What Then?
The wind whipped over the plains, creating literal waves within the lush grass for tens of miles in every direction. Uncountable patches of flowers were woven within the sea of wild grass, dancing along with the directed cadence of the flowing gusts of wind as they took in all the light afforded on this cloudless day.
Yet a single, Alemaneian mare’s voice interjected through the majestic sounds of the wild:
“Well… we’re here,” she spoke with her distinct accent… one that had thinned over the decades of living in Equestria.
Said mare had stepped a few paces beyond her two friends that accompanied her, and her old, lavender eyes took in the sight before her. As the wind flowed through her now-gray mane and her faded-white coat, she closed her eyes and took a deep, calming breath.
While the earth pony’s friends caught up to her, the Alemaneian turned her gaze downward and found a lone flower—a poppy—that had bloomed by her right hoof… a hoof which was composed of ceramic in perfect reflection of what was lost all of those years ago.
A smile crossed her face, which highlighted a couple wrinkles on her cheeks, though her thoughts were interrupted when to her right, an elderly Anglomane earth-pony stallion stepped next to her, and heralded his arrival when his left leg—entirely reconstructed with beautiful, furnished wood—knocked into a stone.
His beige coat had also faded with time, and his mane—once jet-black like her own—had gone completely white and short. His brown eyes were accented with simple glasses. He moved slowly, like they all did at their age… but his youthful complexion never really left his face. It was always something she envied, though he assured her that her own looks never left her.
He added his own distinctly accented observation:
“Indeed…” he said and shook his head. “I can’t believe I never came here before now. After all this time…” he reflected with a distinct forlornness in his voice.
The Alemaneian warmly smiled at him—a smile that held so much love for a life-long friend—and shrugged.
“Ja… but, better late than never, hmm?” she asked.
Her third friend joined them, and he—a Prench batpony stallion with a dark-gray coat and a silver mane and tail over age much like her—answered on behalf of the Anglomane:
“Oui, mine too… but…” he hesitated, shaking his head. “I wish I had the courage to come here… before both my eyes went,” he said.
The Alemaneian mare regarded him with some measure of sadness in regard to what he meant by his words. The eyepatch over his right eye had been there for as long as she had known him—a relic from the war. With age, his remaining, golden eye had developed a cataract, and his vision beyond right in front of him was quite poor.
As a batpony, she knew that his echolocation capabilities allowed him to continue life as normal. But in this situation, it could not help him see what she was seeing.
Still, she smiled at him.
“You made it though. Even though it’s not my first time back… we can finally say that we all did.”
And after uttering those words, and staring back over the plains, something overcame her… a wave of fatigue. Her legs and hooves started to wobble a bit, and the strength in her haunches had slowly left her over the passing moments.
But she was not afraid.
In fact, she sighed out blissfully as she listened to her body, and shakily sat down in the grass.
And apparently, her slight difficulty and sudden change in posture did not go unnoticed by her two friends.
“Are you alright?” the Anglomane asked.
“Mon amie, ça va?” the batpony also asked with equal measure of concern.
She, however, only smiled as she continued to look out onto the fields that expanded out to the horizon.
“Mhmm!” she said, then sighed out again. “It’s been a long journey for this old body. I’ve made this trip so many times from Equestria to visit my homeland and pay my respects at Seele… but this time, I think it may be my last.”
Her two friends sat down one after the other, on either side of her. They sat close enough to lean into one another.
The Anglomane piped up:
“You think so?”
She nodded.
“Ja… I think so. After the war, and after living in Equestria for a few years, I came back here for my first time to face my fears. I then did so every single year. Not saying I’ll die tomorrow, but I don’t think I can travel very far anymore.”
She then angled her face to either side of her, to look both of her friends in the eyes.
“But… I’m so glad to have you both with me, if this is my last.”
They both smiled and nodded, and a silence fell upon the trio. She could feel absolutely no discomfort nor awkwardness between the three of them, and she took this time to let her eyes fall shut and again, just exist in the moment…
…and silently pay respects to what happened almost six decades ago.
To a time when the three of them were most certainly not friends.
After an undetermined number of minutes of letting the rolling wind crash and break in pulses on their faces like the waves of a coastline, her Prench friend to her left spoke up:
“Mes amies… my eye can’t see far anymore. Please tell me, what does Seele look like now?”
She and her Anglomane friend took a moment to themselves to bask in the beauty of what they were seeing, and what it all meant to them before she finally responded:
“It’s all regrown,” she began. “There’s no mud to be seen. Only grass… wild, untamed grass. Flowers are everywhere, dancing there in the wind. All colors—blue, green, red, yellow… in all combinations. Just like when I used to frolic here as a filly.”
The Anglomane stallion also added to that:
“I had never been here before the war. And as a pony who’s never seen this place before then… I pity you, ya Prench bastard, that you can’t see entirely how beautiful it is here. I really do. I wish you could live this as fully with us as we are now.”
The batpony giggled coarsely, then coughed a couple of times before delivering his answer, smiling:
“D’accord… and are our…” his words trailed off.
Alemaneian and Anglomane both regarded him questioningly.
“Hmm?” she asked.
“Are the scars we all left still here? Or were they washed away with time?”
The mare only had to take one look to answer his question:
“Nein…” she shook her head. “The scars remain. They always will—but they have healed. Our trenches are only divot lines in the fields. The weapons that were left behind… the cannons were reclaimed by nature and they’re all rusted now. Unusable.”
The batpony nodded.
“Good. It’s better that way. The world needs a reminder of what happened here. Of what happened during the war. I honestly hope these scars never leave… something has to remain when we’re all gone,” he said.
That’s when the weight of his words truly hit her in her core, and she lowered her head for a moment.
Her Prench friend was right. Once, there where hundreds of thousands of ponies just like them. Millions, actually. But now, the number of veterans who had served and fought were dwindling.
They were a dying breed.
She nodded nonetheless.
“Mm. Maybe you’re right. Seele will never be what it once was… from before we ravaged it in that final battle…”
The Anglomane stallion then voiced:
“Then we’re all in agreement… that perhaps that’s for the best.”
Silence wreathed the three of them again, and like her friends, she closed her eyes to truly feel the sun’s rays fall upon her face. The warmth spread across her face and through her chest, serving to heat up that still-powerfully beating heart under her aging sternum. And through her little meditation, and the previous words of her friends, something stirred inside her…
…another very important question.
She opened her eyes and spoke anew:
“What do you think will happen when we’re gone? When the last of us dies?”
She could feel both questioning gazes direct at her from either side of her face, but the answer came from her right:
“Huh? What do you mean? Veterans of the war?”
She nodded.
“Natürlich… what do you think will happen when we soldiers, ones who actually fought, are gone?”
Her Prench friend offered his words first:
“I don’t know… life will go on, I suppose… like it always has, oui?”
She shook her head.
“Not exactly what I mean… will we be remembered? Our lessons? Our sacrifices?” she asked.
The Anglomane added:
“That’s what we’ve worked for our entire lives—to prevent something like this…” he gestured out towards the massive plains which held so much terrible history.
“…from ever happening again. We owed it to ourselves, to all who fought in the war, and to those who never made it out. Especially to the ones who are buried beneath us, here.”
She bobbed her head yet again.
“Right… and there’s never been a major conflict on Equidaen continent, or even near Equestria since. Hell, even in the world, really. What we showed the world mattered. The war ended almost sixty years ago… but it never really did end for us, did it?”
Both Prench and Anglomane shook their heads and muttered their own agreements:
“Nope. Certainly didn’t.”
“Non.”
“But when we’re dead… will it matter anymore? Were our efforts, our sacrifices, our nightmares… were they all written in ink and stone so the younger generations—the future leaders—can learn from us when we’re gone? Or were they written in dirt?
“We remember. But will others? Will war come again after we cease to exist?”
The batpony sighed out heavily.
“I don’t know. At our age, I think all we can do is put trust in the younger generation. All we can do is have faith at this point… faith that none of our grandchildren will end up like…”
She heard him pause for the briefest of moments, but her trained ear over the years could hear the slightest quiver in his voice.
“…end up like us.”
The Anglomane then added:
“…or killed.”
She considered the words of two of her closest friends and mirrored their sighs.
“But what if they don’t heed any of it? What if, when it’s all said and done, it was all for nothing? What if the hounds of war come to this world again and no one like us is left to try and stop it?”
The Prench batpony reiterated his words:
“We have to have faith in the younger generation, mon amie. That if things get bad, they’ll do the right thing. We must have faith that we’ve taught them well.”
She then asked:
“And if we haven’t? What if the future proves otherwise?”
Simple, yet powerful words fell on her ears from her right:
“Then that’s just the future we’ll have to accept.”
She slowly let her breath escape her as she returned her stare to the Seele Plains in front of them. Where once their words interrupted the quiet symphony of the wild—much like the artifacts of a war past—nature slowly began to reclaim its throne, and tenderly embrace the former battlefield in peace.
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Awesome. So beautiful to read while listening to that music.
1918 words eh? I'm sure its just purely a coincidence that's the same year a certain "Great War" ended
1918...
You wonderful bastard
This is a beautiful story, Flam.
You say here, so very eloquently, what most all veterans (like myself) hope...that the next generation will learn and not give in to hate, that the young will not be scared from war and that we learn to live in peace.
I hope for it every day.
We shall not sleep,
though poppies grow,
In Flanders fields.
”In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.”
Very nice.
Not sure if this will be to your taste, but Sting wrote an excellent song Children's Crusade a while back. The contrast he makes at the end between the time of WW1 and the present day is also interesting.
Lest We Forget
Heartrending
Is the title a reference to a line in A Light in the Black by Sabaton?
Very nice story
What war? WWI happened in Equestria? Who were they fighting and why? This equates far too much with OUR Great War, but tells us nothing of THEIR Great War.
Taking the purely narrative construction position, there's too little information here to become invested without foreknowledge of events taking place not only outside this small snippet, but events which took place completely outside the universe of the story.
From the standpoint of an MLP-based world, no pieces fit into the known world of the show, and too little is presented to explain this major historical event from an alt-universe perspective.
Some details sewn in, which would naturally feel bidden from the characters' dialog, would be quite helpful in fleshing out the details, especially the placement of this timeline, at the very least in the story's own boundaries. Could this be something which took place just after NMM was sealed away? Just after Discord (making a conflict post-NMM akin to WWII). Or, further back, a conflict between the 3 Tribes some years before the Hearths Warming event?
As it is, it's a very isolated scene which floats about in a narrative void.
9489028
You should go read The Flower Mare. It explains everything better than I ever could.
9489028
No u.
Just kidding! But actually, thanks for letting me know this because this was kinda what I was going for. I was very intentionally vague with this story, much unlike my other ones which cover a similar (or the same) topic. I deliberately gave no names and only enough context as to what I felt was appropriate. It was only the applicable message that I felt it was a conduit for.
If that’s not your cuppa tea, I totally get it. But nevertheless thanks a lot for taking the time to voice your opinion on it! Feedback like that helps me a lot
9489074
He could do that. But I don’t feel he has to—I think this story stands on its own, or at least I intentionally tried to write it that way with its deliberate vagueness
9488156
Thanks man!! :D
9488157
9488161
Oh just puuuuuure coincidence you know me
Light in the Black and the Price of a Mile are two songs that definitely work with this. Always good to see something from you Flammenwerfer.
I, for one, am determined to remember. The things I've learned over the past couple years of looking into The Great War are so much larger than I expected, and so much more meaningful. It's been - and still is - an incredible journey watching my preconceptions dashed at every turn, because it is a shame to see how things are so overshadowed in our collective consciousness by what came after.
But then, that's the same thing I think Schneeblume was struggling with. Will anyone remember - truly remember - the lessons learned, or simply take them as ancient footnotes that can be easily stashed in away for disuse?
I wonder if, as an allegory to our own perceptions, Schneeblume has to deal with the populist idea that her nation is wholly responsible, when that is distinctly not the case. One of the more aggressive, certainly, but not the holder of blame.
Quite powerful and well-written.
There are no veterans left of the Great War, and those left from World War II are dwindling few. We must learn their wisdom while they are still alive to tell us, and preserve it for future generations, that the tragedy of war may be averted when possible, and endured with honor when impossible. As always, your writings convey this so beautifully.
LOL and today the kids are doing their best to bring back communism. Lets bring back smallpox too!
Mmm...is that ever the burning question now and always...will those after us now, from war or otherwise, learn from history, or be doomed to make the same mistakes again?...
I can honestly state that the younger generations have learned NOTHING they are repeating the failures of the past, I know someone that lived through pre WW2 germany and lived through WW2 in germany then lived through post WW2 in east germany, many things there are starting to repeat again.
You want to get on a plane, train or bus you need a special ID ( costs $130 where I live for that ID), you say someone is fat and ugly they are looking at laws that can get you thrown in jail for that, your kid wants to share a picture of himself with the nerf gun he got for christmas they are looking to pass a law that will get you thrown in jail if he does, where I live now idiots voted in law that now allows cops to enter your home and take property without a warrant, it is going downhill really fast.
I see you used Sabaton as an inspiration, so I wondered if you'd heard the news
A WW1 album is a go!
set for release a few months from now, some 100 years after the signing of the treaty of versaille.
9544514
I saw!! Honestly can’t wait
9491992
Obviously we have.
It's just....not everyone has, as we creep further and further to nuclear extinction, and finish a long coming terracide, those of us who know the history of the previous generations realize that the ones in power never paid attention in history class.
And as such i think we'll be smart enough to get the fuck off-world if that tech becomes available before our destruction of our own doing.
Nothing is ever set in stone
.
Coming back to this, after several years...
It's not for nothing. It's never for nothing. Even if everyone else forgets, we who are of the Ancient and Loyal Order of Them What Has Been Shot At remember. And, once in a while, we draw on what we remember to tell the ones who forgot and those who never knew that this ain't a video game, or a board game.
The tragedy is that those who never knew, never listen...