It was cold. Placed about halfway between the ponies and the humans they had clashed with, the monument didn't have the benefit of artifacts to keep the chill at bay.

Despite that, media was present, as was Celestia and Crane and President Rason. Celestia had approached Crane on sighting him. "A pleasure to see you again, even if this is a most... somber occasion."

Crane looked over the monument they had come to see the completion of, a great stone slab with the names of those that fell in the conflict, with a statue of a human and a pony meeting in a brohoof of solidarity. "I couldn't miss this, but the president is just over there." He indicated Rason. "Have you met him personally yet?"

"I have not... Are you well? Did you retire for some... unhappy thing?"

She sounded concerned, but what could she do? It was nice having friends at least, and he had a few. "I'm fine, just the end of my term. American presidents don't get to stay presidents for that long. No man is king, just a temporary steward."

"I see..." She inclined her head faintly. "You seemed able enough, thank you. Do you have other work in mind, or are you retiring completely?"

"Princess Celestia." Rason had found them. "Thank you for coming. Crane, you too. They started working on this during your term, of course. It's only proper you be here." He turned to the statue, one hand on his hip. "Tragic... but with a happy ending, at least."

Celestia nodded softly. "Communication was the problem, as is often the case. Once we began to speak, we understood that we were friends, not enemies."

Crane looked past Celestia. "Your sister isn't here?"

"Neigh. She... would prefer to not think of her darker hours. She recovered well, I am pleased to report. Ah, this reminds." She lifted a hoof with a glowing horn.

Rason's jacket began to beep softly, distracting her. "What was that?"

The president pulled out a small device. "Magic detector. Any magic within five feet of me, it beeps."

"Ah." She lit her horn once more, resuming the beeping as drew over a little archway, like a metal detector sized for ponies. "As promised. Simply turn it on... here." She showed the lever that was large enough for even a pony hoof to easily throw it. "And any unicorn that walks through it will be magically suppressed for hours without harm."

"Is everyone getting along?" Cadance landed lightly, wings folding and her foalish passenger letting out a squeal of delight.

"Human!" Flurry announced, looking at them, just old enough to start spewing random one word thoughts.

Cadance gently released Flurry to the ground. "Yes, humans, friendly humans. You can say hello if you behave."

"Human!" Flurry lifted into the air and immediately went to harass one of them.

Rason nodded to Cadance. "I'm told we have you to thank for assisting Alaska get its feet back under it. On behalf of my people, thank you."

"A pleasure." She dipped her head. "The unicorns are enjoying the position."

He stroked his beard softly. "So you want me to find liquid underground. Like water?"

"Not water." The human in a hard hat shook a hand at the elderly unicorn. "Oil."

"Oil, yes, apologies. Do you have a sample?"

The man considered that a moment. "I only have refined oil, not raw petrol. Is that good enough?"

Star Swirl inclined his head. "It will have to suffice." He hadn't volunteered for the post. Penance for snatching the leader of the humans, they had told him. As if making a decisive, and successful, strike was something to punish. Times sure had changed...

When they brought him a small bottle of the stuff, he lifted it into his magic, eyeing it a moment. "Mmm, mmm, yes... I'll look for anything else with a similar aetheric signature." He closed his eyes and went perfectly still.

His handler watched him, wondering if something had gone wrong. How did one turn off and turn a unicorn back on? Was there a reset button? On the bright side, possibly literally, his horn was glowing. That was good, right?

"It is present," he announced, eyes still closed. "Dispersed, but there is much of it, being squeezed."

The man's smile was instant. "Yes, exactly, yes. Where?!"

Star pointed to the northwest. "About an hour's trot that way. There is some here, but it grows in density as you proceed." His eyes had opened as he said it. "It is quite deep in the ground. How do you plan to reach it?"

"Don't you worry yourself about that. Just get us to to the center and we'll take it from there." If that unicorn was being accurate, months, possibly years, of fruitless surveying had just been shaved off the time to get a new well up and going. "If this works out, I owe you a drink."

"I am informed you will owe considerably more than that." Sure, he wouldn't be the one keeping it, but... "Let us proceed."

Rason stood in front of the monument. Media cameras were directed at him, recording everything he did. "I stand here today before the Crystal Alaskan Monument. It was built by human hands and pony hooves to remember our troubling first contact, and as a promise to never repeat it. I did not commission this. With us, Former-President Crane, if you please?"

Crane stepped up to join him, nodding towards the cameras. "Hello and welcome. It is not with pride that I remember the dead of this war and the part I played in making them, but the future is bright, and we must all look towards it with the wisdom that the past has given us. The brave police officers that stood in defense of their town against what they could not have known was, at the time, hostile military combatants."

"Despite this, they served their people faithfully, and some paid the ultimate price for it. They were good men and women, working hard to keep their communities safe. Some were just ordinary people with extraordinary bravery, taking a stand to protect what they knew. We respect them with this monument, and swear that it was not in vain. Peace has been found, and prosperity is following it."

Rason shook Crane's hand, thanking him even as he took his place once more. "I would also like to give proper time to the other side of this tragedy. Princess Cadance, if you would?"

"Of course." She stepped up, head held high. "Hello, all of you." Her eyes darted from one camera to the next, unsure where she should be facing. "My people's names... It saddens me... To think so many are reduced to being nothing but a name, engraved on cold stone." She half-turned to the monument. "I was there, when they were alive, with dreams and hopes... It all ended with clean finality for so many of them... others fading away in pain and misery... We thought we were waging a war."

A pained single laugh escaped from her. "We were prodding a sleeping giant, and its drowsy hand came down on us, swatting us flat with barely a thought..." She suddenly shook her head. "It was all a grave misunderstanding, and I know that now... I only wish I had known it from the start, to spare this..." She gestured at the stone. "This is a monument to a grave failing on my part... Twilight had wanted to approach with peace from the start; and I had foolishly allowed myself to think we were beyond that point."

"I'm being dour." She wiped her eyes with a fetlock. "I am, of course, delighted that this is behind us, that humanity, Americans, and Equestria, are united in friendship. Let this never repeat itself. Let it stand as a reminder that war is a terrible thing."

Soft applause rippled through the gathered crowd, perhaps sympathetic to Cadance's obvious emotions, or moved by the speeches given.

"Sea Flower?" Rob rapped on a door with the knuckles of his right hand. "You in there?"

Sea popped open the door with a smile, but it wilted almost immediately. Her little engineer was not smiling with good news. "What did he say?"

"Can I come in?"

She backed away to let him enter, growing tenser by the moment. "That bad, huh... Can't even tell me where anyone else might see?"

He closed the door gently. "Turns out he actually isn't into mares."

Sea blinked softly, crashing to her haunches. "You're joking."

"Wish I were... He even made a move on me."

Sea somehow managed to go more rigid. "And...?"

"I'm not into that," assured Rob with a quirked smile. "I prefer lady company for that kind of thing."

"Oh, oh... alright..." Sea raised a hoof behind her head. "Oh... I... actually thought you were the stallion chaser. When you turned me down, that last time... I figured you just... Gah, I was stupid." She flopped against a cabinet beside herself. "I don't understand anyone, it seems. So he likes stallions, and you like mares."

He hadn't said that... "I prefer females, yes," he tried to gently correct.

"And now you're going to think I'm rebounding when I say I'd rather have you. Then you're going to give me a speech on boss/worker relationships, and then you're going to try to put me off as gentle as you can, because you don't want anyone hurt, but you also have such big damn morals." She sank a little, wings drooping to either side. "Or maybe you'd just rather a girl with two legs and some big things here."

Sea reared up onto two legs, her forehooves over her chest, not that she, as a pony, had much there to emphasize or hide. "How do they move with those things sloshing around?"

"It's a challenge for some of them." He reached for her head, raised as it was with her standing up. He gently pet over her scalp and along an ear. "But we have good clothing for that too."

"You have clothes for everything!" she whined, but she didn't leave his hand, accepting the petting with a pitiable look. "Can't we... give it a try?"

"Give what a try?" It occurred to him what was being asked even as he asked the question. "That's not something you normally 'try' like a test drive of a car."

"That's a lie and you know it." She stuck out her tongue and flopped back to all fours. "Lots of people do." She coiled back on herself and pulled out her phone. Quickly she had the dating app for humans and inhumans that wanted to meet up on display. She tossed the phone casually at his feet. "I got it to see what the fuss is about, but I never used it... I don't just want 'a' human. I have a special one right here." She waved a hoof at him softly. "I thought he... wasn't into that, so... I tried to respect that and find someone else to bother, surprise! They were the stallion chaser."

"Go figure that..." He hadn't much expected it either. Instead he had a vulnerable and wanting mare that was also his boss. He was fairly certain he could have sued her into oblivion at that point. But he didn't really want that.

Scampering on all fours under things and getting past water obstacles were the portions of the obstacle course he gained time in. That was good, because climbing over things and feats of strength slowed him down. Despite all of this, the nation's first otter armed forces recruit made a decent showing. He had passed the test by one of his long whiskers.

Army. That is what the test had said he was fit for, and he had advanced to bootcamp. They yelled at him, and drilled him, but he kept at it. They told him, repeatedly, that he could give up and go home, that he should give up and go home, but he didn't.

He even submitted himself to being shaved like any other service person. The barber had looked at him quite oddly, but ultimately his job was his job and he ran the buzzing clippers over his furry head exactly the same as he would any other soldier.

He had to flip his ears the other way around to get the fur they had been concealing. The top of his head was bare in a ghastly display, but still, he didn't give up.

Author's Notes:

We remember the dead. We consider the living. We fight for the future.

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