Summer of My Human Soldier

by KFDirector

The Pioneers

“ 'mornin', pardner—didya sleep o—” Applejack stopped, interrupted by the sight of the state of the barn loft. Dexter, bleary-eyed, was on his knees with a bucket and a scrub brush; piles of sawdust had been made on different spots on the floor. The odor in the air told its own story as well. “I reckon no, then. Were ya sick?”

Dexter looked up from his scrubbing. “I—uh—yes. I was ill. Didn't want to bother you. Thought I'd just clean it up. Lost track of time.”

The sun was indeed rising, which made it quite late by their standards. Applejack sat back on her haunches, and set a hoof gently on Dexter's back. “The party food? Pinkie Pie put in something y'all couldn't eat?”

The human closed his eyes for a moment and shook his head. After a moment, he croaked. “Nightmare.”

Applejack was startled. “Nightmare?”

“Flashback, rather. You ever been strangled by a unicorn, ma'am?”

“Can't say that I have. Like to keep it that way, if'n I could. I thought you were okay after last night?”

“Thought I was too. Tried to sleep. It all came back. I'll—I'll be fine. Just let me finish cleaning this and then I'll get started working.”

“No.” Applejack adjusted Dexter's head with her hoof so that he was looking at her. “You're a wreck. You're not doing any farm work for me today.”

“Please.” Dexter's face was in need of a strong wash. “I need to be doing something. I can't keep thinking about—”

“Tell ya what. Apple Bloom's class is havin' a field trip today—y'all can meet up with them, and finally meet Granny Smith, like Apple Bloom's been askin' about. C'mon. Come get breakfast. We can worry about this mess later.”

---

“Comrade Foggy Night—a word?”

As a younger pony, less composed, the Commissar might have dropped a few horse apples at the icy tone in his ruler's voice, but he kept himself collected to merely a cold sweat, as he remained behind in the council room. The rest of the ponies filed out, leaving him alone with Premier Luna—or perhaps, indeed, Nightmare Moon, as in this light, she looked taller and darker, and her voice had a sinister depth to it.

The tall winged unicorn looked down at him, and he gulped. “How may I be of use, Comrade Luna?”

She walked behind him, beginning to circle as she spoke. “Comrade Foggy Night, I do believe I some time ago directed that you organize a search for the Elements of Harmony, did I not?”

The wingless unicorn kept his muzzle shut.

“That was a question, Comrade. Questions should be answered.”

He cleared his throat one more time, and spoke quickly. “Yes, Comrade Luna, I do recall receiving such an objective.”

“‘Do...recall...receiving...’” She chuckled. “And do you recall acting on such an objective?”

Foggy Night considered his position, and the relative survival value of honesty.

The princess's voice whispered sharply in his ear as he thought this through. “I am waiting.”

“No, Comrade Luna, I have not taken meaningful steps on this objective.”

A dark purple field of ponykinetic energy shimmered around his body. “I thought not. Shall you explain yourself?”

He didn't bother to press against the field, knowing that the princess's magic was far greater than he could possibly approach on his best day. “Having many objectives, including the suppression of treason among the old nobility, I did not believe the search for a mythical superweapon was a high priority.” He did not expect to survive the next minute.

Nightmare Moon began to validate his expectation, as the energy field blasted him back and pressed him tightly against a wall. The pressure relented after a moment, allowing his hooves to touch the cold stone floor again.

“'Mythical.'” She chuckled again, and Foggy Night felt no better for it. She stalked forward, towards him. “Comrade, a history lesson, if you please. Before I came down to lead the Lunar Revolution, where exactly was I?”

“The—the moon, Comrade.” Though he was no longer pressed against a wall, the ponykinesis still saw to his having no freedom of movement.

“And how did I get there?”

Foggy Night did not answer. He had not been in Canterlot in 1866.

“Do you imagine, Comrade, that my dear sister concealed a cannon in the throne room, by which means to hurtle her unsuspecting foes to the moon? Perhaps she also left me with a supply of some of her favorite colonial fruit, the noble banana, as rations for the journey? Is this what you think happened?”

He gulped. “Nay, Comrade.” The absurdity of the suggestion would not make him laugh until quite some time later.

“Of course not. No, she used the Elements of Harmony—a weapon of cruel mercy, so like her, that will do everything except kill their target—for she demands suffering and calls it repentance, and will not content herself with mere annihilation. I know, Comrade, that they are real. Do you know how I know that?”

“Because—because they were used on you, Comrade?”

“Well, you are a quick study! And also, because my sister and I employed them ourselves against the great elder enemies of ponykind. They are the truest symbols of power most ancient. It may be the Elements of Discord—deceit, selfishness, treachery, cruelty, self-importance—that time and again topple the throne, but it is the Elements of Harmony which properly fashion the new one.”

Foggy Night rose up on chains of ponykinesis until his eyes were level with hers. Her face now neutral, she stared hard into his soul, awaiting his response.

“Your Majesty wishes to first root out those who have the power to raise a credible opposition government, before disposing of traitors more generally?”

Nightmare Moon chortled. “If that is the only way your impoverished mind, shackled by the mundane and devoid of faith in the greater magic of the universe, can comprehend this command, then yes, My Majesty wishes this.” There was a hint of sneer as the pretense at camaraderie was, for the moment, abandoned. “How will you carry out my will?”

The chains began to loosen, and Foggy Night began to breathe easier. “By executing, with utmost diligence, a search for the Elements of Harmony.”

“Then I believe I am keeping you from your work.” The chains released at once, dropping Foggy Night onto the floor. His aching hips strained to preserve his dignity and balance, as he did not stumble and his hooves did not slip. “Go.”

---

“Well now, whippersnapper, ain't you just the spittin' image of Jack.”

Dexter was fairly impressed than this elderly green-coated earth pony was herself totally unimpressed by him. Apple Bloom, sitting on the disinfected tile floor of the senior center, looked up eagerly at her grandmother. For the human's part, Dexter had just sort of knelt in front of her, so as to speak more clearly into her ears, as the senior pony rocked in her chair.

“I hope I'm not, ma'am. We spent a few generations trying to breed that nose out of our family.”

“Whaa...? Oh, oh, right, that schnozz of his. Always thought he might have a bit of pony in him. But you've got the same mane, the same eyes, the same voice....” Granny Smith patted Dexter's shoulders with her hooves. “The same strong body. Did I ever tell you about the adventure we had together?”

“I've never met you before, ma'am, so no.”

“Well now—”

---

“Jack! Jack!” The young man lifted his maul, leaving the wedge in the stack of firewood, and looked from his work to the little girl running towards him.

“What is it, Annarose?” He asked, in the accent of a first-generation Hessian immigrant.

“The Apples need our help!”

“Our help?” He smiled, patting the six-year-old on the head.

“Yes! I help by bringing you! You help with the rest!”

“Very good. Go tell papa. I will go to them. Their homestead, yes?”

The young man walked alongside a small creek, heading upstream—it would not be hard to pick out the ponies' homestead on the Colorado prairie: while his family struggled to grow wheat for selling to gold and coal and silver miners, the earth ponies had somehow managed to make healthy apple trees emerge from the sandy loam.

As he neared the farm, he felt growing concern when only two of the Apples were out—the young Fraulein Smith, and her mother. He picked up his pace to meet them.

“Guten morning, Apples. What is the matter?”

The green pony with pigtails answered for the marefolk. “Father and the brothers—they are missing.” She pointed with her hoof west, towards the mountains.

Jack nodded. “How long?”

“They left yesterday morning to meet a new homesteader and help her find her way—”

He nodded again. “Too long.” He hefted his hammer across his shoulders, and looked at the matriarch. “Madam Apple, I will need Fraulein Smith. My nose is not nearly as sharp as it should be by rights. You should remain here, in case they return.”

The older mare looked displeased. “Do not presume to order me, young man. But...” She sighed. “Please, help bring back my family.”

Smith and Jack headed west and, generally, upwards, making good progress through foothills. “Fraulein Smith, I do not believe your mama likes me.”

“She just wants you to be more respectful to her. Ponies are not humans. Mares are not submissive to stallions. Our goddesses see to that.”

Without a priest of his church within a hundred miles and not being on friendly terms with the Methodist preacher a few miles away, he didn't feel this was a good time to argue religion with his pony friend. He changed the subject. “So who is this homesteader they were going to find?”

“Her name is Minuette. She's a dentist.”

---

“Hold on,” Dexter said, interrupting. “A dentist? Just how many ponies were there in the area, that they could need a dentist that early?”

“Oh...” Granny Smith, said, rocking thoughtfully. “Probably less than a hundred, that year, that was just before the Great Settlement—but she could work on any kind of teeth, even human teeth. And there were enough of you around, weren't there?”

---

“Oh no—” Smith started in shock as they crested a ridge, to see a wide swath of spruce and fir trees knocked over.

“This is fresh,” Jack said, nodding to himself. “My friend the wood-collector would have already picked these up otherwise.”

“What could have made this?” Smith asked, as she took in the scope of the damage.

“Many angry beavers?” Jack asked back.

Smith thought about this, and then shook her head. “No, see, the trees have just been snapped; they have not been gnawed on at all—”

“That was only a joke, Fraulein.” Jack sighed. He wasn't certain if his English was just that bad or if ponies just didn't get jokes. “It looks like something very large.”

Smith nodded. “And it seems to have followed papa and my brothers. We have to hurry!”

---

“And then, from out of nowhere—timber wolves!” The young fillies on the floor hushed in terror.

“Wolves?” Dexter asked.

“Timber wolves!”

---

“Dogs made of wood—” Jack said, incredulously, backing a step up as he gripped the maul with both hands. “I blame you ponies. This is the sort of silly thing you bring with you.”

Smith mouthed a rock off the ground and bounced it up in the air with her nose. “And we can raise apple trees upon earth on which you cannot grow wheat.”

“That too is silly.”

One of the three growling timber wolves took the first step forward—Smith turned on her legs and bucked the falling rock, sending it hurtling straight into its face. The wolf whimpered and beat a retreat, while its two fellows leaped forward.

Jack unleashed a cry—“Gott mit uns!”—as he advanced to intercept, swinging his hammer. The head of the maul he connected with the head of the right timber wolf, and he tried to carry the momentum to the side to strike at the other one as it continued to move.

A mere glancing blow he managed, as the third timber wolf continued well past him, towards Smith.

The pig-tailed earth pony didn't have the time for another rock, so she quickly launched another buck—she didn't squarely connect with the wooden dog, but deflected its charge to an angle.

Sprinting quickly, Jack raised his hammer and bellowed again. The timberwolf stopped on its heels to meet the new threat, spinning and snarling as the hammer dropped.

One pony, one dog, and one human cried out—two in pain, one in fright.

Jack pulled the wooden fangs, and the skull still attached to them, out of his side. “This wound will need whiskey when we get back. Too bad it is not yet cider season.”

The rest of the wolf body was more tinder than timber at his feet, and Smith looked around. “We need to move quickly, Jack. The timber wolves might come back with the rest of their pack.”

“It was not my intent to dawdle, Fraulein. Do you think your family is close?”

She sniffed. “Yes. And something else.”

“More timber wolves?”

“They are hard to smell. They smell like wood. No, something else. Something...strange.”

“Stranger than dogs made of timber?”

“Yes.”

“Well.” Jack tested the weight of his hammer again. “I am glad you interrupted me in firewood splitting, and not cow milking. A bucket would not have been of much help, I think.”

---

“We kept up through the hills for a few hours more—oh, we saw a few more timber wolves, but they smelled sawdust on Jack's hammer and kept their distance—the wind was doing funny things, and that's why I thought we were so much closer than we were. But finally...”

---

”Smith! Jack!” A voice hissed quietly. “Over here!”

They turned their heads to see the Apple patriarch crouching under a small natural shelter. “Quickly!” He hissed again.

The pony and human complied quickly, squeezing under the rock.

“Herr Apple—what is going on? Where are the others?”

“Hiding as well, I hope.” The father shook his head. “We had just met up with Miss Minuette when we heard this terrible roar. An Ursa.”

“Ursa—a bear?”

“Not just a bear—an Ursa, maybe minor, maybe major, not sure.”

“I do not understand, Herr—”

A peal of thunder echoed through the mountain valley, so terrible and mighty that it took Jack a good ten seconds to realize that it was not, in fact, thunder. Further rumbles followed, as the origin of the roar stepped into view.

From under the shelter, Jack looked up. A long, long way, up.

“—Scheisse.”

The shape of the beast suggested a grizzly bear, with rather more pronounced fangs—the ones jutting out of the front of its maw probably longer than Jack was tall, if his depth perception was not deceiving him. As for the texture, it was rather like looking into the night sky on a clear dry night, with just a shade of glowing purple to set the fur apart from the sky. As for the size—Jack had nothing to compare it to. It was smaller, perhaps, than the mountain on which they were standing—but smaller than nothing else of which he could readily think.

---

Granny Smith stopped and looked at Dexter. Dexter's attention was rapt. “Well, young'n? Aren't you going to interrupt me with somethin' or other?”

“No. Go on, ma'am.”

---

Jack crossed himself. “What is our plan, Herr Apple?”

“You think I have a plan for an Ursa? I was thinking that we cower in fear until it gets bored and leaves us alone.”

“Maybe that is not a bad plan.” The two ponies and the human breathed quietly, watching as the Ursa swiped a massive claw at some of the few spruce trees still standing. “Are these Ursas always so angry?”

“How would I know? Yesterday was the first time I saw one.”

“He has been so angry all this time?”

Herr Apple nodded, and Jack gulped.

“Hey—can I join you guys?”

The three under the rock jumped only a few inches, since the shelter didn't leave much more room than that. A minty-blue unicorn mare squirmed under the rock with them, squeezing Jack between Smith and herself.

“Ah, good day, Fraulein. You must be Fraulein Minuette? I am Jack. Welcome to our rock.”

The mint unicorn nodded quickly. “Nice to meet you, Jack. Listen, I've got a plan.”

Jack nodded earnestly himself. “Good. We already have a plan ourselves, but maybe your plan is better. I am always open.”

The Ursa grabbed the last spruce tree still erect, and screaming deeply, ripped it straight out of the ground.

“See? Right there? That's the key!”

“Yes.” Jack nodded again. “Indeed, his ability to uproot an entire tree with one paw will surely prove his undoing. I look forward to hearing this plan in detail.”

“No, no—look at his face! Look at the way his mouth is lopsided when he roars!”

Jack looked at it. He couldn't really see past the teeth, but supposed the bear's face might not be quite symmetrical.

Minuette sighed at not getting through to the others faster. “The Ursa has a toothache!”

---

“A toothache?” Apple Bloom interrupted. “Granny, I think I've heard this story before.”

“Oh, I bet you have, half-pint. This part of the story got around quite a bit afterward, don't you know, but they didn't mention Jack's involvement, or usually even mine.”

---

”You know,” Jack said, “I like this plan.”

“You do?” Herr Apple stared at the human incredulously.

“Yes. When your plan, Herr Apple, kills me, it will be after a long time, when I am weak and tired and hungry and cursing Gott for leading me here. When Fraulein Minuette's plan kills me, it will be very quick and very soon and while I am still praying to Gott in a good way. So I will do Fraulein Minuette's plan.”

“Well, you won't do it alone,” Smith said, fiercely determined. “I will do what I can on the ground to keep it looking the other way.”

“Don't get it too riled up,” Minuette cautioned. “We don't need any sudden movements screwing us up.”

“Right,” Smith said, getting out from under the rock shelter, and mouthing some pine cones for ammo. “'et's 'et 'oo it.”

Smith charged off towards the Ursa’s side; Jack and Minuette themselves scrambled up from under the rock, and sprinted towards the back of the Ursa. Minuette's horn glowed as they charged, a field of ponykinesis making Jack's body a bit lighter and his pace a bit faster, as they dashed through the shattered forest.

The first pine cone bounced off the nose of the Ursa, and it looked at the green earth pony in the debris, rubbing its face in as much bemusement as anything.

Reaching the back of the great bear, Minuette shifted the glow of her ponykinesis, no longer lightening Jack's body but her own—it would take hands to quickly climb the furry, starry, body of the bear, and the human could not move quickly with the full weight of the unicorn—she leapt onto his back, in what would in happier moments have been called a glomp.

Jack tightened his grip around a knot of fur, and began to climb. There were more handholds than a boulder scramble or a cottonwood tree, but climbing in general was still not the kind of work he was used to, and he wished he had a free hand to cross himself again as he began to ascend. Instead he just started a murmured prayer—“Heilige Maria,” he began.

Smith darted to one side as the Ursa took a leisurely swipe of its claws, and launched another shot—it didn't quite hit the Ursa's left eye, but was close enough to get it to swing a paw to block. Bemusement had now turned to annoyance, and it stomped forward after her.

Carrying the weight of both the unicorn and the sledgehammer—which the unicorn had insisted they would need—Jack was feeling the strain, and relying on little more than faith and adrenaline to press forward—at last they had advanced far enough up the back to be able to peer over the shoulder and see the face.

Minuette waved her hoof over the shoulder, getting Smith's attention. The earth pony on the ground nodded, and knocked the largest pine cone she had straight at its nose. With more accuracy than she had intended, the pine cone landed directly with the beast's nostril—far too small to block it, but apparently just large enough to—

Oddly, Jack thought, the sneeze hadn't seemed to make any sound at all. He realized later that this was because he had momentarily gone deaf. A great storm of dust and wood chips was blown up on the ground, swirling in a storm, and Smith had been toppled end over end, sprawled in a pile of tree limbs.

(“Now”), Minuette mouthed, as the Ursa held its mouth open, perhaps about to sneeze again. Jack ran across the shoulder of the beast, and at the last moment, jumped, feeling the unicorn's magic boost him across as well. An impossibly wide span later, they landed on the tongue of the Ursa, and rolled forward, catching themselves at the very front of its jaw. Jack couldn't hear anything yet, but saw another blast of air pummel the ruins of the woods.

Smith looked up in panic, trying to untangle herself and get away, as the Ursa lurched forward at her. One step, a second step—she just managed to pull herself out of one set of trunks when another one pinned her other leg—and a great starry shadow loomed overhead, and then fell.

---

“And then I died!”

The fillies, and Dexter, blinked.

“Well, no, I suppose I didn't. But I would have, if some human hunter hadn't dug some kind of pit trap there a long time before.”

---

The fragile covering of dirt-and-leaf-caked sticks crumbled under the pressure of the earth pony and the Ursa pushing down on her, and she fell into a dark hole—she grunted in pain as she struck the earth, but was alive, which was more than she was expecting. She looked up at the stars of the Ursa's fur—the beast's foot was clearly much wider than this hole, and that meant, for the moment, she was safe.

“Fraulein Smith!” Jack cried out in panic, starting to hear himself again.

“C'mon! We've got to do this before it starts to chew!”

Jack looked up at the ceiling of teeth, and remembered why he had signed onto this plan: the promise of a quicker death. It indeed looked pretty quick at this point.

He worked his way between the edge of the teeth and the tongue, while Minuette perched atop the teeth, leaping from one to another, illuminating the cavernous mouth with her horn. “No—no—not that one—oh! There!” She cast her light onto one specific tooth, snaggled and rotting. “That's got to be the one. We need to extract it.”

Jack beheld the tooth in question. It was definitely larger than he was—it was larger than any two cows on his family's farm.

“Extract, Fraulein?”

“Extract!”

Jack didn't know precisely how dentistry was supposed to work—but when all he had was a sledgehammer, this problem looked a lot like a pile of wood that needed splitting. He hefted his hammer, and breathed deep, even on the pungent air of the Ursa's maw.

“You work on that! I'll go block his nose so he has to breathe through his mouth!”

“That sounds like a very terrible idea, but okay.” Jack dropped the hammer.

---

“And then what?”

“How should I know, young'n? I wasn't there; I was in a hole in the ground!”

Dexter stammered angrily. “You—you've been telling about all kinds of things you weren't there for!”

“Relax, relax, young'n, I'm only teasin'. So, I imagine Jack hit the tooth with that hammer quite a few times, until finally it broke apart, and the rotted pieces came loose. The beast roared again, and—”

---

Jack opened his mouth in a voiceless cry of pain as he hit the ground below, smeared in the Ursa's blood, the wind knocked out of him from his sudden ejection. He tried to lift himself up, but found that the strength hadn't yet returned to him—

Far above him, Minuette ducked back inside the beast's roaring mouth, her ponykinetic glow illuminating her, and vanished.

(“Please,”) Jack prayed, unable to give breath to his voice. (“Let this work.”)

The Ursa roared one more time, and then stopped, patting at its jaw with its paw. It seemed confused for a moment, and looked around at the wrecked landscape, as astonished as a drunkard might be to wake up in someone else's family room.

Just before it turned around to go wandering off elsewhere, Jack saw a minty-blue shape slip out of its mouth and slow its descent to the ground with a ponykinetic glow.

Smith grunted as she finished crawling out of the pit, and onto valley floor, where she sprawled. Jack looked at her; she at Jack, both sighed, too tired to smile at being alive. They laid where they fell, focusing on breathing and little else.

Minuette walked up to them, beaming happily. “Thank you, you two. You've helped me save the future.”

Jack pushed his head and back up off the ground, though he still was seated.

“We have what?”

“Saved the future,” Minuette nodded again, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. Her horn glowed again, and behind her a glowing portal in the air opened up, as if swung by the advance of a clock's minute hand. “I'm sorry; the communities around Boulder Valley will have to wait a little longer for a dentist. But I'm sure you'll do fine.” And with that, she stepped into the glowing portal, vanishing.

---

“And so it was that our very first dentist was also actually a time-traveler! Isn't that something?”

Apple Bloom stared at her Granny in some amazement, some confusion. “I—I don't remember that part of the story.”

“Oh, that's another one of the parts that didn't make it in the common rumor mill.”

The fillies looked skeptical, and did not notice the look of amazement and understanding on Dexter's face. He muttered to himself, time and again—“She was telling me the truth.” Finally Granny Smith noticed him doing so.

“Pardon, young'n?”

“She—she told me the truth.” Dexter stood up. “Apple Bloom—I'm sorry—tell Miss Applejack I went to the library. I need to talk to Miss Twilight Sparkle. I need to apologize to her.”

And completely swimming in the past, the future, and in anything but the present, the prisoner of war rushed out of the Ponyville Senior Center.