The beds were comfortable to some regards. Mostly because I hadn't slept in a bed for a number of days. However with all that in mind I needed to make the most of that. All I had to do was hope I didn't sleep. However sleep always finds me.

You know sometimes I'm pleasantly surprised by the calmness of war. It's between those breaks of fighting that you really remember what you did had some impact. You just see people smiling, at least for the most part, things seem safe for once. It was one of those times again. There was an overcast sky above our heads, gently rolling over the sky.

The overcast did give the world a dark tint, turning the sand from a bright white-yellow to a dark orange. There was a gaggle of foals in my direct line of sight, kicking a ball against a wall. They were between the ages of 5 and 9, however the winner appeared to be an exception at 11 years old.

Sometimes they'd come up to me for candy or something, any food in general. The Army was out building wells in a nearby town and it was our job to make sure there were no insurgents left in the area, so the foals had to ask us. If I had been eating before I would give them the gum or one of the sides out of my MRE. There were rumors that the gum was a laxative that gave you the shits real bad. I still don't think that's true. The older mares that would come to us would want the napkins and packaged toilet paper that came in them.

Occasionally when supply trucks would come through they'd actually give out MREs to mares and foals. We ended up having to stop that since ponies started clustering around the trucks, creating countless safety hazards for both the crew and the food-ridden ponies. We still didn't stop, and nopony was harmed until we got this story from another region about a suicide bombing involving one of the foals approaching the vehicle.

Well that was the end of that I suppose.

There was this one foal that always stuck eerily close to the unit I was in. He wasn't a threat, at least not from what we could see. Normally he'd just ask for candy and run off. Then he started sticking around longer, we could tell he had nothing on him so we let him stick around so long as he didn't touch anything.

He was around for like a week and then just poof, he was gone. I remember we all just had questions over that little rascal. Nopony knew his name so that only made it more difficult. It wasn't for a few weeks that we learned his father brought him and his family deeper behind the TJY's lines in Kharckal. I still get this feeling the kid was trying to send us a message. He wanted to get out, his father just wanted to be accepted in a place where being cast out meant being killed. There was obvious pressure from locals to continue to support the ideological battle that the TJY was on, and sometimes if you spoke out you were never seen again. I still don't know what happened to that kid.

It wasn't until after I ate that the food wasn't free. They just slapped a bill down in front of me and didn't say anything. The mare stared contently int o my eyes as if they'd pay her instead of me. I didn't have any money so it went from a discussion to an argument in a matter of seconds. My side of the point was that she didn't have the prices labeled so it was immoral to charge someone for it, and she just shook and demanded her money. It seemed everyone else in the commons agreed with her. So it was out to manual labor we went. The labor in question was consistent of guarding the the front gate from timberwolves and ponies.

Yea this was probably a scheme from the start, however I needed to finish it so I could get moving. Me and Bell decided that the best way to patrol the area was, rather than put our backs to the walls, was to circle around the area in the opposite directions and meet up at the end of our half circle routs, report our findings, then regroup at the front. There were four other ponies that were on the front gate so it wasn't as if we were leaving it unattended. It was about on the second march that I came across a group of ponies creeping across the ridge about two hundred meters out.

It was more than unusual, because what they were doing was obvious to anypony that knew how gunfights worked knew that these ponies weren't travelers. They weren't moving, they were still, just watching. One appeared to have a telescope set up on a tripod, and the other had something slung across it's shoulder, no doubt a weapon. The thing about gunfights is that the battle itself only takes about a few minutes normally, maximum ten to twelve. Full scale operations are a whole different story. Both, when it came to time at least, had something in common: In order to win you need days, even months, of planning. The only way to win a gunfight was to out-think the fucker on the other end. If he moved you best move with him, that sort of thing. The best way to win, on the other hand, is to know the floor plan of where you are so well that you can perfectly choreograph their movements before it even pops into their head and anticipate their next move before they even know they'll make it.

This was exactly what they were doing. They had chosen the largest nearby mountain to try to get a look at the street plans for the area and see if there were weak points in the walls that they could use to their advantage. Smart colts, I'll hand it to them. They hadn't noticed me even when Bell bumped right into my hind. She was distracted by the scenery, I was by the potential threat.

"Didn't you say we should always keep moving?"

"Bell, take a look on over there. You see what I'm seeing?"

She took a glance then turned her head back.

"Where?"

"Over there, don't you see them?" I had pointed my hoof in their direction, however the look she gave me showed it was to no avail.

"Yea, I see nothing. The trees look nice here though, something I could put a hammock in you know? I think we should totally do that later!"

At this point I wasn't in the mood, I grabbed her head and forced her into the direction the ponies were, now she saw them. She did shake her way out of my grasp though.

"Crow, never do that again I get the point. I see them, but where is the big deal? They're just traveling."

"You think so? Look closer. They're watching us."

"And? Why wouldn't they be?"

"You need to start asking relevant questions, like 'Why would they be' or 'What do they want from us'. You get what I'm saying?"

"You think they're after something?"

"Yea, exactly. There's a reason they're sticking that far and watching us through a telescope. They don't want us to know they're there."

"Well shouldn't we bring this up to the town?"

"Nah, can't say we can just yet. We don't know who they are exactly but I can almost guarantee it isn't good. We should keep this between us and Mama. Catch my drift?"

"Yea I understand, lets keep it on the low."

The rest of the day had gone smoothly, but that one pony had definitely seen me. When he did, he lowered his telescope and turned back. He was planning to strike sometime and I could tell. They were not in the mood for tea and crumpets. They were out for war, and if they struck here they were bound to get one.