I seem to have stretched out the 'coming months' thing by about a year in this chapter due to lack of planning, but hopefully from now on I should be pretty consistent (hopefully)

A huge thanks to everybody... er... everypony rather, who gave me awesome feedback on the first chapters and gave me the encouragement to continue that story

The really supportive awesome people who everypony should check out:
Drunk Ragdoll
GeekBeam
ChainReaction

Silent has a Tumblr where you can ask her anything here

One more quick thing: Feel free to use anything in this story as inspiration for your own story or work of art, just send me a note on fimfiction or deviantart when you post it up. It really excites me when people want to use my content in their works. also, if you decide to use Silent in anything i ask that you credit me as her creator.

Looking up, she could see a jet black cloud coming towards her, covering up the blood red sky. She was lying in the small crater where she had fallen, covered in painful cuts and bruises after being smashed out of the air. She could hear the clangs of swords and the screams of pain that was coming from other ponies around her. She was weak and powerless to do anything to stop the slaughter and her vision was quickly fading. Finally she let her eyes just relax closed and she could hear an intimate voice beside her ear. "You hate all of the suffering that is going on around you, don’t you? Don’t you wish you could just stop the fighting?” the female voice lets out a bit of a laugh “You could be saving countless lives you know, but fear is holding you back… You weak, helpless little filly.” Silent struggled to open her eyes, only to see the battlefield splayed out before her, before closing her eyes again and letting the overwhelming urge to fall asleep take over.

She woke up in a startle, her eyes zipping around the tent looking for the surrounding danger. When she realised that she was safe, she remembered all of the cuts and bruises. Quickly inspecting herself, she accidentally hit the gash on her cheek with her hoof, sending her a nasty jolt of pain and starting the bleeding again. Frustrated but relieved, she left the tent in search of a medic. One of the upsides of being in a war zone is that healthcare is never too far away; in Silent's case it happened to be five tents over. Luckily for her, today was a quiet day for the medics so she got treatment right away. The young nurse was caring and gentle and before long they were good friends, happily just chatting away while the nurse used many wads of gauze and some magic to help start the healing process. This was the first time that Silent had connected on a personal level to another pony and she loved every second of just chatting with the nurse, and she could tell that the nurse felt the same way.

Having stopped the bleeding the nurse turned around to get a Steri Strip to put over the wound, but to her surprise, when she turned back the wound was almost completely healed!! She was too involved in her conversation with silent that she wasn't paying much attention to the state of the cut on Silent’s cheek. "How could that be possible?" the nurse exclaimed, shocked. "The spell that i cast was for pain relief, h-how did the cut heal so quickly?!?!" unsure of what had just happened she ran into the other room to test a theory that had just popped into her head. Walking into the room behind her, Silent saw the nurse attempting the same spell on another patient. The nurse was certain that the spell was working, but it only had the expected effect of pain relief, with no healing. Not giving up, the nurse tried different possible miss-castings of the spell, even at times saying the spell out loud, but to no use. "How did you heal so fast?!?" she asked, hurriedly, staring at silent with a look of annoyance on her face, the discovery of Equestria's first healing spell tantalisingly out of reach.
"wha!?!? I... How should i know" stammered Silent "I thought you healed me!!"
"Well, yes, so did i, but that kind of healing is unheard of"
"what do you mean?"
"Well, it's not very common that a mare comes in here with a deep gash on her cheek and is totally healed an hour later!!! That kind of magic just doesn't exist!!!"
They both sit down to think.
"well… Could it be me?" this question took the nurse by surprise and it took her a moment to think of an answer. "That, is, a possibility" the nurse said with her hoof on her chin. "But pegusi don’t have any magical ability, and that type of healing isn’t natural. I mean, you can pick up stuff in your hoofs… err… somehow, but you don’t have any magic!!"

"I’ve had that gash since last night and it didn’t heal…" Silent added “why did it heal all of a sudden just now?” The nurse let out a puzzled sigh "well, i just don’t know, I’d love to try to figure it ou-" she began, but she was cut off by the commotion of an entering extraction team with a patient. "You seem to have a gift Silent, but whatever it is, we'll have to find out about it later..." the nurse shouted over the noise. “but for now, you have to get out of here, it’s about to get busy!!” the two ponies shared a quick hug before the nurse started running off “It was really nice to meet you!!" she yelled over her back before disappearing into the other room. Silent left the tent with a large smile on her face and a spring in her step. She headed back to her tent and picked up her violin, but instead of the slow ambiance music she usually played, there were fast notes that could almost tell you a story of how her day has been and instead of staying inside to play, she went outside and played her violin for all to see. All of the ponies in the area were so happy to see somepony so joyous in the dull, muddy surroundings of the campsite. Everypony was happy, everypony, except of course, her father. Silent’s tiny moment of joy had passed as soon as she noticed him frowning at her from across the campsite. The joyful music now a thing of the past as she sunk back into her usual sadness, She laid down her violin and went to see him.

“What are you doing Silent? Stop procrastinating and get a job!! After what happened yesterday; the tutors no longer want to teach you” Yelled her father, towering over the scared little filly. “You can’t just play that violin all day every day! Be a productive member of this society, and stop being such a waste of space!” She stayed silent; staring at the mud under her front hoofs with her ears drooped. She couldn’t make eye contact with her father, she couldn’t even think about what to say. She was frozen with fear. “Now if you can’t find anything, you can come work for me.” And with that he walked off back to the blacksmithing tent, leaving silent just standing there alone in the mud, tears now matting down her fur, running down her face and falling to the ground creating small puddles at her feet. “Was that your father?” asked a soft, familiar voice. Through teary eyes, silent could see the friendly smiling face of the nurse and some storm clouds forming overhead. Sensing Silent’s reluctance to answer, the nurse just invited her to come back to her tent before it started raining.

Once inside, the unicorn could finally take her soaking wet, dark blue scrubs and mane net off. She looked like a completely different pony. Her mane was a sapphire blue and her fur was a very faint shade of pinkish purple and she had a bandage with wings for a cutie mark. Silent also noticed that she had strange patterns tattooed onto her forelegs. Using her magic to heat two cups of hot chocolate she comforted silent who told her about her week through bouts of crying. She finally had someone to vent all of her feelings to, years of pain and loneliness finally had somewhere to go. As I think every pony knows, some problems can only be solved by talking about them. After calming down sufficiently, Silent finally asked for the nurses name.
“Aegis Recherche.” She replied.

Now, ive done some research on that name, because it didn’t make any sense to me, it was such a weird name. It turns out, Aegis means either caring or wing, and Recherche means gentle… but it also means aerial… (There is a break as the barman is lost in thought, then suddenly snaps back into reality) …sorry.

Both of their coats were slightly ruffled from drying off the rain and they were both warming themselves up in front of a small gas lamp. Silent started softly giggling to herself, noticing that Aegis had some crème sitting on the tip of her nose. As the rain outside worsened, the friendship between the two ponies was strengthening. It turned out that Aegis wasn’t much older than Silent at only 19 and just like silent, had also been born in the camp. After finishing her hot chocolate, Silent thanked Aegis for her support and went to leave for her own tent but an overwhelming feeling of anxiousness took over, causing tears to well up inside her. “are you ok?” asked Aegis noticing her distress. “umm…” Silent said in a whisper, staring at the ground as she turned towards the door, not sure what to say to her new friend. Aegis could see Silent’s reluctance to head home clear as day “look, if you don’t want to go home, you are more than welcome to stay here for the night”. Silent closed her eyes and let out a sigh of relief “thank you” she said as she turned around and headed back inside where Aegis had already started to set up another bed.

==========

Silent was flying in the blue sky, free as a bird and had a satchel around her neck that she was meant to deliver. She didn’t know where exactly, but all she knew was she was going the right way. Looking down, she could see the golden countryside and a scattering of small soldiers. Descending, the soldiers greeted her with waves and smiles as she came in to land. Handing the satchel to the captain, Silent noticed that the sky was slowly turning orange. She turned to leave and go back to where she came from, but found that her hoofs were stuck in place. She couldn’t explain it. looking around for the answer she caught a glimpse of a dark figure on top of a small hill with glowing red eyes, not too far away from where she stood. Hearing a loud ‘thunk’ sound she turned around to see, to her horror, the captain smiling at her with an arrow sticking out the back of his head. Blood flowing down his dark brown mane and his eyes rolling into the back of his head, he slowly slumped over onto the ground, face first with the rest of his body following shortly after, slumping lifeless to the ground. Finding that she was no longer stuck, she flew up into the air like a rocket, making for the campsite as fast as she could, flying faster than she ever has before, but it was not fast enough. Flying rocks started raining from the sky, striking the fleeing Pegasus time and time again before one abnormally large rock flew in from the right and hit her ‘THUD’ right in the ribs winding her and sending her now limp body, plummeting down to earth.

lying in the small crater that her body had made when she impacted the ground she looked up to see a jet black cloud, coming towards her, covering up the now blood red sky. She could feel that she was covered in painful cuts and bruises and her ribs and wing felt like they were broken. “sigh~ here you are again. my offer is still open if you want it” the voice coming from a black mare of darkness standing beside her.
“wait!!” came a quiet voice in the distance. Silent tilted her head backwards along the ground to see a pink earth pony with a cotton candy mane travelling at high speed towards them leaving a dust trail behind her. She wasn’t running though, it was kind of a… sort of… jumping motion, I believe it’s called pronking . Anyway, when she finally got there both ponys looked very confused by the appearance of this happy pink pony.“Hi!!” the pink pony said with a massive grin, Silent just stared at her with a confused frown, noticing that all of her pain had suddenly gone away. After inhaling deeply the pink pony started talking really fast “WOW, So this is a dream?? Well it’s not a very happy one is it? I’ve never been inside a dream before, I mean, I’ve been inside dreams before, but only my own…” she lets out a giggle, Silent just stares at her not sure what to make of this situation “… OOOH, and this must be YOUR dream!!!” she exclaimed, looking at Silent who was still lying down in her creater with a confused look on her face “oh, sorry, you must be wondering why im here? Well, I don’t actually know myself…” she said, calming down from her hype “…well, I do have this pinkie sense that alerts me to danger, but I noticed a brand new sense just before I got transported here” noticing the black mare her expression suddenly changed from a smile to one of fear. “*GASP* ive seen her before, well, not her but sonepony that looks heaps like her and she was really evil so you should probably wake up before she does something scary” obviously annoyed by the pink pony’s meddling, the black mare dissipated as if she was made of smoke. Silent, suddenly exhausted, rested her head on the dirt, falling asleep instantly. Slowly opening her eyes Silent was relieved that she was back in Aegis’s tent, safe and sound.

==========

“Right, well even though you hate him, your father spoke the truth… if you want to live around here you are going to need a job” Aegis said to Silent as they ate their breakfast. “but what could I possibly do? I’m a weak flier and I can’t fight, and there is absolutely no way that I am going to work for my dad!!” Silent said, getting worked up. “Hmm, werl I fink the merserngers need herlp, how bout we go dere fersht?” suggested Aegis with a mouthful of oats.
“But don’t you have to work today?”
She swallowed her mouthful “No, I’m taking a day off after yesterday; it was horrific in the ER. Plus, the troops are on the defensive which means that there will be less casualties” she looked up at Silent, who was just playing with her food. Aegis was concerned for her troubled friend “you were talking in your sleep last night and you wouldn’t stop tossing and turning.” Silent continued playing with her food “are you alright?” Aegis asked as she brushed Silent’s fringe off her face with her hoof to reveal her magnificent blue eyes. Silent raised her head and forced a weak smile…

When Aegis had finished her oats they both set off to the messenger’s HQ. The tent was HUGE, at one end was building materials stacked next to a pile of tools and at the other end were packages destined for the front lines and stacked in the centre of the room was the mail. Walking up to the front desk they could see the old mailpony, he had brown fur, a grey mane and moustache and he was wearing a pith helmet and spectacles. He must have been in his 80’s because of all of the wrinkles all over him. “Greetings, how can I help you?” Silent steps forward looking to Aegis for support “uhm, hello… eh… m-my-my name is-“
“Silent Strings?” said the old colt, looking over his spectacles.
“W-well… uh… yes.” She said, taken aback by the old colt’s knowledge of her name. “But how did you know?“
“I was listening to your music yesterday. I was intrigued and all I had to do was ask around.” He said very matter-of-factly. The young mares said nothing. “Begging your pardon Miss Strings, do continue”
“Uhm… I was wondering if you had any jobs available.”
“Hmm, well, that depends on how good a flyer you are doesn’t it?”
Silent blushed “oh, I’m not a strong flier at all”
“but you can fly?”
“Yes sir”
“good, we can work with that” he said with a warm smile.

They all headed into the nearby field so that the old colt could test Silent’s flying skills. “Now, first things first, you can’t fly without taking off. So let’s start with that.” said the male pony, so Silent took a small sprint to get air under her wings and she gracefully lifted up into the deep blue abyss, circling over the other two pony’s heads. “Very nice…” he called up to her with a smile, quickly changing his expression to a more serious one “… But, being in a warzone you may not have the time, nor space for a run-up. You have to LEAP into the air, like this.” Suddenly, the old rickety frame of the colt was thrust into the air by four amazingly strong legs to be held there by two powerful wings. Eager to learn, silent landed on the ground and tried to imitate her teacher’s actions. Landing shortly after, the mailpony noticed that Aegis was also trying to imitate him “Not to be rude, my dear, but why are you trying to doing it?” enquired the old stallion. “Just because, you never know when something like this may come in handy” she said slyly, getting into the same pose as Silent and spreading out some imaginary wings with her back muscles. ”Do you know how to hover?” asked the colt, Silent just shook her head “Your legs must push you high enough into the air so that you can start flapping your wings just as you start to fall again…” instructed the mailpony. “…Now, the motion is much the same as flying normally, but instead of pushing the air backwards, you have to re-direct it towards the ground. Try it for yourself” and with that, both ponies jumped into the air. Aegis, of course with no wings landed first with Silent landing shortly after, unable to keep herself in the air.

By mid-afternoon, Silent had progressed by leaps and bounds (quite literally) and could now take off and hover for short periods of time. The old colt was pleased “well done Silent, you’ve come such a long way for somepony who isn’t a very strong flier, but now that you can hover, lets test your endurance. “
“hehe, I might join in on this one.”
“but you don’t have any wings my dear.”
“don’t I?” and with that, her horn and the mysterious lines on her fur began to light up a bright blue colour. The spaces between the lines in the tattoo, quickly filling with blue light as the mare concentrated. “What on eque-?” The colt said absent-mindedly leaving his jaw agape. When the shape was solid, the objects that were forming, emerged from her coat revealing two magnificent wings made of light. Looking very smug with herself she flared her wings up into an arc and struck a pose, showing off how her new wings perfectly matched her physique and that the tattoo on her forelegs was now gone. The other two were stunned “so…” she said “…what’s the test?”. The colt snapped out of his amazement “uhhh… wha… oh, uhm, endurance.”

(The barpony stops telling the story and you open your eyes to find that he had just gone to serve another customer and you realise that you were seeing the story unfold in front of your eyes as if it was a dream. The barpony comes back over, cleaning a glass with a cloth, levitating both with his magic). Hehe, I can see that you’re really getting into it. I’m sorry that I disturbed you (you feel your face go bright red with embarrassment) hey, there’s nothing wrong with enjoying a good story, I’ll get you another drink while you get over it. (He leaves to go get you another drink and you glance over to where silent was sitting. She is beautiful, she has a perfectly kept white coat, a two toned turquoise mane and a cutie mark in the shape of an 8th rest. Suddenly forgetting what your own cutie mark is you take a quick glance down to your flank to a picture of a saddlebag. Looking back up you notice that she has stopped playing her violin, and she is now staring at the violin set out in front of her, inspecting it intensely. She looked depressed, a colt tried to comfort her, only to be signalled to leave. You look back over the bar to see the barpony approaching) Here you go, so, where was i? (You scrounge around in your saddle bags to find some money for the barpony) hey, don’t worry about it. It’s on the house. (You thank the barpony for his generosity and he continues the story.)

Silent was awoken from her slumber, the smell of waffles filling her nostrils, instantly making her hungry. Jumping out of bed, she pulled on her new uniform making sure it looked perfect for her first day of her new job. She was excited that she may finally be able to leave the dark, boring, monotonous campsite, and explore new, wonderful greener, brighter areas that were free of glum ponies who kept asking themselves if that day would be their last. Her uniform was a figure hugging flak vest covered in the equestrian royal colours and livery. Attached to the sides of the vest were 2 streamline saddlebags for silent to hold her deliveries in “wow, look at you!” Aegis remarked, this was the first time that she had seen Silent in her uniform. “so how do you feel?” she asked in a reporters voice as she levitated her fork in front of Silent’s face as if it were a microphone.
“Im quite anxious… but excited!! I’ve really got no idea what to expect.” Aegis levitates the fork back in front of her mouth “well, you’d better eat your breakfast so you have enough energy to take on the world!!” They both out a giggle as they go back to eating their waffles.

It was a cool morning with only cirrus clouds suspended high above her, perfect weather for flying. It felt absolutely wonderful, soaring high above the ground. This is the natural environment for a pegsus after all, not a dank old camp site. Her task was to deliver a message to the warehouse that provides all of the allied camps with their supplies. Silent was glad that she was flying away from the conflict and away from all of the death and destruction that the war has managed to wreak. Because this was her first assignment she was allowed to take as long as she wanted, this would give her a chance to practice some of her new flying skills and get to know the countryside. Below her were fields of grass and swarms of dandelion seeds in the air, the golden blades of the grass leaning gently in the breeze. The landscape was untouched except for the dirt road that Silent was navigating by. Becoming quite tired, she started looking around the landscape for things that she could use to fly easier. Below and to the left, she could see that there was a line of hills coming towards her. Approaching them, she was swiftly lifted higher into the bright blue abyss by a thermal. The wonderful warm air rushed through her fur and mane, the wonderfully warm air relaxing her so much that she softly closed her eyes.

After several seconds she forced her eyes open again to make sure that she hadn’t flown off course. Looking around she quickly found the road again, the warehouse now in sight. She gracefully glided down to the ground just outside the compound gates. “What’s your business?” came a voice from behind her. Still half daydreaming she blankly turned her head to face the direction that the voice was coming from. “can I help you?” Snapping out of her trance like state she just stared at the officer.
“are you ok?”
“yeah fine, why?”
“no reason” the confused officer replied “why are you here?”
“oh, I have a delivery for the quartermaster”
“all right then, come through” he said as he opened the gates to reveal the inside of the compound. It was just like the mailpony’s tent back at the camp, exept about 20 times bigger. To the rear of the compound was a warehouse which is where she guessed she was headed, and sure enough, about 30 seconds later that is where she ended up. “Here we are. He’ll be upstairs” the officer said as he held the door open for her with a slight bow. Silent headed inside, returned a bow to the officer and went to deliver her package. Walking into the office she greeted the quartermaster and another pony that looked as if they were his assistant standing at the window.
“I have a message for you”
“Sir.” Corrected the quartermaster
“erm… Sir”
He walked over to the door and Silent handed him the message.
“ah, ive been expecting this” the quartermaster seemed pleased to receive the message.
She looked up from the message to see a slightly annoyed assistant. “Sir, this is important”
“oh, sorry. You will excuse me” the quartermaster told the assistant, who got even more annoyed.

==========

When she got back to the mail tent, she was met with two official looking colts wearing full armour and a very worried looking mailpony standing between them.
“Silent Strings?” the colt to the left asked.
“Yes” Silent replied, unsure what to expect.
“We’ve just received news that the quartermaster that you delivered that message to… has been killed.”
“we need to know if you saw anything strange at the warehouse, anypony acting suspiciously.”
“how was he killed?” enquired Silent
“an arrow fired through the window. Hit him in the back of the head.” The colt to the right answered.
A worrying memory flashed into Silent’s mind at that moment. It was the scene that played out in her dream the night before of the commander smiling at her with a blank stare, the red liquid rushing from the back of his head. Silent went into shock, her pupils constricted as she stared blankly at the ground. Her legs giving way beneath her as her wings started to twitch, passing out just before she hit the ground.

This picture Here by RainbowFaux, gave me the idea for Aegis's Wings