//------------------------------// // How to Destroy // Story: Dissonance // by The Plebeian //------------------------------// Another new day. I was getting tired of them. They were going by faster than I could take them in, and so many new sights passed me by. The days were all slipping away, right out from under my hooves. There was simply no defense against time. I suppose it was only after I woke up on these new days that I realized that I had lived almost the exact same day for the entirety of my young life. The sunrise was early; we were far enough off the ground for the sun to warm over our feathers and sleek coats without protest from the mountains around. By then, the stark silhouette of Canterlot’s towers had long since disappeared behind us. I craned my neck to look at the other pegasi that were flying with me. They carried on their faces solemn but determined looks, some paired with piercing eyes that cut into my own as I swept over them. On my right wing was Dewdrop, whose expression was indecipherable – his eyes set forward, and his face blank. Over his back was slung a small bag. I knew it to contain the book by Mighty Quill, and a tattered blanket. I had brought nothing with me, for the plain reason that I had nothing to bring. The others around us, about sixteen pegasi, were late-coming volunteers. As far as I knew, they thought Dewdrop and me to be of the same nature as them: joining in the name of Celestia, hoping to defend their families and land. And why wouldn’t they? With the recent events, I thought I would more than happily kill dragons. I’m sure I looked the part of a soldier: scraggly, with an air of grim silence. However, I could hardly claim to be fighting for anything. I fought for what was no longer there, for something that fighting could not bring back. As I think back, I believe I understood the inconsequence of my will for revenge, somewhere in my heart of hearts. Still, I entertained it, fed it. It was something to drive me forward, or in some direction. Anything was better than sitting still. So I thought. As the sun began to rise over the peaks, its light was cast over the verdant fields of the Foal Mountain Valley. Through a thin fog, I could see the camp we were moving towards. Small tents pockmarked the grass in reddish-tan rows. Plumes of smoke rose from inlets all around, turning the fog a darker grey. I shifted my ears about to catch the sound and hear a faint metallic clamor past the staggered wingbeats around. As we neared it, I tasted the foul air. The soldier leading us shouted back, “I would advise you all to get used to the smell of smoke.” We began our descent, and the grey mixture trailed at the edges of my wings where it was not already split by the soon-to-be soldiers in front of me. As we neared the camp, its activity came into focus. At what I figured to be the southeast edge, I could see a row of targets set up. Opposite to them, a line of unicorns stood with hooves planted widely and firmly into the earth, their horns aglow. Bright beams shot out from a few of them, scorching – and in one case disintegrating – their wooden targets. Other unicorns in the line looked far more strained, with beads of sweat trailing down their faces; their blasts were far more erratic, sometimes leaving the target unchanged, other times setting it aflame, and still other times blowing the entire targets apart, sending their charred fragments across the fields. I shuddered. We alighted down into a dugout area, where a single golden-clad pegasus stood in wait. After folding my wings, I lifted my head to look at him. His face was mostly obscured by his helmet: an old-fashioned full helm, complete with ornate silver trimming. Only his grey eyes were visible under the extravagant helmet. The shadows it cast made them seem miles deep. He surveyed the group before him, and then slowly, his gaze settled on Dewdrop, and narrowed. A voice echoed out from his helmet, unexpectedly smooth, given his broad build and countenance. “Gentlemen.” The group snapped upright to attention, some of its members only just noticing the figure. Still the golden-clad stallion kept his gaze firmly on Dewdrop. The colt met his gaze, though I could see his distress in the contact. His eyes were wide, and he was in a tense stance, his back legs locked. The masked stallion then looked at me. With the glance he told me that he knew Dewdrop was with me. He knew Dewdrop was not old enough to be a soldier. And in those harsh, accusing eyes . . . I saw pain. He broke the gaze and spoke once more to the group, “I am Bastion, your captain and instructor. I expect you to refer to me as ‘Sir’ or ‘Captain.’ No, I have not fought dragons before. However, I assure you all, I’ve fought many a battle more than you, and there is a simple rule to fighting. Can anypony here guess?” He swept his eyes over the silent crowd, then answered himself, “If something can be known, it can be destroyed.” A pegasus behind me shifted his feathers uncomfortably. Bastion spared a glance at him, then turned around. “Follow me, men,” he said, in a low tone that made my spine shiver. He walked slowly, feigning a relaxed gait. “Now,” he said matter-of-factly, not bothering to turn to address his audience as we tromped behind him, “We have not been issued much time to train you all. Expect long days. Once you know the fundamentals, it’ll all be practice.” * * * I became what was called a stinger: a soldier whose job it was to take fate into hoof, and like a small child carelessly roll it around and play with it, bouncing it, testing it to its breaking point. My role was simple: fly in, and with sharp attachments on my front hooves, hurl myself at a dragon so quickly that it cannot respond, and punch holes in its armor-like scales through sheer momentum. The pegasi as a race were typically regarded as direct-conflict soldiers against the dragons. After all, we could meet dragons in their own field. Unicorns could use magic to fight from the ground, and earth ponies could operate war machines, but we were essentially the front-line expendables. It was the card fate had dealt to us. There was nopony to blame for our lot. After all, we hadn’t picked the fight. We were just pulled along for the ride, holding on for dear life, all the more dearly forfeit. As for Dewdrop, his size was – quite thankfully and duly – minded. He was a barb shooter. He would have launcher contraptions attached to his sides – just under his wings – and it would be his job to be able hit a dragon with small, barbed bolts, even when both his squad as well as the dragon were all swooping through the air at once. It was a high-pressure, low-personal-risk sort of post, about as far out of harm’s way as a pegasus could be. Of that, I was incredibly thankful. I had quickly grown used to the smoke, as I had been advised. It came partly from the campfires, but mostly from earth pony forges, which always droned on the sounds of bellows, the hiss of freshly-made steam, and the harsh pang of metal against metal. The unforgiving grey vapor drifted over to me even now. I scooped up three small clay discs – two blue, one red – into the folds of my feathers and wound up, spinning in a practiced dance, pivoting as quickly and broadly as I could while keeping balance. I gave a final push, and let the momentum shoot away the small quarries straight up into the air. They flew fairly close to each other; it’d be a tricky shot. A metallic whir came from above, followed by a sharp whistle that zipped by far overhead. I heard a solid “thud,” and could see a bright gleam attach itself to a blue disc. As the discs fell back to the ground, I heard an exasperated sigh from above. “Don’t worry, Dewdrop. They make it trickier than the real thing so it’ll seem easier when we’re out on the field.” “Yeah, it’ll be real easy once I’ve got a dragon trying to cook me,” the teal-maned pegasus snorted in reply. He swooped down into my view, over to the discs. He looked woefully at the dart, then pinned its victim to the ground as he extracted it. He tossed the discs one-by-one to me with his mouth, and I wedged them back into my left wing. He loaded the dart back into his left launcher – the left was the one he most needed practice with – and swept himself back into the air in a gust that blew my mane back. I readied my stance once more, but gave a slight twitch as I heard a jeer just ahead of me, from another pair training their barb shooting. “Bah, you got me!” a pegasus laughed, having seen his companion’s bolt hit one of the blue discs. I knew Dewdrop was watching them at the moment; I could feel it, and I seethed at the pair for making such a joke of the symbolism. I waited a moment, knowing it would take a bit for Dewdrop to regain focus on the task at hoof. A good two seconds passed, and I went through the same rehearsed movement, flinging the disks into the air. They flew in a wide spread; it was an easy shot to take. But no shot was taken. The disks fell back down to the ground, gracious for a respite. I turned my eyes up, but there was only the blue sky to see. I swiveled around until I could see the muted-blue pegasus plodding back into the camp, head hung low. I ran, scooping up the discs into my bag, and chasing after my friend, calling after, “Hey! Wait up!” As I caught up, I could see more clearly his watery eyes. “Dewdrop, let me help you!” He stopped, and heaved a heavy, shaky sigh. “Mellownote,” he said, barely audible, “I had a nightmare. A terrible nightmare.” Nightmare? We had only been at the camp for three days. He was almost sixteen years old; a bit old for nightmares to be bothering him, I thought. I nearly made a remark about it, but caught myself. It was not only fear on Dewdrop’s face. There was shame, the shame of not maturing fast enough to suit me. I halted myself, and instead asked, “What happened?” “You don’t want to hear it.” “If you tell it to somepony, it’ll seem less real,” I proposed. “Not for my good, Mellownote,” he said bitterly, “For yours.” The last words, however whispered, rang through my head, dislodged my misconceptions, and made my heart skip two beats. As I looked at this poor colt, I found myself speechless. “Do you still want to hear it?” he asked faintly. I thought for a moment. I was more worried about putting Dewdrop at ease than soothing my own uncertainties. Still, the way he chose to preface it made me worry. How was he protecting me? I stopped myself before I could fully ponder that and answered, “Yes, I want to hear it.” Dewdrop began walking the perimeter of the camp, with me beside him. “First, there was a blank white field.” I shivered to myself. “It went on for an eternity. I was lost in it, but I saw you. You were coughing, sputtering something out. I tried to come and help you, but then the ground disappeared. We were falling, and my wings didn’t work, and you had your eyes closed. “We fell like that for so long, but it was still horrible all of the way down. When we finally hit the ground, there was a little candle between us. I tried to go over and wake you up, but the candle fell over on its own. When the flame hit the ground, fire appeared all around you. I- I watched you burn. I watched you . . . die.” He turned to me, his face the image of distress. He needed some sort of affirmation, but I could only think of my own dream of the empty field, how quickly his had dissolved. I frowned deeply, trying to discern the meaning of such a dream. I puzzled over the details: the empty space, the falling, the candle. It certainly was no comfort to hear that I was consumed by flames, either. Whether it was literal or figurative representation, I could not see it as anything but a dark and foreboding. “Mellownote?” I woke up out of my reverie. My hooves were planted firmly on the ground; I had stopped. Dewdrop had halted just ahead, his eyes still watery with longing for resolution. I recovered my slow trot and said, “The important thing is that it’s just a dream. We’re both still here for each other, right?” He followed in stride and said, “Well, yeah, but I’ve never had any nightmare like that. Just the little childish ones with the monster chasing me, or something like that. This was different. It felt real, like it’s still happening now. Have you had something like that? Where you woke up from a dream, but you feel like it’s still happening?” My step faltered a moment. It would only worry him more if I told him about my own dream. I had to skip over that bit. “Yes,” I said slowly, “I have, but it was a long time ago. I don’t remember what the dream was about anymore.” Dewdrop sighed, then asked gloomily, “It’s not going to get better, is it?” “What?” “We’re not even in battle yet. We’re just training and I’m already losing it!” “You are not losing it, Dewdrop,” I affirmed, “You’re just worried. It’s alright to be worried. Everypony is worried around here.” “Are you?” “I’m especially worried.” From the center of the camp came an incessant ringing from a small bell, coupled with a hearty shout, “Dinner’s ready!” Dewdrop’s ears perked up, “Dinner sounds pretty nice.” I nodded. The very thought of food made hunger creep its way into my mind, rudely pressing its way past my concerns about Dewdrop. He seemed satisfied with my answer, at least for the time being, though, giving me a short smile that barely traced the edges of his lips. We started back towards a row of tents into the camp. From either side of us, soldiers-in-training began to file onto the path, many spotted with dirt and grime. We were quickly at a standstill, halted a good distance away from the cooks’ stand. Already, the salty, robust scent drifted over to me – vegetable stew. Although the cooking in the camp was typical, I was always hungry enough for it to be a fine cuisine. Not that I had ever eaten fine cuisine. The line sped along, and I was soon met by Colt Slaw, our illustrious single-order chef. I noticed that while his apron had done a fair job of protecting his body, his tan-haired face and light-brown mane were blotchy with the contents of the enormous pot – or cauldron, as I would call it – giving me a humorous preview of my meal: carrots, onions, green beans, corn, and potatoes in an exciting brown broth. “Ho there, whatshisname and runt!” I rolled my eyes. “At least Dewdrop doesn’t still go by the name of ‘Colt.’” The chef feigned an appalled gasp, then chuckled. “So, what’ll you be having, then?” Dewdrop threw himself into the fray, “I’ll have some apple pie with lemon tartlets!” “Close enough!” shouted Colt Slaw, shoving two brim-full bowls towards us, which served to smear another coat of the stew on his booth. “You may have to use your imaginations a bit, but I’m sure I put what you’re looking for in there somewhere! Next!” The two of us trotted away from the stand and – out of an unspoken assent – set out towards the outskirts of the camp, our speech hindered by the bowls in our mouths. The forges had stopped their incessant noises for the short time it took for their workers to inhale their dinner, and the clangs, twangs, swooshes, and jeers of warriors in training had died out, if only for a moment. Mealtimes had become my favorite times of day, just for the luxury of silence. The tents receded behind us in favor of the valley’s rolling fields, pockmarked with wildflowers and holes from misfired barbs. We sat down, and Dewdrop seized the first word, “He calls me a runt.” “For stallions like Slaw, it’s a term of endearment.” I explained, “He’s not looking to hurt you.” Dewdrop frowned. “Why would you use an insult as a name for somepony?” “Well,” I hesitated, trying to think, “I suppose it’s just a way to joke around, among good friends.” “Colt Slaw isn’t my friend,” Dewdrop replied abruptly, “I haven’t even known him three days.” “It only took one day for me,” I prodded. He rolled his eyes, “Come on, Mellownote. You’re not the same.” “How ever not?” I scoffed in between slurps of my soup. “For one,” Dewdrop began, a sardonic bite creeping into his voice, “you’re not some soup-spattered stallion sloshing gruel at me.” I snickered, “And here you are, moping about him calling you a runt!” Dewdrop’s smile morphed into an amusing mixture of shock, confusion, and realization. His mouth was left agape, and his ears flopped down. I watched amusedly as he stammered, trying to find justification for his mockery of the chef. Eventually, he adopted an indignant frown and spat out, “Well he started it!” I let it go for the sake of Dewdrop’s dignity. He had learned from his mistake already. He drained his bowl, perhaps to excuse his silence. What the librarian had said was beginning to make sense to me. Dewdrop did not attract friendships, simply because he did not look very far for them. Instead, he let others come to him, prove themselves worthy of his companionship. With Dewdrop, first impressions were everything. How sleeping on cold cement marked me as worthy was beyond me. Dewdrop gave a long sigh, having finished his stew. His eyes took on the same downcast look as before dinner. “You said you were worried,” he began, “what are you worried about?” I kept my eyes locked on his. “I worry about us. I worry about you. War isn’t something young stallions like us should get into, even if we’re dragged.” I glanced over at a forge as it began to bellow smoke and resound with its metallic clamor. “I’m afraid it’ll destroy us, Dewdrop.” “What about the others?” I shook my head, “We can’t worry for everyone, Dewdrop. It’ll only break our hearts in the end. We watch out for each other, because we’re all we have. All those others, they have something to come back to when it’s over.” “We’ve got my place.” Dewdrop piped up, “And when we get back, we’ll have you singing on the streets until the princess herself hears you!” I smiled. “Thanks, but I don’t think that’s what I’m meant to do.” “Then what do you think you’re meant to do?” he asked, “I mean, you’re a singer, aren’t you? Shouldn’t it be your dream to sing yourself up into those fancy Canterlot towers?” Other forges began churning out their plague-like vapor, reinvigorating the swirling haze above the camp. I answered, “If every singer had that dream, we’d just be a big royal choir. Where’d the fun be in being a singer if, in the end, we all would be singing the same songs?” I glanced down at Dewdrop’s flank, but it was bare. I hadn’t paid much attention to it, nor bothered him about it. He was very old not to have his mark, but I figured he already knew it. Reminding him might just frustrate him. “I know,” the teal-maned youth said, “you want to keep the conversation going, ask me what I dream about. Well, I don’t know. I haven’t really found a dream good enough to chase yet.” He glanced down at his flank. “Then again, I’m sure you already guessed that.” I smiled, “Is that why you read all those books?” Dewdrop nodded, allowing a trace of a grin to flicker on the edge of his mouth, “Yes. I think whatever my adventure’s going to be, it’ll be in a book somewhere. I just have to find the right book.” * * * I had become used to the weight on my forehooves now. They gave me more momentum, so long as I could work up the force behind them. I was fast with them. Not the fastest, but more than fast enough to have a chance. A unicorn below shouted something, though he was too far away for me to pick the exact wording up. Soon after, a cloud of red-glowing vapor zipped past me. This I was familiar with. I took off at an odd angle, losing sight of it for a moment: you could not put puncture force behind a pursuit. I needed a heavier impact. I cut a hard left as it veered right. I pulled about, and could see the cloud just entering my vision. I whipped back my wings and threw myself into a corkscrew, pointing my hooves – my weapons – straight for my target. It was mine, disintegrating about me as I flew straight through it. Even as I pierced my target, another glowing cloud zipped behind me. Heaving a gasp from the effort, I spun around in place and launched myself at it. The air tasted foul as I darted through my quarry. A third target zipped by, then a fourth, and fifth. I flew left, down, right, left, up, down, and around. With each breath, I wondered how such filthy air could keep me flying, could give me the strength for my next dash. I gave a frustrated shout as I punched through another cloud. My ears twitched about, and my eyes scanned wildly for my next victim. However, I heard only a short murmur from below, and saw only the swirling mass of haze I had disturbed in my frantic flight. I glided down, and saw that the two unicorns controlling the clouds were just as exhausted as I, with the same sweat dripping down their faces and the same bloodshot eyes aching for respite. Bastion, helmet and all, was also awaiting me on the ground, his emotion hidden behind the cold mask. His voice echoed out, “Nice work. I’d say you’re just about ready for the real thing.” I shivered as I landed. The eyes that were shadowed behind the helmet scrutinized me. “Don’t be so squeamish, son. You’re fit as can be. I’ve made heroes out of far lesser talent than yours. Just trust me, and I’ll make sure you and your friend get home without a scratch.” I gave him a questioning glance, and he indulged it, “Yes, I know your backgrounds. Doesn’t matter much to me. You’re both good in my book, so long as you follow my orders to the point.” He paused a moment, glancing at the two unicorns, who were readying to train another stinger. “Another thing,” he added, “I want you to watch over your friend. I’ve watched plenty of young stallions go down, and it’d hardly help me to watch another.” “I watch him well enough, sir,” I replied, to which he gave a grunt and turned around to watch his next trainee. I plodded off through the rows of black-stained reddish-tan tents towards mine. As I reached it, I drew one of its “door” flaps to the side to see Dewdrop sleeping on one of the small bed mats on the floor. I walked in and fell onto my own mat, to which my legs gave a thankful groan. The sun was just beginning to set, and fatigue was wearing away at my eyelids. Indeed, the days were long, but I had a friend to weather them with.