//------------------------------//
// Hope 
// Story: Sad Short Stories 
// by Silver Moon 
//------------------------------//

	“It’s hopeless!”
“No, it is not!”
“The war is lost. We don’t have a single hope left. We’re doomed.”
“Stop that right now. There is still hope!” I growled. 
“Where?” Dark Sky snarled back. “Where is there hope? Our squad is the only one left. Equestria has fallen. We. Are. Doomed.” She shook her head in anger and pain. Refusing to let my friend accept failure, I grabbed her head and forced it up, making her look at me.
“We may be doomed,” I said, my voice hardened by determination, “but that does not mean there is no hope. Because there is hope. We are the hope. The civilians need somepony to lay their hope on. We are those ponies. We have to be.”
“But we aren’t. We failed.”
“Not yet,” I told Dark. I let her head go and stood up. I offered a hoof to my fallen friend, my fellow soldier. She looked up at me, despair clouding her features. “Come on, we have to get moving,” I said as gently as one can give a command.
“What’s the point?” asked Dark Sky as she tried to slump to the ground. I held her up, preventing her from accepting defeat. “Why bother, Emerald?” she asked again. “How can we be hope when we know we are doomed?” The pain in her voice hit me like a punch to the gut. I grabbed her foreleg and forced her to her hooves. 
“Dark? Dark Sky, look at me. Am I still breathing?”
“What’s your point?”
“Answer me.”
“Yes, but I don’t get-”
“Are you still breathing?” I cut across her without hesitation. 
“Yes,” Dark Sky replied, not bothering to try and argue this time. 
“We are still breathing. We are still alive. That is where there is hope. As long as we live, so does hope. So long as there is one pony left standing, left breathing, left alive, there is hope. When all hope seems to be lost, we are what stops despair from taking over.” As I spoke, Dark stood a little taller, a little straighter. I saw my message was finally getting to her. “So long as one of us can still fight, there is hope. We are the hope.”
“We are the hope,” she echoed. “We are hope.”
“That’s right. We are hope. As long as we live, we can fight. As long as we breathe, we can fight. And as long as we can fight, we are hope.”
“We are hope.” It was more than just an echo that time. It was a statement. “We are hope,” Dark Sky agreed. A smile, albeit a small one, lit up her face. The first one I’ve seen in days. The first one since it became clear we were fighting a lost battle. The agony in her eyes changed to determination as she started to move. She paused and cast a glance back over her shoulder. “You coming?” 
“Yeah,” I grinned back. “Yeah, I’m coming.”
“Good. Let’s get going. We have a world to save.”