, her back to her own trench. Her hoof shuffled across the snow and ice for a moment, and then she smiled. “I’m happy we had this night,” she said.

Rainbow nodded in agreement. “Me too. This is what ponies are supposed to do, not kill each other.”

“Too bad that’s what we’re going right back to,” Lightning said. “And tomorrow we’ll be playing target practice with each other’s skulls.”

“I… well, I hope not.” Night Glider fidgeted. “After tonight, I’m not sure I could bring myself to shoot at you two. To shoot at friends.”

Lightning quietly scoffed. “I wouldn’t go that far. We only met a few hours ago.”

“Why not, LD?” Rainbow asked. “You only need a few hours to make a friend. I’d call her my friend.” Winking at Night Glider, she held out her wing. “Next time I’ve got your head in my sights, I’ll shoot high.”

Night Glider smirked back and clapped her wing against Rainbow’s. “Next time I see you in my trench I’ll club your head with the back of my shovel instead of driving the edge under your chin.”

“I appreciate the thought.” Then, stepping back, she saluted the other mare. “Don’t die.”

Night Glider returned the salute to the two Equestrians. “Stay safe.”

“There’s no such thing as safe out here,” Lightning said with a little curve to her lips. “But thanks for the thoughts.”

Rainbow nodded. “Happy Hearth’s Warming.”

“Happy Hearth’s Warming.”

“Happy Hearth’s Warming.”

And then that was it. The three soldiers lingered in the open for a few seconds longer, and after a few attempts to say something more, to say something meaningful, they instead awkwardly split apart and shuffled back to their trenches in silence. It wasn’t until Rainbow crawled back inside the claustrophobic walls of her world and everything she’d known that it really hit her that the miracle was over.

Bit by bit, the Equestrian soldiers sorted themselves out, returning to whatever posts and assignments they had for four in the morning. Spitfire’s weary voice carried through the trenches as she redirected deployments and tried to ready her soldiers for any action they might encounter on Hearth’s Warming Day. After all, the cease-fire was set to expire soon, and then it would be back to the same old, same old.

Which Rainbow wanted nothing to be a part of. A tidal wave of exhaustion and grief washed over her, digging into her very uniform and dragging her into the depths, suffocating and cruel. She felt like a ten-ton weight was balanced squarely between her shoulders, trying to crush her flat. One way or another, this war was killing her, and the events of the night had only been a temporary reprieve from the suffering and death.

Taking off her muddy overcoat, she hung it on a hook hammered into the dirt wall and flopped onto her muddy cot, dragging thin and muddy blankets over her thin and muddy body. And there she curled up, shivering and struggling to find the tears to cry. Drowning in her misery, she once more prayed that an artillery shell would strike her bunker and kill her in her sleep.

But then a warm presence lifted the covers of her cot and crawled underneath them with her. Rainbow recognized the smell of smoke and the feminine grunt the pony behind her made as she wrapped her forelegs around Rainbow’s barrel and pulled her close. Rainbow lowered her nose to those green forelegs and inhaled deeply, smelling a faint tinge of ozone and char that always followed the mare like her namesake.

“Aren’t you supposed to be on duty?” Rainbow murmured, snuggling up against Lightning Dust’s body.

“I was supposed to be returning from a trench raid in an hour,” Lightning whispered back, nuzzling the back of Rainbow’s ear. “I’m sure you’re aware I wasn’t out there raiding tonight.”

Rainbow smiled and rolled over so she could lie chest to chest with Lightning. Lightning pulled her a little closer, and Rainbow squeaked as they settled into a more comfortable position for two on a tiny cot meant for one. Mud and sweat touched Rainbow’s nose and danced across her lips when she kissed the base of Lightning’s neck.

“Some Hearth’s Warming, huh?” she murmured, closing her eyes and feeling exhaustion begin to weigh down on her.

“I got what I wanted,” Lightning said. Her lips ghosted the base of Rainbow’s sweaty scalp. “Did you?”

“Now I did.” Blue wings fluttered for a moment and fell still. “Mmmrfff… Happy Hearth’s Warming, LD.”

Lightning snickered back and sighed as she pulled the covers up a little more. “Happy Hearth’s Warming, Rainbow. See you in the morning.”