Author's Notes:

Sometimes, promises to yourself are the only thing that can keep an idea alive. Sometimes an idea is the only thing that can keep yourself alive.

I awoke with a start. There was a cold sweat covering my body. I looked at my wrist computer. It was early in the morning, much too early. But I had little faith that I could return to sleep. The room was pitch black, as I turned the screen of the arcanotech back off. Maybe, just maybe meditation could help me. It wasn’t going to hurt to try. A few moments later, I was sitting atop the covers. With an effort, I got my breathing steady, and cleared my head. Slowly, my perception shifted outwards, a trickle at first, Icepick beside me, breathing softly. The bunker I was in, the power pulsing like a beating heart, softly alternating through the wires-

The city came next, sleeping ponies, engines, radios, and the old reactors at the heart of this place. For a good while I felt nothing but the city. It was peaceful. Icepick had been right, this was an innocent place. It reminded me of my home before the war. That recollection had stung at first, until I realized that it was all that I hoped for. All that I had gone through the portal for. A hope for peace. What I had been blind to was the cost.

Still further my perception expanded, on the edges of it, I felt the magic and power of the Orangutans-

My eyes shot open, and my breathing lost its gentle tempo. Without thinking I turned myself around and prodded Icepick with a hoof. She mewled softly and pushed against my foreleg.

“Get up,” I said in a more strained voice than I meant to.

“What’s it?” Icepick slurred sleepily.

“I think they’re coming to us,” I nearly yelled.

“W-what?” Icepick jerked awake. I flipped the light on. The room was bathed in an artificial glow.

“The Imperial Army is on the march,” I said. She scowled.

“How do you know this?” Icepick asked, even as she jumped out of bed, and started throwing on a jumpsuit. “Was it your magic meditation thing?”

I nodded at her and helped her put on the suit. I grabbed a jacket and put it on, and a moment later we were off to the command center.

“So, they’re coming to us?” Phalanx asked me as the rest of the ponies began to filter in.

“That doesn’t surprise me, not really,” Councilor Elan replied to him as Icepick frantically called the airfield in the background.

“Our military doctrine was always focused on the offense, it was only when things became untenable that we ever started fighting defensively,” I said. The stallions looked at me strangely at that. “But I wasn’t sure about it. Seeing them out there, thousands of them, that made me sure.”

“I’m not a big believer in mystical powers,” Phalanx said. Elan met his gaze and chuckled dryly.

“You’re a pegasus, you fly only by the virtue of mystical powers, besides, this is someone that Icepick trusts,” Elan stated before nodding at me.

“The planes will have them spotted if they’re out there soon,” Phalanx said before shrugging noncommittally. “If they’re out there, what are we going to do?”

“Pull your troops into the city, and be ready for the assault,” I said. Phalanx and Elan shared a look. “You need a position that’s defensible, and he needs an army.”

“I’ll need to speak to the council,” Elan said flatly. That wasn’t surprising. Letting an army that was composed of the same ponies that had occupied your city was quite an ask.

“I’ll need to coordinate with my lieutenants about the deployments,” Phalanx stated before shooting a glance at the old councilor. “If your council agrees to it. Of course.”

“They likely will,” Elan said. He shook his head and breathed out a deep sigh. “We thought we had time.”

“You’re going to want to evacuate as many ponies as you can from the city, and ready the bunkers for those that can’t get away,” I said darkly. “The Imperial Army isn’t shy about shelling cities that stand in their way.”

“How exactly do you know this?” Phalanx asked me. There was suspicion in them, even contempt.

“I served in it,” I said dryly. “I made my way through the ruins of cities just like this one. Pulverized and burned, bodies buried beneath their homes. So, I would advise evacuating everyone you can.”

“That’s good information to have,” Elan said before standing up and starting out of the room. “I’m grateful for your help.” He said on his way out.

“You’re the unknown quantity, the stallion that was with her every step of the way. And now you’re telling me that you were a part of that invading army?” Phalanx asked, bristling under his collar.

“I was conscripted into the imperial army, and so were many others. Many soldiers under their command joined us willingly, after being captured and told the truth,” I said with a neutral tone. “That means I know how they’ll fight us. At this point, we’re in this together, and we could use all the help we can get our hooves on.”

“Alright,” he huffed. “So, what are their tactics, other than mass shelling to soften up defences.”

“There will likely be a feint attack to test our defences, then a strong one push towards the center with a larger assault. Then again, they could throw everything into an attack right after the shelling. If nothing major has changed, it’ll be a creeping barrage a few hundred meters ahead of the advancing infantry.”

“What rank were you in their army?” He asked suddenly. I shrugged before responding.

“I was a corporal, which is something equivalent to a junior knight in your organization,” I replied.

“I see,” he said. “What would you propose we do with our armoured forces?”

“Armoured forces? Your power armoured soldiers?” I asked.

“Oh, that’s good,” Phalanx said with a raised eyebrow. “Hey Icepick, I don’t think they know what an Ursa is.”

“What?” Icepick asked before walking over to the table. Whatever she had been doing, was either done or put on hold now.

“A bear? We have several species of bears in the empire,” I replied. Icepick shook her head before cracking a smile.

“Let’s show him,” Icepick said with a laugh. “How many do you have with you?”

“Fifty Ursa three’s, and thirty Ursa four’s,” the pegasus said. “Along with forty self-propelled guns.” Icepick let out a low whistle as a reply. It took a lot to impress her, so I took it as a good sign.

“Are these weapons?” I asked curious.

“Yes-”

“No-”

The two former rangers looked at each other with a scowl. I just stood there and waited for one of them to speak.

“They’re not weapons, because they’re not just meant to do damage,” Icepick spoke first, while meeting my gaze. “Calling them a weapon would be calling my armour a weapon. They’re a weapons platform, and protection for their crew at the same time.”

“That’s semantics, I guess you’ve become a bit of a philosopher in your time away,” Phalanx said as he got up and made towards the door. “Or maybe you’re trying to make the knights seem more chivalrous than they are. In any case, an Ursa is a tracked armoured vehicle equipped with a main gun, and a bevy of other offensive and defensive systems.”

“So, the gun is built into them, as opposed to a suit of powered armour, which has weapons attached to it?” I asked. Both of them blinked at my question.

“Yes,” Phalanx answered.

“So it’s more like a warship,” I said. Icepick smiled at that.

“Funny you should say that, they were originally called land cruisers in the great war,” Icepick said.

“Okay, now I’m deeply curious what these Ursas look like,” I replied.

A few minutes later, we were in the back of a truck. The air was stifling under the canvas roof, but I was excited. I was going to see the future. That was always the odd part of this world, they had already seen the future, and ridden out the worst of it. I was a time traveler, of a sort-

“Whatcha thinking about?” Icepick said with a laugh. “You have that thoughtful look on your muzzle.”

“I’m kind of a time traveller, it’s weird to think about,” I said quietly.
“Because, we have things that are amazingly futuristic to you?” Icepick asked. “I mean, you still don’t know how to use that Pipbuck.”

“Y-yes,” I admitted. Phalanx turned his head towards us. “It’s not just that. Sombra told me something about his abilities, about the worlds open to him. The portal only leads to broken worlds, dead ones, dark worlds.”

“Worlds like ours,” Icepick said in a low voice, before stretching out a hoof and pressing it to my shoulder.

“Exactly, but it took me a long time to understand it, to see the lesson staring me in the face. I was so afraid of my world burning, it blinded me to everything. We had the means to kill ourselves off in the last war. It nearly did me in too. But, seeing your world, what you’ve built, what the pony spirit can do-”

“Was it a good counter argument?” Icepick broke in with a smile. “I mean, we’ve done alright. I have no clue about the homeland, but here we’ve been trying to pull ourselves up. Even if we did a lot of horrible shit in the process. But that might have just been us.”

“Something like that, yes,” I said quietly. “Even from the slag heap, ponies will rise up. If nothing gets in the way, I feel like the stars are our destiny.”

“Being deeply in love probably helped,” Phalanx quipped.

Icepick and I turned to look at him. He had a smirk on his face.

“I mean, it’s nice and all, but I’d probably go soft if I stayed near the both of for long,” Phalanx added a moment later.

“I guess even spooks can appreciate the wholesome things,” Icepick said.

“You give us too little credit,” Phalanx said with a laugh. “I just hope it doesn’t rub off.”

“I mean, it’ll be a few minutes before we get to the training field,” Icepick said with a husky voice, and a slipping of her hoof down my thigh. He balked and looked away.

“That’s not professional,” Phalanx said in a flustered voice.

“You aren’t in the same chain of command,” I said with a laugh, and a wink. “Then again, neither are you and I.” I dragged that last syllable out.

“You would’ve made a good Ranger,” Phalanx said before staring out the window.

“Hey, it’s better than being repressed, I mean, we were all other kinds of repressed, but at least we got laid,” Icepick shot back. Then, she leaned into my neck, and rested her foreleg over my stomach.

“Yes,” Phalanx said with a cough. He met her gaze, and then mine in turn. “They were necessary evils. Now they’re no longer necessary.”

“The sex was fine. Not having a family, not loving each other. That was the issue. Besides, it never had to be,” Icepick replied. “Arabians are ponies too.”

“Yes,” Phalanx said softly.

There was a moment of silence in the back of the vehicle. I looked outside, to the sand passing beneath us. The city of Paradise stood out against the sand and sea around it.

“They will assault her, they will bruise her, but they will not take her,” I said after a moment. Phalanx and Icepick looked at me quizzically, but Icepick quickly noticed where my eyes lay.

“I just hope we can get enough ponies away from the city,” Icepick said quietly.

“I’ve seen enough collateral damage in my lifetime, but most of the cities we took during the early stages of the war lacked bunkers like the stables,” I replied. Maybe there was a note of hope in my words. Paradise had once been covered in invisible embers, and nearly ground to dust once. And yet, they came out of the earth and built again. Lived again. If the ponies lived, then every brick and pipe in the city could be blown to pieces, and they would build again.

“To be fair, at the beginning of your war, the idea of a city killing weapon wasn’t even in your minds,” Icepick said. I glanced at her. My eyes fell upon hers. She was a bright pony, she thought that the world could be better, that she would make it better. If I had ever been that way, someone who could rally others to a vision of the future, of how things ought to be, I had lost it along the way. And yet, I could follow her, I loved her. Just being near her brought a little of that glow into me.

“It quickly entered our minds, experience tends to do that,” I replied.

“I know,” she said softly.

“It’s big,” I said as soon as I laid my eyes upon the vehicle.

“Well, if you want to stuff four ponies in a box, that box has to be pretty big,” Icepick said. “Especially if you want them to actually do things in that box.” Phalanx looked at her, mouth hanging slightly open.

“Do you intentionally say things in such a way that they have sexual undertones?” He asked. There was a flush on his muzzle, and it wasn’t because of the sun burning brightly above us.

“Only when I’m around stallions that get easily flustered,” she shot back, before running a hoof down my side. I blinked and nodded at her, hoping that she wasn’t going to demonstrate what exactly could be done inside one of those tanks…

“I’ve acquired some immunity to it, but that only makes her up the dosage,” I said with a laugh. “They are truly impressive though. An armoured, well armed, fighting vehicle. Tracked as well, that solves the biggest problem with the armoured carriages that were used during our war.”

“Crossing broken ground?” Icepick asked.

“Or fortifications, it’s hard to cross shell holes and trenches with tires,” I replied briefly remembering the first sight of mass armoured carriages at one of the first battles of the Dneipper. They had bogged down and they were no match for high explosive shells. And yet, their ability to poke at our lines rapidly was unexpected.

“So do you think they’ll be effective?” Phalanx asked hesitantly. There was a note of fear in his voice.

“That depends on how they’re used. Our late war doctrine was dramatically different than how we fought in the beginning. Shock troops armed with explosives, and automatic weapons became our main offensive option. And those were only effective when properly covered by a creeping artillery barrage. I doubt that there are enough of these Ursa’s to present an obstacle to a full assault, even grouped together. They’re likely vulnerable to infantry when unsupported even if they’re largely invulnerable to shrapnel,” I said while pursing my lips in thought. “They could function as a mobile pillbox spread throughout our lines, but even then, they could be bypassed locally or swarmed when the other elements of our defense were shredded.”

“That’s not really their strength though. Static defense is something that can be done a lot cheaper with actual static defenses,” Icepick said after a moment.

“Ursa three’s and four’s have a top speed of forty kilometers per hour, that’s their advantage over a pillbox,” Phalanx suggested with a note of pride in his voice.

“That’s all well and good, but they outnumber us by a significant margin. There are what, a regiment of Steel Rangers in our forces. There are at least two divisions of Imperial soldiers marching towards us. That’s a four to one advantage in numbers. If we try to encircle them with fast moving units, they’ll defeat them in detail.”

“You’re sure of that?” Phalanx asked after a moment's hesitation. I nodded and walked over to the chassis of the Ursa. I rapped a forehoof on the angled steel plate.

“Encirclement tactics only work if you have the numbers and troops that are able to execute a coordinated attack,” Icepick said with in a dour tone. “These troops will be better equipped than the company defending the submarine. And I’d put money on them having changed their armament composition.”

“Sombra knows enough about your forces, especially given the time they’ve had to learn from the Arabians. Howitzers, mortars, and heavy machine guns will be more numerous than when we fought the Celestians, and those are effective weapons for fighting rangers, and breaking any kind of attack or static defense line we try to create around the city,” I finished speaking and looked skyward for a moment. I was never one to look for divine inspiration, but I would’ve taken it at that moment.

“These enemies you fought back on your version of Earth, how did they fight you?” Phalanx asked after a moment’s silence. I turned to face him. The well dressed pegasus was hoping for something, any bit of wisdom I could put forward.

“Where would I begin?” I looked towards a tent with a number of ponies furiously working to move their operation. With a hoof I pointed towards them. “They outnumbered us,” I pointed at their supplies, and their maintenance equipment. “They had a larger industrial and resource base.” With a note of finality I glanced at his wings, before tapping my horn lightly with a foreleg. “Finally, the Empire is almost entirely earth ponies, and crystal ponies.”

“Well, we’re not going to win any of those ways. I know you, I know Frostbite and the other defectors, you’re courageous, hardened, and experienced. If we fight fair, we’re going to lose, badly,” Icepick spoke up and nodded at me. “But we’re not going to fight fair. I’ve learned how it is to be the one trying to force a battle, to be on the offense.”

“You’ve learned how to fight a stronger opponent,” I stated numbly. She was the bright spark. I was the pony who knew the odds. I had known them before I made my choice, but now that my death, the death of everything I had fought for was right in front of me-

“I know a bit about it,” Icepick said softly. “But I’m not the one who should be planning this. We have experts on asymmetrical warfare. That’s not all, we may not outgun them, or outnumber them, but there are more ways to a fight than just force.”

“I never thought I’d hear a Steel Ranger say that,” Phalanx said after letting out a long exhale.

“I’m not a steel ranger. Not anymore,” she replied with an edge of anger. “The world moves on, and so did I.”

“The hardest part is letting go,” the words came from my mouth like the sands blowing in the wind. Powerful words, elemental ones, but on their own they shifted only a few grains. I nodded at Icepick even as I remembered the cold winds chilling me to the bones, remembered but distant.

The room was crowded, but it was the most secure place we could all meet. At the conference table sat Icepick, Iron Sight, Elan, Phalanx, Crescent Moon and myself on one side; on the other sat the two highest military officials of Paradise, the High Consul herself, the police chief of the city, and the leader of the cities engineering ministry. When the door shut and the click of it’s locking mechanism echoed through the underground chamber there was a moment of breathless tension in the air.

“Our reconnaissance planes corroborated what you told us this morning,” The high military official of Paradise, and newly titled General, Bright Dawn said from her seat beside the Consul. Her eyes met mine, suspicion evident in them. I stared back into the older mares. My expression was blank, intentionally.

“I would’ve liked to be proven wrong,” I said quietly. My voice carried through the room regardless. “Has the evacuation begun?”

“Yes, as soon as the planes radioed back, we started the process, as we speak as many ships are being readied to carry citizens to Safe Harbor,” Consul Brass Bell answered.

“That’s good, I’ve already told our captains that our flotilla is to escort the ships as best they can, and pack as many ponies as possible aboard,” Icepick said resolutely.

“Thank you,” Brass replied before turning to Phalanx. “Your forces will help defend Paradise?”

“I promised them a fight, it doesn’t matter to them where it’ll be,” the pegasus replied with a confidence that I knew wasn’t reflective of his true thoughts. “But helping our fellow ponies fight the enemy at the gates, with the gates right in front of them, well, that will only make them fight harder.”

“Do you know anything about the disposition of the Ranger fleet? Are they still held up in port?” The newly appointed admiral of the Paradise flotilla asked Phalanx.

“No idea, when we left Ramsgard they were still limping into port, having radioed us as soon as they were within range of our receivers,” Phalanx replied apologetically.

“That’s not what I was hoping for, that heavy cruiser could run through our corvettes and freighters like a hot knife through butter,” Commodore Pear said with a shake of his head.

“We can talk about outside threats, or things beyond our knowledge forever, but it won’t help us with the one a week’s march away,” Ironsight said with a tone of slight annoyance. “What’s our defense strategy for the imminent threat?”

“Defense in depth,” I said after a moment's pregnant silence. “A solid defensive line can be defeated at a single point and bypassed. It was a good idea for a time during the great war, but with advances in artillery volume and accuracy it became all too easy to concentrate enough fire into a small area to crush any defense short of a hardened defense installation.”

“We move like the sands, shifting where they push, and push back where they can’t,” Crescent Moon said approvingly. “The terrain of the city benefits us as defenders. Clearing a city, block by block, room by room is difficult during the best of times, but we won't let them have the best of times.”

“So we give up the city, slowly, yielding areas before they pound the offending building flat?” Brass asked. I nodded at her. “Your city is large, and they’re going to want to keep as much of the infrastructure intact as they can.”

“This sounds like a plan that concedes at the start,” Bright Dawn objected. “What will happen to our Morale? Most of our soldiers are barely going to be able to hold onto their rifles without shitting themselves as is.”

“Giving up ground isn’t the same as losing,” Icepick said before meeting the general’s gaze. “I’ve fought opponents that let us win the battle tactically, but whittle us down strategically.” Icepick looked over at Crescent Moon. “If it were just your troops, your concerns would be more than justified, but they’ll be stiffened by the Liberation Army, and the Free Rangers.”

“What it comes down to is playing to our strengths, and making them fight where they’re weak,” Phalanx said.

“And other than our defensive posture, what exactly are our strengths?” Brass asked Phalanx. Her words were sharp, but the edge wasn’t aimed at him.

“Communication, knowledge of the city, and Steel Rangers,” Phalanx spoke authoritatively. “As well as fighting on the defensive, with thousands of buildings to make them wade through.”

“Communication?” Brass asked as soon as the last word left his mouth. I cleared my throat and looked towards the venerable mare. My foreleg dropped onto the table, and with a rush of magic I surrounded the computer on my foreleg with a bright blue outline.

“Pipbucks, or power armour sets, as well as your numerous small transmitters in the city, are an advantage over the Imperial army. We have yet to develop radio sets small enough to be deployed into the front. Our submarines and surface warships have them-”

“Coordinating defensive reserves, or your mobile units to prevent any significant breakthroughs would slow their progress immensely,” Bright broke in to say. “I can begin requisitioning every pipbuck in the city, and begin equipping every unit commander we can manage with them.”

“That won’t help all that much if it’s all undifferentiated chatter,” Ironsight added. “You’ll need some usage protocols, and a unified command link. Those aren’t that difficult to set up, we have them in our armour sets. But it will take some time to implement and patch into the pipbuck software.”

“Alright, it’s about time I asked a key question,” Icepick broke in aggressively. “This is going to be a destructive, bloody battle. That’s just a given if we fight to defend Paradise. My question is, how many buildings and streets are you willing to rig up to explode preemptively?”

“What kind of question is that?” Bright Dawn asked her, voice raised. Icepick barred her teeth at her and was about to reply when Crescent Moon broke in.

“Icepick is asking an important question, one of the most effective tactics to use against an invading, superior force, are improvised explosives. It will slow them down if even when we leave a building undefended, or a street clear of barricades, there’s a significant chance that any hoofstep or movement will trigger an artillery shell, or a bundle of mining explosives.”

“Exactly, we’re already going to be tearing up half the city, and trading space for casualties on their side,” Icepick said with a deep exhale. “I don’t like the idea of indiscriminate weapons, or of causing collateral damage, but those are things we can use to win this fight.”

“As few as possible, but enough to do the job,” Brass replied. “I’ll leave the particulars the unified command structure. That’s my main proposal, we need to create a clear set of ponies in charge, and delegate tasks and forces for each sector of the city.”

“Agreed,” Phalanx said immediately. “The communications network will be essential for this. I must ask that I retain command of my armoured units. They’re the greatest striking force we have, but they’re fragile as well. I can’t have them sacrificed in vain.”

“So you’re expecting us to let you keep your strongest weapons as a reserve, while we get battered and killed on the front?” Bright asked, her eyes shifting to his, and watching his expression flatten at the question.

“He’ll be devoting plenty of forces to the front, just not all of his armoured vehicles. Ursa’s are offensive weapon systems, not static defenses. Making them crawl through a dangerous and broken city isn’t what they’re good for.” Icepick answered for him. “But that brings us to the final part of the plan. We need to keep enough forces in reserve for the break out-”

“You’ve been telling us the whole time that we can’t beat them in a straight up fight?” Bright objected, before continuing. “Now you’re saying the end of our plan is a break out? To what end, they’ll have the rest of our forces encircled-”

“You’ve never fought a war, you don’t realize how much of a toll we’ll inflict on them, how battered and exhausted they will be. Soldiers in that state are not apt to resist an assault from armour. That’s how we win, we drive two thrusts around the flanks of the Imperial army, meeting up in the rear. From there, they’ll be the encircled army,” I finished speaking, and the room was looking at me for the first time. Peering at me, examining me like I hadn’t been there until that moment. “I have fought a war. I’ve seen armies stand firm, and seen them broken. This is the best plan given the reality of the situation.”

“You’re sure about this?” Belle asked after a moment’s pregnant silence.

“As sure as I’ve been about anything in my life, excepting one thing,” I replied, eyes flicking over to Icepick’s briefly. She had a slight smile on her muzzle. No-one other than Ironsight and I would have seen it for what it was.

“Trust me, you don’t want to ask about that other thing. They aren’t exactly reticent about the whole thing, and she’ll get down right explicit,” Ironsight added after a moment.

“Oh, I see,” Belle said with a glance between Icepick and I.

“Exactly,” Phalanx stated flatly. “In any case I agree with his assessment. This whole plan of action is the best one out of a large number of bad ones.”

“I agree, as much as it pains me to consign most of the city to rubble,” Belle said in a flat voice. There was a vision playing out in her head, the vision of her home burned and battered. Give into the conqueror and save your ponies, but lose independence, or destroy it in the hopes of a free future. It was a choice that had been forced upon many such ponies. The weight of it had never lessened.

“If that’s your command, I will carry it out to the best of my ability,” Bright said after a moment, and a heavy clearing of her throat. I looked upon her face. She didn’t know war. She did know duty, perhaps that would be enough.

“You have my vote, for what it’s worth,” Elan said to us. His weary eyes sweeping across me, Icepick, Iron, and Phalanx.

“Is there a faction in this city that will want to capitulate?” I asked, after a moment.

“Perhaps some will, but most of the civilians will be shunted away, or underground for the duration, goddesses willing,” Belle replied.

“Most of your soldiers are basically civilians,” Icepick said dryly. It wasn’t an attack, merely an observation.

“And you’re worried about their morale? Whether they will surrender?” Bright answered. “I doubt it. Especially if your troops are as good at stiffening the line as you say they are.”

“And the government that stays here? How much are you willing to take? Will you fight until the docks are the front line?” Icepick asked, steel showing through her voice.

“I will, and if we must leave to fight another day, it will be done,” Elan said.

“I concur with him, this city is a peaceful one, but we won’t hesitate to throw them back,” Belle added.

“That’s what I wanted to hear,” Icepick said simply. Her expression was guarded, worry having gotten through to her, she wouldn’t let it show before them.

“I don’t know what to say,” Rosetta said from his position at the table. He sat across from Icepick and I. The food in front of us was getting cold, forgotten as we told him what we had planned. “They’re really coming. Thousands of them.”

“Yes, but we have some time to prepare at least,” Icepick said before exhaling deeply. “How prepared is the medical service at this moment?”

“I don’t think many are ready to be combat medics,” he said before looking down and then back up at us. “Other than the ranger medics, of course.”

“I’m not surprised, why would you be?” I said after a moment. “We need to move a large amount of equipment and generators over to the harbour area, we’ve already gotten clearance to use those buildings, and the hardened naval facilities. The ones that remain.”

“That’s a start,” Rosetta said. His posture slumped at that. “I assume you’ll want me to be among those front line medics?”

“You are more prepared than most, and more experienced than just about anyone there,” Icepick said. “I know you must be afraid-”

“No,” Rosetta straightened himself. Leveling a glance at the two of us. “I want to fight. I’m tired of picking up the pieces, of staying back and watching others die.”

“You’ll get your chance, the imperial army doesn’t give special immunity to doctors, and artillery is utterly indiscriminate,” I replied. “I know how it feels to want to hurt those who’ve hurt you. The enemy at the gates, the ones who want to destroy everything you hold dear. Just, don’t let it consume you.”

“R-right,” Rosetta said after a moment. Once again, he slumped in his chair. “You two would know about that.”

“That’s a fuckin’ understatement,” Icepick said before letting a foreleg cross the table and touch his shoulder. He looked up at her.

“I just, half the time I feel furious, the other half I feel exhausted,” he admitted softly. There was a pain to him that he hadn’t shown to me, or maybe anyone. “I don’t know how to deal with it.”

“No one does Rose, you’ve been through things that no one should ever have to go through, but so many have. All you can do is focus on doing the best you can. We’re here for you, you understand that right?” Icepick said softly.
“Yes,” he said with a deep exhale. For a moment we didn’t say anything. I knew there was something he wanted to say, I could see it in his eyes, the way they peered at Icepick and I. There was a hunger in them, I had seen it in the eyes of others, a look of desolation at a great wrong. He lost it after a moment.

“You should eat, you’re going to need the fortitude,” I said gently. A hoof pushing his plate a millimeter nearer to him.

"Why, because all the restaurants are shutting down tomorrow?” He asked, not quite meeting my eyes.

“That’s true, but we have a little surprise for you tonight,” I said while nudging Icepick with an elbow.

“We figured you’d enjoy a quiet night with friends, while we have the chance,” Icepick added a moment later. His eyes widened in surprise. We hadn’t quite drifted apart from him, but we had been busy recently. It had been my idea, I hadn’t been liking what I had seen from him. Something in his bearing had changed, a bitterness I hadn’t seen from him before. Losing Bajada had hurt him deeply, and now that he was in familiar surroundings, without the distractions of an expedition, it had seemed to grow in him.

“That sounds wonderful,” he replied quietly.

“Friends help friends, that’s kinda the point,” Icepick said with that bright smile across her muzzle. It was infectious, before I knew it, I smiled as well. It took a moment, but it spread to Rosetta as well. We all had burdens to bear, but they had lightened in that moment. In the back of my mind, I just hoped that they wouldn’t crush us.

“A bit of a step down,” Rosetta said with a laugh as he looked over the small flat we had gotten near the docks. It was near the bottom of a converted warehouse, as the aging brick and tiny window attested to.

“I’ve seen worse, the tenements of the imperial city make this place look luxurious,” I said before dropping onto the bed, it sagged under my weight, with springs decades past their prime protesting loudly. For some reason, the image of a similar flat with a squeaky bed entered my mind. I had felt that kind of Deja Vu a lot lately. With a shake of my head, I looked up to see Icepick dropping her saddlebags gently onto the floor. Rosetta stood awkwardly near the door, before locking it and glancing quizzically at Icepick as she moved towards the single large dresser at the other end of the room.

“It’s better than my quarters back home were, besides, you two are here. That makes this room better than all the other ones, by default,” Icepick replied as she opened the dresser and lifted a dark glass bottle from its hiding place beneath the jump suits and dresses atop it. I smiled at the bottle, but mostly at the mare holding it up.

“Thank you,” Rosetta said before slumping against the door. Whatever steel had been holding it erect was gone now. He breathed heavily as I trotted over to where I kept my bags. The set of aluminum tumblers that I had bought a week ago at a pleasant little shop appeared in my mind. My magic pulled them out without a further thought from me. They gleamed in the reddish light coming from the incandescent bulbs above us. “I don’t know what to say.”

“You already thanked me, so you got the essentials covered,” Icepick said wryly as she uncorked the bottle and took a sip of the dark rum. “Just like the last bottle, except this is the last bottle.”

“That doesn’t surprise me,” I replied softly, eyeing her with amusement as she stepped closer to me.

“It wasn’t just me drinking it, Phalanx got a taste for it, and after the meeting with the council, he deserved a bottle,” Icepick said a tad defensively. “I mean, deserve isn’t the right word, he got one because he’s useful and luxury gifts are one of the few things powerful people understand.”

“Spoken like a true politician,” Rosetta said as he made his way over to us. The three glasses were almost filled now. The tendril of blue telekinesis connecting my horn to the bottle was almost forgotten. Meditation and practice had gotten my body to the point that it was a nearly frictionless conduit of magic.

Which was the problem. There didn’t seem to be a way to channel magic through my horn without exhausting myself in the process. A thunderbolt, or a couple dozen immobilizing charges would be all it took to wear me down to nothingness. And yet, I felt closer than ever before to the magic that spanned this world, mine, and perhaps every world. It was an inexhaustible field of energy that gave the void its texture, but I could only poke holes into it like every other unicorn. And I doubted that I would solve the problem that eluded unicorn kind for millenia. The memory of the power flowing through me from the Talisman entered my mind as I watched Rosetta grasp his glass with his own pink tendril.

Knowing what I knew then, I hadn’t realized what it had been doing. It was an object that broke the boundaries between our plane and the magical one. If unicorns tired themselves out with opening and holding the pathway open, then the talisman was a constant tear in the fabric between worlds. With it a normal pony could draw energy through it forever. Well, practically forever.

“Hey, are you awake over there?” Icepick asked before glancing at the still full glass sitting on the table a few centimeters in front of me.

“As much as I ever am,” I replied before grasping the glass with my magic. My tendril and my mouth operated as one unit as I slugged back the burning fluid. “It’s good.”

“Not as good as that Whiskey Rosetta pawned off on us way back when,” Icepick replied before leaning back against the wall. “What was your plan with that, by the way?”

“There wasn’t a plan, I just wanted to give the two of you something nice, maybe something to bond over,” Rosetta hesitantly after a few moments of thought, the drops of rum in the glass being pulled to the sides of the bottle as he gave the glass a rapid rotation with his magic.

“Bonding happened, especially after Perm eyed my tits like he hadn’t seen a pair in years,” Icepick said as she watched Rosetta pour the next rounds of drinks.

“They are nice,” Rosetta said quickly, before realizing what he had said. His eyes met mine, guilt and desire flashing behind them, before looking away.

“They are,” I said simply, before tapping him on the shoulder with a forehoof and smiling at him. Icepick laughed.

“Better than Crescent’s,” Icepick added a second later. Rosetta shifted, a little of that fire coming back into his eyes.

“And yet, you seemed to like touching, tasting and teasing them quite a lot,” I said with a sly laugh, and a gentle bump of a foreleg against Rosetta’s.

“Novelty should never be underestimated, but it has its limits,” Icepick said before pouring herself another drink. “Sometimes you just want something you’ve had before.”

“It’s the nature of ponies to want something they can’t have. Time is a sea of sand, the grains so fine that they can’t be seen or felt. We can only watch as the dunes move around us,” I finished my words with deep exhale.

“Do you really believe that?” Rosetta asked me.

“Have you ever tried to hold onto a moment of time?” I asked him softly.

“I never knew that I wanted to until it was gone,” The pink stallion’s eyes still met mine, but he wasn’t looking at me. He was in another place, or rather, another time. For a moment there was stillness.

“The past is a dream, and I grew up with a whole society that was asleep,” Icepick said bluntly. “I’m awake right now. And if I’m not mistaken, you’re both right in front of me.” She punctuated her words with a shove of her foreleg into my chest, and with a flick of her tail and a turn of her body she did the same to Rosetta. “Don’t be mopey, this is one of those moments we have the luxury of knowing is a piece of the past worth remembering. Don’t waste it thinking about the fleeting nature of existence.”

“Isn’t that what ponies do when they drink?” Rosetta asked her, his dour tone unchanging.

“That’s one thing ponies do when they drink,” I replied smartly, before polishing off my glass in a single instant of fire. “Icepick usually isn’t the mopey type when she’s drinking.”

“Celebrating life, that’s what I do when I drink,” Icepick replied a moment later, her own glass empty again. “That being said, I do keep score. We owed you a good bottle and a thank you Rosetta.” He flushed at her words, he was still a young stallion being praised by a pretty mare. “And I wouldn’t like to call it a favour owed, because I wasn’t exactly requested when it happened the last time. But still, I know how you two are. You’re both kinda obvious about a few things, when you know what to look for.”

I blinked and looked at her, eyebrows furrowed. It wasn’t just me, Rosetta had his eyes trained on hers. For a second I saw through the facade. She knew how to cover herself well, but I knew what to look for as well. There was a twitch at the edge of her smile. It had just been us at the start, and we all had lost so much. We were going to lose more before the end. I knew what she wanted.

“Wha-” Rosetta had enough time for the beginning of a reaction, but she and I were faster than him. He stiffened as the two of us pushed in front of him, our barrels pressed against each other. The hug we gave him relaxed him. Both of us had wrapped a foreleg around him. I left my leg around his withers and pulled him closer to us. Icepick had wrapped her leg around his neck, and pulled his head to ours. He exhaled deeply but haltingly. She kissed him a moment later, a peck on the cheek, before kissing me the same way with the smallest turn of her head.

“I’m confused,” Rosetta added a moment later.
“Sexually or romantically?” Icepick asked in a husky voice, her leg coming down from his neck to stroke his chest lightly.

“Welcome to the club,” I said in a wistful tone. Icepick chuckled as I pressed forward, giving him a kiss on the muzzle. His lips were warm, and I could feel his heartbeat speed up. I didn’t think too much about that one. Most ponies didn’t like knowing that their heartbeats were just like a generator, pulsing with the smallest bit of electricity as the muscle pulsed in their chest.

“It’s a weird club, but we’re weird ponies,” Icepick added after an almost inaudible squeak as I kissed him. “We wouldn’t be here without you. And I know you have feelings for me, and you have feelings for him. He’s not exactly innocent of wanting to fuck the cute pink stallion who has a habit of saving our shot up flanks.”

“Oooh,” Rosetta managed to say after a moment of pieces fitting together in his brain. “So you’ve gone from not believing in romance and monogamy to believing in romance-” She rolled her eyes at him and pressed a hoof softly to his lips.

“You’re not a doctor of the soul Rosetta, and you don’t wear near enough body paint to be a witch doctor,” I said softly. His heartbeat quickened once again. “I don’t know what I want you to be to me. Luckily for me, there’s a good chance that I won’t have to work that out.”

“And that’s why I’m the politician,” Icepick said with a laugh before turning a smile without a twitch at the edges towards Rosetta. “He isn’t wrong though. I always thought the end of the world should have a party attached. You’re invited to that party.” There was a moment where he just stood there, eyes unfocused and his face a mask through shear signal volume. There was a choking sound from deep in his throat and a focusing in his eyes at us.

“You know, you’re exactly the kind of ponies to wander out of a desert,” his eyes shut for a moment and the halting breaths changed. “It took me a while to realize that I’m the same kind of pony.”

“I always knew,” Icepick said before pulling him towards her, my leg falling away as she kissed him deeply, slowly, and desperately.

I turned my back and grabbed another drink from the bottle, the fire of the alcohol a pleasant accompaniment to watching two ponies I love begin the party at the end of the world. I placed the glass back on the dresser and lit my horn brightly, holding onto them and pulling them towards the bed. They noticed, Icepick’s tail flicking up, and Rosetta’s heart picked up its pace. It needed a little more blood pressure now.

She might have known he was like us. He had begun to believe the same thing, the wheels turning in his mind since he had killed for the first time. He wasn’t the same as us yet. What made Icepick and I the same was simple. And he would be in the same boat soon.