"It's all okay," Magnes said to me, placing a hoof on my shoulder which I promptly shook off.
"You'll be alright," Strong added, his low drawl somewhat soothing.
The song of the thestrals had been sung every night for six nights in a row. I could hear it in the wind, that melody. They'd sing it every single day to remind us it was over. And it began taking a toll on me. I hadn't slept at all for six days, the anxiety keeping me up through the night, and the sunny storms keeping me up in the day. Thunder and lightning spiderwebbed from one cloud to the next, like cracks in glass.
Struck with sudden inspiration, Vinyl set down the book and jumped back to her rolling desk chair. Sound rolled through her mind though it wasn't played yet. She erased the beat she had down earlier, replacing it with a new one. Now… Slow tempo… I think I'll go with something fun… Let's try glitch hop. Plop those notes there… Aaaand playback test... She floated her headphones over again and clicked the play button on the interface of her computer. Starting from the first drop, glorious rough bass assaulted her ears like the thestrals in the book. The melody remained distinct and clear, untouched from its original form. But something felt still missing.
Vocals! the thought popped into her brain. She wanted the same effect of the original melody in her song, and that meant she needed to reproduce is original sound. She wanted there to be, though it was dance music, a sense of solemnity and remorse. The same solemnity that Gray Wing had in his book, no, but similar. But who do I have sing for this? My voice doesn't fit the bill...
She let that thought stew in the back of her mind for a while. In the mean time, she settled for writing out the remainder of the electronic portions, including the intro. Her countermelody, she thought, fit perfectly with the vocal melody, so she built that up before the first drop. She modified the beat for after where she'd put the vocals, then calmed things down for the second drop, which would build up with a repetition of the vocal verse. After writing it all out, she hit the save button, and played it back once more.
Finished with what she could do for now, she got back in bed, and started reading, not noticing the setting sun in her window.
It was my unit's turn to haul a shipment of food to the ponies of Noc'tren, who'd received a shipment five days prior, and was now receiving their next. Many of our medics had been moved to the city square, where they could take care of the ponies suffering most from malnutrition. According to the locals that would talk to us, they'd only managed one ration a day, even for their army. Deep down, everyone knew that though they'd lost the war, they weren't on the wrong side of it.
"I swear, when I get home, first thing I'm doing is getting some tail," Magnes said, huffing as he pulled his cart of foodstuffs in full armor. "Who else is looking forward to that when we get back?"
"Here here," Ice agreed. "I'mma see if I can't find a blue pegasus mare."
"I got a mare back home, that I'm lookin'a marry on'a these days," Strong murmured softly.
"How 'boutchu, Gray? You got a mare like big guy?" Ice asked, looking over to me.
"Nah… I'm fine solo," I said. "Never found a mare that fit my fancy."
"Oooooh, I think I getcha. You like stallions, don'tcha?" Ice pestered. Seeing as he was directly to my right, he stared at me with a "knowing" smirk.
"Never found any of them attractive either," I sighed, irritated by the implication. "But if I was, your ugly mug would scare me right back to mares."
Strong and Magnes winced, staring at Ice intently to see his reaction to the burn he'd been dealt. "Sure it idn't the size of my weapon that'd scare y'off?"
"What weapon?" I countered. He tried to answer several times, opening his mouth, then closing it to think. Within seconds the window for a comeback had closed, and our other squad mates simply laughed heartily. "I'm just yanking your leg, Ice."
"Bitch," he spat.
"Jerk," I retorted without missing a beat.
When we reached Noc'tren, the thestrals were beginning to sing again. I could feel my muscles starting to tense up, and my mane try to stand on end. I could feel my heart skip a beat, and my mouth dry up as though someone had filled it with coffee grounds. Something felt wrong about being here, like malicious eyes were watching me from somewhere I couldn't see. I stopped walking, and as soon as I did, my legs locked in place. I turned to look up at the rooftops, but saw nothing there even though I knew something was.
"Yo, what's the holdup?" Ice asked, stopping as he noticed I had fallen behind. I tried to tell him what I was feeling, but words would not come. My mouth swung open and closed wordlessly, like a ghost-town saloon's doors. I soon began shivering with a cold, haunted breeze that wasn't there.
Strong made his way over to me as soon as he noticed me shivering. Perhaps he knew what I was feeling, perhaps he just knew how to get me moving again, but he gave me a gentle nudge with his shoulder, and I was able to move once more. I was not calm. No, not in the slightest. The only thing the friendly nudge did was unlock my muscles and joints so I could move once more. I still felt the chill in the air, and my mane trying to stand on end. But I was able to move forward and continue the task at hoof, so that was all that really mattered at that point.
We made it to the square, where Celestia had given her speech. I unstrapped myself from the cart of food, glad that I was finally free of the burden. A little bit of my anxiety faded away with my recovered ability to move freely. I still felt the looming shadow of Death nearby, but at least now I was able to run or fight. The ponies stationed in the square to distribute the food thanked us for our delivery, and dismissed us swiftly. So we regrouped and made our way towards the gates.
Once again, I started feeling my body tense up, hairs standing on end and joints locking up, muscles freezing and the sense of dread returning to my stomach. I looked up at the rooftops, and thought I saw the faintest hint of someone ducking behind a wall. I paused, staring at the position. But something else caught my attention. The smell of oil. I smelled it everywhere around me, but couldn't detect where it was.
"Oi. Gray. The hell is up with you today?" Ice barked back at me.
"Something's not right," I warned, feeling my sense of dread growing. "We shouldn't be here."
"Yeah. I know. We should be back home, in a bar, hitting on mares. But we're here, and that's just reality," he dismissed, stepping towards me. He put his hoof on my shoulder in a gesture of reassurance, but the small of oil was near suffocating. Magnes and Strong soon began approaching. A sudden, sharp spike of panic stabbed me as soon as I saw that. I shoved Ice away from me as hard as I could.
"No! Get back!"
[Insert explosion sound here]
I lost my balance soon afterwards, falling forwards and to my left, my leg failing to catch me. I hit the ground hard, the wind being knocked out of my chest by the hard ground. My ears shut down, leaving nothing but a shrill ring behind. Sharp pain shot up my leg and out to the rest of my body. The sensation of burning seared at my left shoulder where Ice had touched me with his oily hoof. I turned and looked over my injuries. A hefty shard of wood was sticking out of both sides of my left forehoof, and my left shoulder was on fire. I calmly patted it out with my right hoof as though it was no big deal.
Once I'd taken care of that, I looked around to assess what else had happened. Thick black smoke filled the air, and there was a ring of fire around us. The buildings we'd been passing by had huge cracks across the walls, charred black from the explosion. The mass of wooden crates was now a scattered mess of flaming wooden shrapnel, scattered around the street. I saw Ice laying on the ground, writhing and screaming in pain, his face hidden from view. Magnes was on the ground, and laying still, but I could tell he was trying to keep from screaming. Strong, on the other hoof, was still standing in a defensive stance, his entire right side charred black. His face was tightly grit with agony, but I could tell he'd managed to save Magnes an immense amount of suffering by taking it upon himself. Blood was everywhere. A pool of it was forming where Ice's face should have been, as there was beneath my leg. A small puddle was forming under Strong's belly, oozing slowly from his burnt side, and dripping down to the stone road below. Magnes was the only one who wasn't severely bleeding at that point, but then again, his hooves were twisted and jerked every-which-way.
Vinyl shuddered at the imagery. Never before had she ever felt queasy, but now she did. She paused for a moment, setting the old book down, and looking up at her ceiling, just breathing. It took her a few minutes to get herself back to normal. "Son of a bitch…" she breathed. "Time for a walk and something to eat."