XXXVII. Jannah Interlude II: The Six Vigils of Tradewinds / The Stations of the Dragon’s Watch

Six watches in the Night. In Jannah. Tradewinds and a friend each time. Seven questions.

Applejack asking around the last of her tobacco: Where do you come from?

From Petrahoof. The sun shines seldom and the cold grips the world nine months out of twelve. When you live in Petrahoof you live on the northern edges of Equestria, and it feels like you live at the end of the world. The snows that come with this long winter make life harder than any sun-blessed pony in the south could ever imagine. Many die. Every winter they die in great heaps, and in the warm months many foals are born, and Petrahoof hopes that these things balance out. Little grows. The only farming done is done carefully in the warmer months, or done deep underground with the help of hot springs. The coal in the mountains is unreachable. The city runs on thermal energy, kept alive by the still beating heart of the earth.

Petrahoof is a city of hardship, but it is not drowned in misery. Foals are born and their birthdays are celebrated. The young build snowponies on the streets sometimes. The lovers love and the old drink vodka by warm fires and play chess in cozy taverns. The factories build and the shops sell. It is a city, even under all of the strain. It is still a place to live.

Twilight asking: Where did you learn to shoot?

In Petrahoof, you grow up knowing that your city is constantly under threat. Petrahoof is only half of a greater whole, and the other half lives in the mountains. Once, they all served the moon and worshipped it, and though they were a rough people they were not evil. But the world moved on, and now the Highlanders are only interested in death. Specifically, Petrahoofan death.

When you are a child it is mandatory that you join a Pioneer troop. In the sunlands they have filly and coltscouts. In Petrahoof, they have the Young Pioneers. Many things are the same. You make friends, learn virtues and self-reliance. Some things are different. The Pioneer learns to shoot before he has a cutie mark. She learns how to take apart, clean, and assemble a firearm shortly after her cutecenara. It is not what the ponies of the True North would wish, but it is what must be done. All must be ready. The young are not expected to patrol or to fight. Those who volunteer or who are serving their militia time patrol and fight. The foals of Petrahoof learn, and their parents do not pray they will never use these things because that would be a wasted prayer. They pray only that they need these things seldomly, or that their beautiful children will be happy, or that they will live long enough to see their grandchildren.

Pinkie asking: Tradey, did you like Petrahoof?

It is hard to ask if the totality of everything you know is something that you “like”. For one, it is not relevant, and wasted anything is anathema to Petrahoof. But, yes, she was happy. Her mother was a high spirited mare with wings and her father was a merchant, different as could be, but they loved each other. They loved her. Her mother taught her how to preen her wings properly. Her father tried to teach her mathematics, but she never quite got the hang of it. He did manage to improve her reading. But it was the trying that counted. It was how after a rather bad few weeks of business, he came home and smiled when she hugged him and watched her when she flew without help for the first time. He built snowponies with her on the sidewalk. Her mother told her stories when she lay snug in her warm bed and taught her how to read the treacherous currents of winter air.

Tradewinds loved Petrahoof. Life was hard, but life was wonderful. When the sun shone for days on end in the brief summer she would rocket through the tiny neighborhood streets, and when the snow and the grey returned she could always count on a friend and vodka, or her mother with tea and a meal. In short, she was among ponies who knew what it was like to live together, to be together. She loved and was loved. And yes, Pinkie, there were parties. Quite a few! She very much enjoyed those.

Twilight asking whilst looking at a window uncovered: Whatever happened?

Petrahoof heard little news from the south even in the best of times. They were Equestrians, through and through, but it was a mostly autonomous city. The guard came and went, rotated out when the sun-fat found the harsh environment too much. Celestia visited every year, and the ponies of Petrahoof loved her. Luna visited twice a year upon her return, and the ponies of Petrahoof trembled at her hooves in something wholly different. Awe and fear stand close together, same like chess pieces except for the color of the squares beneath them. What had Luna thought, then? Tradewinds wonders aloud if perhaps the alicorn who loved the moon thought that these remnants of her legacy were afraid of her, for they wept at her coming. But they were not afraid. The world had moved on and their long wait was over. The Moon had returned to them.

But the Sun had left, had it not? Petrahoof went on as normal while most of Equestria slowly began to panic. What was their to panic over in the True North? The Highlanders were a little more aggressive than normal, a little more reckless, but volunteer militia kept them far away. They did not even notice the day of no sun. The Long Night, those days when Luna struggled to free the sun from the grip of something beyond her knowledge--Petrahoof did not notice at all. How could it, through the cloudcover?

But they did notice something was wrong when the fresh guardsponies did not arrive. There was confusion, hurt, but they refused to believe they had been abandoned. Petrahoofan ponies did not abandon those who lived. They were more loyal than that.

The Highlanders became more than just aggressive. They were almost suicidal. They no longer seemed interested in personal warrior’s glory. They did not seem interested in the plunder to be found in the tiny burgs. They wanted only… what?

Death.

And then Death came. But Tradewinds did not blame them. Blame was useless, and Petrahoofans did not believe in wasting life and energy.

Applejack: Who are these Black Hoof folk, really?

In the midst of this tide of slaughter, something changed. A few ponies took up the cause of Petrahoof’s defense readily, and they called themselves Black Hoof. It was a joke, at first. The first Black Hoof had lost his foreleg to an industrial accident and had a prosthetic.

The Black Hoof was brave and organized. They were heroes. Tradewinds wanted to be them. But she could not. Her mother had the feather flu--how mundane! Domestic. Her father was overworked, trying desperately to outfit the neighborhood militia with no new supplies coming north. Tradewinds took care of her mother.

The Black Hoof changed and changed. They became deadlier, better. They drank more, they laughed louder. But it was not the sort of drinking and laughing she knew. Then they did these things there was no warmth, but a further coldness. Instead of coming in from the storm, she felt she was being pushed out. They fought, sometimes, amongst themselves. After one of them killed a pony in a drunken brawl, Petrahoof started to fear them and what they were becoming.

The Black Hoof became monstrous. Useful monsters are still monsters. They trapped a few Highlanders, mad as mad could be, raving and screaming. Then they burned them.

Petrahoof defends. It is a proud place. It does not torture. It kills to live, not to watch the fires consume.

There was talk of stopping them, or keeping them outside. There was talk.

It was the Black Hoof that killed Petrahoof, not the Highlander. The Highlanders swooped in, entering the city in the night. The Black Hoof killed all the sentries. And when morning came, they slaughtered the raiding horde. And then the city was theirs. Every single pony who would have stopped them was dead or dying or afraid for their family. Her mother had died in her sleep. Her father was gutted. Tradewinds lived under the shadow of the gun.

Abdiel, face in shadows, asks: Warrior, warrior, burning bright, do you think about death when you hold it in your hands?

How could she not? The Black Hoofs thought that the city was holding out on them. They thought it was as bad as they were. That it stole and witheld and lied. The rations were hoarded for the weak who sent the strong to die.

But this was Petrahoof. Was this true elsewhere? Tradewinds supposed it was, here and there. But in Petrahoof they believed in Harmony. In LIving Together. And they really, really meant it. They did not need leaders to bully them into compliance, or thick tomes of philosophy to convince them. Petrahoof gave and loved on the edge of Night because it believed.

The Black Hoof hoarded rations. They stole in the name of requisitioning. They beat those who hesitated and they fought off the Highlanders and the Royal Guard. The bounties they had expected to find and pillage did not exist. The Black Hoof had not understood their own home. Petrahoof conquered nothing. It was the city that would not bow. It held the line. When Luna fell it held the line, and its stubborn loyalty only ended when Celestia came in person to beg them to stop fighting, for Harmony’s sake. Mismanagement cost the city. It began to starve. They had expected to inherit a fortress, but for all of its appearances, Petrahoof was no citadel. It was a place to raise foals.

They took what they wanted. The city began to fight back against them. Houses caught fire. Streets ran with blood. Harmony wavered. They had violated her. They had violated everything. And when a Highlander attack came during a riot, Petrahoof ended in a single night. It scattered in the darkness. The line had not held. And Tradewinds, bleeding and sobbing, had gone off into the night.

She knew everything died. One way or another, the grave hungered for them all. Always. She would fall into her own in time. Tradewinds breathed this day after day. Her family was gone. Her beautiful mother and her smiling father were ashes and corrupted flesh. Her neighborhood was a hole in the ground. The old stallion who had first taught her to bite into a pickle after a shot of vodka in the manner of stallions, laughing at her as she fumbled at it--oh, he had died hard. The first filly she had ever kissed had been used again and again and then been gutted and left to bleed on the steps of the Temple of the Moon. The Highlanders were dead. Petrahoof was dead. All things wither. All things die.

Did she think about death? She already was dead. She was a smiling corpse. It was hard to say in her own mother tongue, let alone another she knew poorly. She smiled and she laughed because in Petrahoof you greeted death with a smile that curdled the blood of Gods. All the world was her last rite.

She would die soon, Tradewinds thought. Very soon. At some disputed barricade, or on some open patch of cobblestone, or running or flying or eating she would die. The long joke, the one she had been laughing at, was almost over. The punchline was coming, and how could she not laugh?

When the bombardment began to slow, Spike visited Apple Bloom at her home.

Macintosh was there, and Spike and he shared a quiet greeting.

“I’m sorry,” Spike said simply. He was weary unto death. “I was actually going to find you earlier. Tell you that you can drop the whole--”

“Ain’t nothin’ doin’,” Mac said. “Waiting for orders, chief.”

Spike smiled. “That is the dumbest thing to call me. Don’t call me that. You’re the one I should be calling that. Maybe boss.”

“That’s AJ.”

“Yeah.”

Apple Bloom came downstairs and hugged him tightly. Macintosh raised an eyebrow and Spike managed something like a sheepish grin. Which was hard, as he had a mouth full of sharp teeth that put ponies on edge and he was trying not to.

Mac huffed. “Ain’t none of us single. Maybe this is why the Apples are everywhere.”

“Hush, you,” Bloom said into Spike’s scales.

Spike closed her in an awkward hug, finding his wing mimicked his arms. She was in a tiny canopy of scale and leather, and he wondered what she thought of it. Did it scare her? Was there that tiny spark of creature fear?

When she stirred, he let her out. Mac looked at him with a smile, and Spike felt small again. But it was not a bad feeling. “How are you?” Spike asked Bloom, looking down at her now as she wiped her eyes.

“My head is ringing from those damn guns. Mac was out earlier and I was sure he was gonna get smashed by some stupid shell. You’ve been on the walls so long… I’m makin’ it,” she finished.

“I am too.”

“Are ya hungry?” she asked, doing her best to recover quickly. “I could make somethin’. I got some… gems, I guess? I don’t know how good they are. Do you even cook gems? How would you?”

He had smelled them as soon as he walked in, but he feigned surprise. “Gems? Sounds awesome. No need for any of that. I am kinda hungry, actually…”

Apple Bloom left briefly, and Spike sat on the floor, leaning against the couch. He groaned quietly. “Wow.”

“So, you and her? Again.” Mac was still smiling at him.

“Yeah. Sorry,” he said. “Sorry.”

“Why? AB was gonna be worried anyhow, you or no. She seemed a little happier. You’re a good kid, Spike. Both of y’all are.”

Spike looked down. “Thanks,” he mumbled. Somehow hearing that from Macintosh was… He couldn’t put a claw on it. But he smiled as he avoided the gaze.

When AB returned, Caramel came with her. He went to Mac’s side, and they embraced. Spike felt embarassed watching them standing there quietly, so he looked to the gems Bloom had brought him. Not amazing, but…

“Cripes!” Apple Bloom backed off, laughing as he took them from her greedily.

“I’m starving,” Spike said, giving her a big smile. She paled, and he cursed himself as he stuffed his maw with gems. Teeth. He always forgot about… teeth. “Sorry,” he mumbled with his mouth full.

“Don’t do that, it’s rude. It’s okay,” she added. She laid down on the couch and groaned as she stretched. “Will the guns start again?” she asked him, and then when he shook his head and stood there awkwardly, she rolled her eyes. “C’mon sit by me, big purse. You goin’ anywhere?”

The look in her eyes brookered no arguments. He’d be staying right here. And you know what? I think I’m alright with that, he thought with a smile. He laid down against the couch and she stroked his scales from above.

The night continued. Macintosh had retired already, leaving him a sleepy Apple Bloom. He tried to sleep, but it was hard.

She hummed softly. He caught snatches of a tune, but did not join it. Instead, he simply listened with a smile. Sweetie Belle was the singer, but it didn’t mean Spike didn’t like hearing her voice regardless.

She murmured something that was too garbled to understand with even his hearing. He blinked. “Mind saying that again?” he whispered.

“Too wound up to sleep?”

He grimaced. “A little,” he said. “Sorry. I’m trying. I’ll get there, don’t worry. You can go ahead. I don’t mind.”

“I do, a lil,” she slurred in the way that only the inebriated and soon-to-be-asleep can. “Spike?”

“Hm?” he smiled up at her, careful to do so without teeth.

“Have you killed ponies?”

He felt like she’d stabbed him. In the eyes. “Yeah,” he said quietly. He swallowed. “Uh…”

“Do you think about it?”

“I try not to.” Well that sounded friggin’ wonderful, didn’t it? “I mean, I don’t want to. I mean--”

“It hurts,” she supplied.

“Yeah.”

She shifted. “I’m cold. Fire out?”

Spike glanced over at it. “Want me to relight it?”

“Would you mind bein’ a space heater?” she grumbled. “Fire’s nice, but I’d rather more than just my face be warm.”

He smiled and turned towards her. “It’s fine. If you’re okay with it.”

“Mm.” She rolled off the couch and he curled around her. “Yeah, that’s better,” she said.

“Good.” He nuzzled her.

“I wanted--” she yawned, her face contorting as Spike tried not to chuckle. She smacked her lips. “Ugh. Wanted to know if it was why you… Mm. Couldn’t sleep.”

He blinked. Was it? “Not sure. But I do feel tired,” he lied. “I’ll be asleep soon. I promise.”

“Mm. ‘Kay,” she grumbled. Sleep took her a few minutes later.

It came for Spike an hour or so before morning.

Spike saw Canterlot burning.

All of it. Everything. He ran through the streets, sword in his hand, rifle strapped to his back. He was torn. He was bleeding everywhere. He saw horrors. A tavern window exploded and cut him with shards as a mortar shell landed inside it.

He saw horrors. A mare running into the street, her body a solid flame, her mouth trying to scream but failing. She fell and crawled, and he jumped over her body and did not see her die. He was running. He had to… He didn’t know. He had to do something. A panicking, screaming guard pony fell out of an alley, his rifle spinning across the street. The raider who had pushed him laughed. Spike’s sword could finish him. It would be just a moment. But it didn’t. He tried. Nothing happened. The Raider brought both bladed hooves down as Spike passed.

He saw more. A scattered few House levies easily killed by raving raiders. They ignored the dragon. Strange white and tan ponies with blank stares firing into buildings already on fire. Raiders feasting on a still screaming pony. A park ablaze, pockmarked with craters. A house torn asunder with the remains of its occupant on the doorstep, half blown away. Blood in the streets, blood on the walls. Horrors. Others fled, and Spike wanted to save them, to corral them towards the upper levels, to keep them alive. But he did not. His body was not his own. He only ran.

Canterlot became Ponyville before his eyes, yet he kept running.

He saw… Amaranth. Amaranth shivering in the street, her legs withered beyond belief. He was running right for her. He knew her! He knew her! He could pick her up and run with her, he could save one. He could save this one. Just this one!

But he didn’t. He remembered clinging to her in the Selene. He remembered thinking, over and over again: It could have been me. It could have been me.

He was at the gate to the next tier of the city. His eyes scanned the portcullis, knowing there would be guard ponies here, rifleponies, House levies. Anypony holding the line, keeping the way open for the defenseless. Doing what they had to do.

There were none. The door was closed. Nopony on the outside could open it. Civilians crowded around it. Spike realized he was barreling right through the crowd, pushing them aside.

He flung his body at the door, and felt the jolt of pain go up his spine. He did it again. Again. He raked his claws against the frame.

The doors did not open. Gunfire.

He spun, throwing the sword to the ground. The civilians were scattering. They were mowed down as Spike gripped the rifle. He roared fire and then aimed. He got one shot off.

They were the white and tan ponies again, marching in absolutely perfect unison. They parted in flawless unity, and from behind their ranks emerged a great hulking raider carrying a gatling. His face was not a face, but a mask of bone and flesh. Freshly made. Spike aimed.

Bullets punched through him. Dozens. Hundreds. He danced like a marrionette. He bled like a fountain. He--

Spike woke and froze. His eyes were wide as saucers. Already, fire was roiling in his belly, ready for release. His claws were spread wide to tear.

But Spike only laid there. Presently, he realized he was alone. When he sat up, he found a note on the couch. He looked at it, then shook his head. It was just a dream. He was in a warzone. Some stress dreaming was acceptable.

The note was from Apple Bloom. She’d gone to see Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo. The fighting had ground to a halt whilst he slept, and she wanted him to know she loved him. She apologized for not waking him, but he needed the sleep more than they needed one gun on the wall. He frowned at that, but honestly, she was right. He was a bad shot anyway. God of Dragons. Laughing.

Not that he was going to go to the wall. He had to report to Luna first. It had been awhile, and she had been wanting him to keep a close eye on morale.

“Luna, do you ever think about… I mean,” he faltered. She looked up from her reports with a distracted expression.

“Hm?”

“Do you ever think about the ponies you’ve killed?” Spike asked. “Or… coming close to dying.” He shrugged. It wasn’t exactly the right gesture, but asking about this, right now wasn’t exactly the pinnacle of appropriate time and place, so what the hell? Why not. Go all the way. Boot ‘em, don’t splatter ‘em.

Luna blinked at him. She looked around, though Spike wasn’t sure why. These were her private apartments. They’d been alone for an hour.

“I sensed your dream, young drake,” she began. He started, and she sighed and held her hoof up. “Let me finish, I pray you. I sensed it. I am sorry I did not intervene, but... “ She shrugged. “It is easier with ponies. And nightmares are with us for a reason.”

He blinked. “What?”

“Not every nightmare must or even should be purged. Tell me, did Twilight Sparkle ever tell you why creatures have the sensation of disgust?”

“So you know what’s safe to eat,” he grumbled. Yes, Twilight had been fascinated with the new psychology in the day. A passing concern. Magical study consumed all other pursuits with time.

“More or less. Nightmares are how the mind… processes. It is like digesting a rather heavy, rich meal.” She rolled her eyes. “Except, I suppose, that it is awful experiences and not an abundant feast. What I mean to say is that they have a purpose. Tell me, Spike, and answer your own question. Do you think about the raiders you slew in Morningvale? Or the ponies you saw die there? Do you think about mortars and bullets?”

“I…”

He really hadn’t. Why hadn’t he? The fact that he was only now absorbed in seeing the ponies he’d… killed. Killed with his fire or his sword… He remembered their faces. Not all of them. Not even half. With growing horror, he realized that he didn’t even remember how he had killed a few of them. How many? Three? Four? He had taken a few potshots from the wall. Did those count? He hadn’t been in a good position to see if he’d hit target. Sniper conflicts required relocation frequently. He remembered the manticore.

Spike closed his eyes.

Luna had risen from her desk and Spike started slightly as her hoof touched his head softly, then rested on his shoulder. “Spike.”

He looked up at her. “I can’t… remember some of them,” he said. “I haven’t thought much about it at all. Maybe I would never have really... really thought about it, but Apple Bloom asked me. And I couldn't stop thinking about it over and over and over... When I was in the Selene on the way back, I was messed up. Bad. I think I snapped. It was just so much. And then afterwards, I was fine. You spoke to me. I was just fine. And then I went to Ponyville and I got back and I just sort of swallowed and I was fine. I left the wall and spent time with Apple Bloom and her family and I was fine.” He shook. “Luna, what’s wrong with me? Why is it only now, when it’s me I dream about dying, that suddenly I realize what it is I’ve done?”

“Spike…”

“I mean it. I… I know I had to. Please don’t tell me that. I don’t think I can take it.” He looked away from her. “That sounds so cold. What’s wrong with me? Why am I so screwed up? I kept running. In my dream I just jumped over the body of a burning pony. I didn’t help… I could have helped so many. I could have saved one. Even if it was only one, one would have been better than just running. But I kept running, even when I didn’t want to.”

“Dreams can be.. ornery. Your body was not your own.”

“But it was still me,” he said firmly. “Am I really just worried about myself? Was I treating it like a game? I sent Mac and Soarin’ into danger just to mess with a House and keep them from being comfortable. I recruited Mac in the first place after his family had already suffered enough. I sent Rainbow Rays into the jaws of hell and then I left him there and let him be in danger. Every. Single. Day. If I had been faster, or gotten those villagers to run earlier, then maybe Amaranth wouldn’t have lost her legs. Maybe if I had been faster I could have stopped that Manticore from killing…”

He didn’t just falter. He broke. He didn’t cry. He didn’t sob. He just… stopped. He stared ahead.

Luna was quiet as well. Her hoof left him, only to be replaced by her body as she hugged him tightly. He accepted it numbly. Even now, he was numb. In that moment, Spike hated himself more than anything on earth.

“Please, let me say what I am about to say,” Luna began softly. “You are a good dragon, Spike. A brave one. You did what you could. Your friends took risks and believed in you, but they made the decision. You went to Ponyville alone when nopony in this city dared to go beyond the wall. At Morningvale, you faced a Manticore and killed it on our own, saving countless lives. The Lunar and Solar guard gained hope through you. You have not seen the reports I have seen. They still talk of you in Morningvale. You are a hero. A shining, scaled hero. They look at you, and they see neither dragon nor pony. They see Spike.”

Spike shook again. “Then they’re stupid. Because I can’t… I don’t feel anything.”

“Then why are you so insistent?” she asked. “War is hard on the minds of those who fight it. We were not meant to bear too much reality, Spike. Not even I. War and rumors of war. The dark, the piercing sunlight--we were not meant to bear very much reality. I have seen this so many times that my heart is heavier than anypony could understand, save perhaps one or two who I have not seen in… a long time. Young warriors, good ponies, good zebras, others. They kill and they feel nothing. And then like you they realize that they have transgressed, or they feel that they have transgressed the Right and the Good because they are not overcome. But it comes for them as it has come for you, the feeling.” She raised his eyes to meet hers. “What do you feel, Spike?”

“I hate myself, I think,” Spike tried to smirk. “Just a little.”

“No,” Luna said firmly. “You are on the verge of despair, but you will not yield. I know you will not because a lesser pony or a lesser dragon would, but you will not. I knew this would come. Death comes for us all, Spike, perhaps even I with time and luck. She has come now for you, in one way or another, and you must let her remind you of the value of life. But you must turn her away.” She grit her teeth and hissed. “Not today. Not today. You kill because you have to. And everytime you… you look at those bodies, everytime you remember, you must remember--you must remember--that they chose to do what they did. They donned their raider’s mantle. In another world, in a brighter world, one unbroken by guile and sorrow, they would have been a pony you could have waved to on the street. One you could befriend. But this is your world, and that pony did not.”

“So I just… what?”

“You mourn every single one of them that falls. The good and the bad, the awful and the righteous. You mourn them. You grieve that the good are cut off from us and you mourn that the evil have been lost to us. Cry, Spike, if you feel you must. There are no tears that are shameful in a warrior’s eyes. I have said this since before Equestria was an idea. Weep over the fallen, but do not stall. For we do not wail and grieve as do the lost, Spike.” Spike looked up at her and felt again the awe he had felt when she had spoken of weilding her hammer against the monsters of an age of legends. “We do not weep and lie down to die as do those who have no hope. You and I must be strong against this… this tide. You and I are alone, yet not alone. You have friends.”

Spike nodded. “Yeah. I do.”

“You have your love, newly discovered and fresh to the touch. I, too, have had such things and have them and will have them again when the Sun is restored in full glory and the Night has passed.” She chuckled, and to Spike it sounded strangled. “I thought I was prepared for this. Truly, I did. But even I wish for the night to pass.”

“It is,” Spike said quietly. “One way or another, though I don’t know who will see the sun.”

“Perhaps neither of us. But somepony will. Somepony will see what comes after, and for that I am grateful unto tears. Spike, preserve. Love. Weep and do not grow hard as the drakes of old did with time. Do not forget what it is that you do.” A shadow crossed her features. “Whether death comes for you or not, do not forget what it is to be Spike. Spike who cursed himself for not mourning the dead, Spike who served Twilight faithfully, Spike who went to Ponyville because no other could. Spike, who was and is my friend,” she finished. And she smiled. “Reports can wait. I can have tea brought. You look… well, you look rather terrible,” she said sheepishly. “Had you noticed?”

“No,” Spike said quietly.

“Even we must rest, ere the ninth hour is upon us,” Luna replied. And then she sighed. Again. “Spike, think of me when in battle. Through me you will find the strength of the Companions, and feel them with you. You are not alone. They who have lived as you now find yourself… Remember the companions, wherever you make your stand, and I have no doubt that you shall be victorious.” And then she rose. “For yourself as much as anypony.”

As she went to summon the help, Spike felt… strange. And somehow, in the back of his mind, he suspected he felt the bond of the Companions. Somehow he knew… he knew that this was not the first time she had said these things. Perhaps it was she who had had it said to her first.

Author's Notes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8Vmdi6_WJA

I am weary I am weary

I have much to write and miles to go yet