The world swayed around Vermilion. He was on a boat, drifting through the forest, bobbing in time with the waves. A crest bore him up, and his head broke free of the water for a lucid moment, and he saw the dark, snow-clad trees extending for miles around, and then he fell into the trough, and the waters once again closed over his head, and the stifling, drowning darkness returned.
Up the wave, up into the freezing sunlight. A hoof brushed his cheek; a soft voice whispered nonsense into his cotton-stuffed ears. He rose out of the darkness and clawed at the wood rails confining him. A babble, a rush of voices, and hooves grasped him, bearing him down beneath the waves, drowning him again.
So it went. He inhaled, and for a moment saw with crystal clarity the shattered remains of the company marching home in defeat. The monstrous trees, tall as titans, blocked half the sky. Quicklime, her face drawn, creased, looking a dozen years older than he remembered; she reached toward him.
“Shh, don’t try to get up,” she said to somepony. “Just rest, I’ll get the medicine and—”
The wagon hit a rock and swayed. He leaned over the edge and vomited out the meager contents of his stomach. The pain returned – no, not returned, it had never left – and bound him back beneath the waves of sleep.
* * *
He remembered a campfire. He lay beside it, wrapped in so many bandages he could barely move. A leaden chill stole all the feeling from his legs.
Cloud Fire was there. Ribs showed like rails beneath his coat. His eyes, though alert, were sunk into his skull, giving him a brooding look.
A bird, brooding. Vermilion snickered.
Cloud Fire glanced at him. “Awake again?”
“Again?”
“Nevermind.” Cloudy wiped at his cheek with the back of a hoof. “How do you feel?”
How did he feel? Not much, honestly. He thought he remembered pain, but that was gone now, and in its place he simply felt an emptiness. Like his viscera had been scooped away, leaving the hollow shell of a pony.
“Tired,” he said.
“Yeah. Think you can eat something?”
How could a pony eat without a stomach? He shook his head.
Cloudy sighed. “Okay. If you feel hungry, just say so, okay?”
They passed a while in silence. Outside the circle of the campfire, darkness held complete sway over the world. Snowflakes appeared out of nothing and settled like dust around them.
“We should make Gloom’s Edge tomorrow,” Cloud Fire said. He watched the fire as he spoke, as if entranced by the light. “We’ll resupply there, then head for Everfree. We’ll be home within a week, Cherry.”
Oh. Vermilion remembered Gloom’s Edge. The baker there gave them treats.
“Cloudy?”
Cloud Fire glanced at him. “Yeah?”
“I had… I think I had a dream, Cloudy. There was a town, and spiders, and I couldn’t find my sword, and…” He ran out of breath and focus at the same time. His words drifted away, and he found the fire more fascinating to observe, anyway.
Sword, sword. That was important. “Cloudy, where’s my sword?”
“It’s fine, Cherry. We’re keeping it safe for you.”
Well, okay then. One less thing to worry about.
He stared at the fire for a time. Then he slept again.
* * *
It was dark when he woke again. Dark and warm.
He was inside. Ponies were with him, standing over him. He tried to get up but they held him down with humiliating ease. A foal could have put up more of a fight than him.
Hooves touched along his legs, probing. Then moved along his head and jaw and spine, and when they reached his ribs he screamed. Something bit him in the shoulder, and a numb weariness washed over him. It took away the pain and consciousness both.
* * *
Vermilion opened his eyes and said the first thing that came to mind.
“Ow.”
The sound startled him. Its clarity was shocking, like he’d live his entire life beneath the water, hearing only muffled echoes from the world above, and now was the first time he’d ever truly heard with his own ears. His head had been stuffed with all the cotton in the Equestria, and now it was gone. The world was back.
His ribs stung with each breath. Half his hide felt stripped raw. Spots of pain speckled his face and chest. But the pain was simply that – ordinary, mundane, boring pain, the kind earth ponies had lived with and tolerated as their lot for countless generations. He considered the pain, evaluated it, turned it over in his mind to examine from all angles, and then put it away.
For the first time in nearly two weeks, Vermilion sat up under his own power. His body – thinner, weaker, wounded – rejoiced in the simple movements. He stretched, yawned, and looked around.
He’d never been in a hospital, but he knew this was one. The room was small but clean, with an institutional bed and rough cotton sheets that had been washed in boiling water a thousand times. A simple window filled the room with sunlight, and through it he saw a carefully tended lawn, dotted with trees, and in the distance the rising towers of Everfree. Stone floors were polished almost to a gleam. The sharp scent of antiseptics stung his nose, and he sneezed.
His legs all seemed to work. He slowly climbed out of the bed and wobbled a bit. Just standing took all his strength, and soon his muscles shook so badly from exertion that he had to sit down and catch his breath. The tight bandage wrapped around his chest made it hard to inhale.
The room had no door, just an open entryway into a dimmer hallway. He could hear activity in the corridor; trolleys and muffled hooves on stone. It was just a few feet away, but even that short distance was too far.
“Hello?” he called, barely managing a whisper. Again, louder, “Hello?”
Something clamored outside. A moment later Quicklime turned the corner. She froze, her eyes wide, before slowly taking a step toward him.
“Cherry?” Her eyes roamed up and down his frame. “Oh, wow, you’re really awake.”
“Er, yes?”
She let out a long, slow breath, her shoulders slumping. Then she laughed.
“Wow, okay.” She giggled and rubbed at her eyes with her fetlock. “Wow, um, let me go find the doctor. And the others! Oh, they’ll be so, so—”
Whatever they were going to be, he never heard, because Quicklime jumped forward and buried her face in his bandaged chest. Her forelegs couldn’t quite reach all the way around his shoulders, but she tried. Faint sniffles filled the room.
She pulled away. “Okay, um, sorry. Whew. Okay, I’ll be right back. Don’t go anywhere! In fact, you should get back in bed.” She tried to glare at him, but it was hard to do that while also running out of the room, especially after she collided with the doorframe. She scowled at it, scowled at him, then vanished out into the hall. The sound of her hooves on stone receded into the distance.
So, company would be arriving soon. He pushed himself back upright and stumbled over to a stone basin set into the wall. It was filled with cool water flowing at a steady trickle from a copper pipe, and he spent a long minute slaking his thirst. It tasted faintly of minerals and was wonderful.
There were no mirrors in the room, but a quick glance down at his chest told him there wasn’t much to see, anyway. Half his torso was hidden in gauze, and in places his coat had been shaved away, revealing the pale skin beneath. A constellation of blisters, some still full, others broken and crusted and weeping, covered his hide, like he’d been splashed with hot oil. They stung when he moved, the fragile skin stretching and threatening to tear. The harsh antiseptic scent that had been tickling his nose was actually coming from him – some ointment smeared over the worst of the wounds.
Other than that, though, things were looking good. Still four legs, two eyes, and… he ducked his head down to peer between his hind legs, and yes, everything was where it was supposed to be. Even his tail was fine. He let out a sigh of relief that soon turned into an uncontrolled fit of giggles.
Still alive. He was still alive. He tried to hop and nearly collapsed when his weakened legs failed.
“What’s so funny, private?”
Vermilion spun toward the door and almost toppled again. A brief dizziness seized his head, and he squeezed his eyes shut. When he opened them, Cloud Fire was standing by the entry, amusement and concern at war on his face.
“Cloudy?” Vermilion took a shaking step toward his friend, then another, until he stood close enough to catch Cloud Fire’s faint scent of ozone and feathers. He pressed his cheek against Cloud’s neck and held it there, breathing him in, hearing the rush of blood through his veins.
“That’s me.” Cloud Fire returned the nuzzle, then gently pushed him away. “You’re getting ointment all over me, bud.”
“Sorry.” Vermilion sniffled. He blinked away the tears threatening to wash away his vision. “Where, uh, where are the others? Where’s Zephyr?”
Cloudy’s eyes tightened. Just as fast it was gone, and he smiled. It wasn’t a happy smile.
“She’s better,” he said. “Better than you, technically. Bit of a scar on her chest, but the doc says it’ll barely be visible once her coat grows back. Hey, you wanna go see her? That’ll cheer her up a bit.”
Vermilion looked back at his bed. “Am I allowed? Shouldn’t we, like, talk to a doctor?”
Cloud Fire shrugged. “I dunno. Do you want to talk to a doctor?”
Well, not really. Probably. Eventually. But right now his legs, stiff and weak from Celestia knew how long he’d been recovering, demanded some exercise.
“Maybe later,” he said. “Let’s go see her.”
* * *
The pegasus wing was on the highest floor of the hospital, which Vermilion supposed made an odd sort of sense. It did, however, require navigating endless stairs that felt like a mountain slope. By the time he reached the top he was panting for breath and sweating through his bandages. His legs trembled and threatened to fold with every step. Eventually Cloud Fire took pity on him and offered his shoulder to lean on, and together they made it down the corridor to Zephyr’s room. Orderlies, nurses and doctor ponies gave them odd looks as they passed, but nopony tried to stop them.
“Let’s see if she’s awake,” Cloud Fire whispered. He stuck his head through the thick curtains draped across the doorway – many pegasi required darkness to sleep, and their rooms were often swaddled in layers of fabric to block out any stray rays of light. Vermilion heard a few muffled words, then Cloud Fire re-emerged. “Okay, she’s up. Come on.”
The room was larger than Vermilion’s, with beds for several ponies. Thick gauze drapes blocked the windows, allowing in only a faint, golden glow that rendered the room in hues of twilight. Most of the room’s occupants seemed to be dozing, their heads tucked under their wings, but in the back near a wide bookshelf beneath the window, Vermilion saw a chestnut-coated mare with a straw mane laying atop the covers with her legs tucked beneath her. She smiled as they entered, and beckoned them forward with a wing.
“Hey there, boys,” she whispered when they reached her bed. She had a book open before her, and she marked her page with a bookmark before closing and setting it aside. “Look at us, Cherry. We’re twins!”
Her meaning escaped him at first, but then Cloud Fire snickered, and Vermilion looked again – their bandaged chests were almost identical, and in the dimness her coat and mane could be mistaken for his. If not for her wings, they could easily be confused under such circumstances.
“How do you feel?” he asked. “You look well.”
It was a bit of a lie. No pegasus who looked like Zephyr could be confused for healthy. In addition to the still-healing wound beneath those bandages, her wings were tattered and bare. Half her feathers were simply missing, and the rest seemed to hang on by only threads. Faint bits of fluffy down lay scattered across the covers and floor around her. He nosed at one of the fallen feathers.
She snorted. “Don’t worry about those. It’s just an early molt caused by injury stress. I won’t be flying until everything grows back, though.”
“How long will that take?”
“A month, maybe?” She sighed. “Too long. We’re not like earth ponies, Cherry. We don’t heal overnight from wounds that should have killed us.”
He looked down at his bandaged chest. “This isn’t exactly healed, you know.”
Cloud Fire snorted. “Cherry, you didn’t have a single intact rib when I picked you up after that fight. You folded like a baby kitten. Now you’re walking around like everything’s fine.”
After that fight. Vermilion’s ears twitched at the words. Hazy memories briefly resurfaced, chiefly of fire and an enormous, titanic spider, leering over him. He shivered and sat before he could fall.
“What… what happened back there, Cloudy? We got Zephyr back to the camp, then I went with the major, and…” The rest was too fantastic, too surreal. A talking spider? A god that wanted to eat the whole world? His friends wouldn’t believe it – he could barely believe it himself.
Cloud Fire’s ears sank, and he looked down at his hooves. “We saw the moonfire from the road. Quicklime recognized it, and we all heard what happened next.”
“Yeah, next.” Vermilion swallowed. “That spider, it, uh, it wasn’t a normal spider. Well, I guess none of them were, but this one really wasn’t a normal spider. It, uh—”
“It spoke to you, didn’t it?” Zephyr asked. “That’s what the townsponies said. That it called itself Blightweaver, and nothing could harm it. Not the major’s spear, not the moonfire. Nothing.”
“Except you did,” Cloud Fire said, looking up at him. “You hurt it badly, almost killed it. Sent it running in fear.”
A cold chill grasped Vermilion’s heart. “It’s not dead?”
Cloudy shook his head. “We don’t think so. We heard it roaring in the forest. Even days later the ground sometimes shook. What did you do to it, Cherry?”
“Just stabbed it. With the fang from that little spider we killed in the forest. Got it in the eye.”
“Well, good to know something can hurt it,” Zephyr said. “Make sure you tell Quicklime about that, she’ll make sure it gets into the official reports. We’ll need to be ready if it ever comes back.”
Celestia, could it come back? The world outside Equestria was a wild place, loosely governed by independent kingdoms and isolated towns like Hollow Shades. What power out there could stop Blightweaver if it decided to return? The gryphons? Zebras? Vermilion knew little of them aside from whispers and impressions, of violent tribes and mystic lands governed by priests and shamans. Their reputations were fearsome, but they were not military powers; they could not threaten Equestria, and if they could not threaten Equestria, what could they do against a monster like Blightweaver?”
Like smoke rising from a fire, a vision appeared before him. Vermilion saw the world outside Equestria darken and collapse. Jungle and wasteland replaced farms, swamp and ruin replaced towns, and one by one the cities outside their borders went extinct, each individual ember fading away until only night remained. Monsters – Blightweaver, yes, but countless more, every nightmare that haunted the minds of ponies – emerged from the growing shadows to resume possession of their world. Only the faint, feeble lights of Equestria, beset on all sides, held out against the darkness.
Vermilion realized he was shaking. The others had gone silent and stared at him.
“It’s still out there,” he said. “We didn’t kill it. Celestia, we didn’t kill it when we had the chance. It’s still out there and—”
“Whoa, hey, calm down,” Cloud Fire said. He wrapped a wing around Vermilion’s shoulders and pulled him in close. “You’re the last person who should be panicking about Blightweaver right now.”
“Huh?” That didn’t make any sense. They should all be worried about Blightweaver, especially him. Could that monster remember individual ponies, or were they like ants to it? Nopony remembered the bee that stung it, only the fact that they were stung.
“You’re a hero, Cherry,” Zephyr said. “You fought a god and beat it. What did the rest of us do? Run away?”
“No,” he objected. “You, you killed that giant spider in the forest. It would have gotten Cloudy and me if you hadn’t been there. And the major! The major fought him too, and she died! She’s the real hero, Zephyr. I just got lucky.”
She shook her head. “She may be a hero, Cherry, but you succeeded where she failed. That’s what ponies will remember.”
“No.” He pulled away from Cloud Fire’s wing. “Don’t you remember? I only had that fang because she gave it to me! It should have been hers! Instead she gave it to me, as a… as a souvenir. How is that fair?”
“It doesn’t have to be fair,” Zephyr said. “Tartarus, look at Cloudy. He’s the only one of us who’s healthy.”
“Hey, that’s not my fault. I’m just good at dodging.”
“Right.” She rolled her eyes. “Regardless, Cherry, don’t worry about Blightweaver, or anything else for that matter. Just focus on getting better.”
“I am better,” he protested. “I feel fine.”
“And you’re a terrible liar,” Cloudy said. “Seriously, you’ve been on your back for two weeks. You’ve lost twenty pounds, and if you haven’t noticed Quicklime could beat you at hoof wrestling right now. And don’t even ask me about those burns.”
Vermilion glanced down at his chest, where the ointment-slathered blisters tugged and stung at his new skin. They dappled his cheeks and snout, and he felt them itching beneath the bandages concealing his chest and back as well. A few even dotted his rump and legs.
He prodded one with a hoof. Clear, yellowish fluid wept out from the margin, seeping into the coat around the wound, and he smelled salt. It stung, and as he focused on that faint pain the rest of the blisters seemed to cry out for his attention as well, and all across his body the sharp, tiny burns made their presence known.
“What are these, anyway?” he asked. They didn’t hurt enough to incapacitate him, but they were annoying. “Was it the moonfire?”
Cloudy shook his head. “I’ll let Quicklime answer that. She’s been studying them.”
“Where is she, anyway?” Zephyr asked. “I thought she’d be with you two.”
“I think she was looking for a doctor,” Vermilion said. He frowned. “Maybe we should’ve waited for her?”
* * *
They found Quicklime – or, rather, she found them – in the hall immediately outside Zephyr’s room. The tiny unicorn scowled at them and stomped over, pushing through the crowded corridor as best as her little body could manage.
“You!” she hissed at Vermilion. “I told you not to go anywhere!”
“Um.” He glanced at Cloudy, who was studiously examining the ceiling, the coward. “Well, uh—”
“Do you know how hurt you still are?” she said. “Do you know how long it’s been since you ate real food? Do you know how many open wounds you have right now that are being exposed to an entire hospital full of sick ponies? And the pegasus ward! Do you know how many germs pegasus feathers have in them!?”
“Hey!”
Vermilion ignored Cloud Fire and glanced down at his chest. “Is that bad?”
“I don’t know!” She huffed. “That’s what doctors are for, and it’s why I went to get one. Now come on, we’re keeping her waiting.”
With that she hopped up and snagged Vermilion’s ear in her teeth, just like his mother had done years ago. He yelped and followed as she lead them down the corridor, back down the stairs (much faster this time), and back to his original room.
The doctor, an older maize unicorn mare, wasted no time going to work. She levitated a pair of fabric shears and snipped away his bandages with a tailor’s precision, leaving him suddenly cold and exposed. “Up!” she barked, pushing him bodily onto the bed.
The examination that followed was so intimate that more old-fashioned ponies would now consider them a married couple. Not an inch of his hide escaped her scrutiny, despite his protestations and weak attempts at shielding the more delicate portions of his anatomy. It didn’t help that Quicklime stood beside the bed with the doctor, maintaining a running commentary of what they found and why Vermilion was so stupid for walking off with Cloudy.
“And you see that?” Quicklime said, lightly touching a faint light line in his hide, just forward of his lowest ribs. “The bone actually broke through the skin there.”
“It is healing well,” the doctor said. She spoke with an exotic, faintly foreign accent that sharpened her words, turning well into vell. “You are very lucky, little stallion.”
Those weren’t words a stallion wanted to hear while belly up and surrounded by mares. He blushed. Cloud Fire snickered. Quicklime looked down, looked up, then turned away and burst into a fit of giggles.
The doctor continued, apparently unnoticing. “The ribs are mostly healed. Your left foreleg has a crack here, in the radius—” she tapped the outside of his leg, producing a brief, dull ache, “—but as long as you don’t go galloping it will heal by itself. The only concern, then, is these burns.”
He peered down at his chest. The blisters hadn’t stopped itching since he woke, but the sensation was easily ignored. It would be nice if they healed soon, though, so he didn’t go through life looking like a leper.
“What caused them, anyway?” he asked. “The moonfire? I don’t remember getting any on me.”
That sobered Quicklime. “No. If the moonfire had touched you, there wouldn’t be anything left of your body but calcium dust.”
“Oh.” He swallowed. Somewhere, in a snowy forest hundreds of leagues away, a puff of white, bone-flavored dust blowing through the wind was all that remained of the major. “What, uh, did it, then?”
“Blightweaver’s blood, we think,” Cloudy said. “It must have splashed on you when you stabbed it.”
Celestia, that was terrifying. What if it had gotten in his eyes? A brief wave of vertigo washed over him, and he set his head back on the pillow and took a deep breath.
“Are they, uh, healing?” he asked.
“Yes, but slowly,” the doctor said. “Some remnant of his blood must have remained in the wounds, but they are starting to close. The smaller ones are already healed. It is possible there will be some scarring.”
Whatever. Earth ponies and scars were hardly strangers. “So, I can go?”
“Hm, not for a few more days, I think. You just woke up, remember. But it you still look this good by the end of the week, I will sign your discharge papers myself.”
* * *
Despite Quicklime’s protestations, the doctor allowed him to walk around the hospital. It would be good to get his muscles moving again, she declared, and they would check his other wounds for any signs of infection every morning. As long as he kept himself clean, he’d be fine.
So Vermilion found himself strolling through the corridors, reacquainting himself with the members of the company. Most were only half-hearted colleagues, outside of his team and his squad, but he knew them by sight. And, it seemed, most of them were in the hospital with him, suffering either from wounds incurred in the fighting or recovering from a week of near freezing and starvation while fleeing from Hollow Shades.
Speaking of the town, many of its residents were in the hospital as well. They had their own ward, and even the uninjured among them didn’t mingle with the other ponies. They huddled together, speaking their odd dialect that teased his ears with a suggestion of familiarity, and they only grudgingly allowed the Equestrian doctors to treat them. Whatever goodwill Equestria had earned with them for sending the company was shattered by the haphazard nature of their retreat. Vermilion wondered, sometimes, if they blamed the company for the disaster.
He saw Pyrite once in the hallway. She held a tray laden with food in her mouth, and on her back were piles of blankets and linen. She stared at him, and her eyes widened with recognition. Just as fast they darkened, and she glowered at him before stomping away to join her fellow refugees.
Some reward, he mused, for all their sacrifice. He clenched his jaw and marched back to the wards containing his wounded comrades.
But something had changed with them as well. Before, in the company, he was just another earth pony in the ranks, and a lowly private at that. Safe, young, forgettable. He was the least among them, and he was content to be so.
It was different now. The veterans, officers and sergeants alike, stopped speaking whenever he approached. They waited for him to speak, and addressed him quietly, almost deferentially. The younger recruits, the ones closest to him in rank, didn’t even do that – they stood or sat at attention around him. Their ears turned back against their skulls, and they trembled faintly.
They were afraid, he realized. As nervous around him as he’d been around the major, what felt like a lifetime ago. Only those closest to him – Zephyr, Cloudy and Quicklime – were immune.
And a few others, perhaps. Some ponies were conspicuously absent. The dead, of course, but also Buckeye, Electrum and other senior officers. As he wandered back to his room at day’s end, finally alone, he made a mental note to ask his friends about the others tomorrow.
He stopped as soon as he crossed the threshold. Despite the darkness he could see a second bed had been added beside his, and the faint, vaguely familiar scent of a mare teased at his memory. He walked as quietly as he could on the tile, determined not to wake her.
No dice – the form beneath the blankets shifted, and her head lifted from the pillow. In the faint light he could barely make out a shell-pink coat, lilac mane, and a long, spiraled horn. She sniffed at the air, then set her head back down.
It was the medic, he realized. The one who’d treated him after that first spider attack. “Sorry,” he whispered.
A faint sigh answered. “It’s fine. I wasn’t sleeping anyway.”
He climbed onto his bed and settled down, folding his legs beneath his barrel. “So, I guess we’re roommates? Oh, um, I’m Vermilion.”
She chuckled. It was a low, mirthless sound. “Yes, I know. I’m Rose Quartz. Sorry if I don’t make for very good company right now.”
“That’s fine,” he said. “You, uh… thank you, by the way. For helping Zephyr. She was in bad shape.”
“The pegasus mare, right? I didn’t think she’d make it when you dragged her in. Either blood loss or shock or the cold would get her. But I guess she’s tougher than I thought.”
“Or maybe you’re just that good?”
He said it to cheer her up. It didn’t work – only silence followed, a silence that stretched out into an awkward lull. He was wondering if she’d fallen back asleep when she finally answered.
“A lot of ponies did good work that night,” she said. “I wasn’t one of them.”
“You saved her life. Isn’t that good work?”
“I saved her life and lost four others.” Rose turned to peer at him sideways with a single, shining emerald eye. “Ponies who should’ve made it, but now their families are in mourning, and we… we lost everything, Vermilion.”
Everything? No. He shook his head. “It’s just one defeat. We need to reconstitute, figure out who’s going to replace the major, and then we’ll—”
She interrupted him with a short bark of a laugh. “Replace the major? What are you…” She paused, and her voice was soft when she continued. “Right, you’ve been asleep. Nopony’s replacing the major.”
He frowned. “Captain Electrum, then? He’ll take command?”
“Nopony’s taking command. The company’s being disbanded and its assets distributed to the Guard. Princess Celestia made the announcement two days ago.”
Her words, so casually spoken, struck him like a spear. He gawked at her, forgetting even to breath.
“But… why? We can still fight.”
She shook her head. “Do you know how many ponies are dead? Injured? Quitting? There aren’t enough of us left for a squad.”
“No, we can…” Her words caught up with his racing mind, and he stopped. He counted all the beds he’d visited that day, added up all the names of ponies missing or dead, and the great number who had already announced their desire to leave the company and combat of any kind.
The number that remained was quite small. More than a squad, but barely. Over the course of just a few days, the most experienced and highly trained military formation in Equestria had functionally ceased to exist.
“But…” He stared down at his pillow, lost. “What are we going to do?”
She looked at him in silence for a few moments, then sighed quietly. “There’s a meeting tomorrow. Electrum will be here to explain more, but I hear that if you want to quit, the crown will buy out the rest of your contract.”
Quit? Quit and do what, go back to farming? When there were monsters like Blightweaver roaming the world? How could they do that?
“Not everypony’s as strong as you,” Rose said in reply. He hadn’t realized he’d spoken those last words aloud.
“No, no.” He let out a long breath, then sat up straighter, ignoring the twinge as the wounds across his chest stretched taut. “I’m not strong, Rose. I was lucky. Lucky and stupid, but I guess the luck was more important. Anypony could do what I did.”
“Anypony didn’t. You did.”
“They should have,” he snapped back. Rose flinched at the sudden ferocity in his voice, but he didn’t notice. “What if I’d failed, Rose? Everypony in that town would be dead. Hollow Shades would be a bloody stain on the map, a nest of horrors waiting to vomit out all over Equestria. Blightweaver would have a redoubt less than a hundred leagues from our borders. Why, why were the major and I the only two ponies willing to try and stop that?”
She turned away, revealing a simple three-strand braid running down the back of her neck. “Can you blame them? They might have died if—”
“Then they should have died!” he hissed. The words erupted unbidden, as though poured straight out from his heart. “They’re soldiers! You, you are a soldier! Was that what you were trained to do, to flee from duty because it might be dangerous? Are you happy to be sitting there, unhurt, knowing that ponies died in Hollow Shades because they dared to fight?”
She turned as he spoke, and her eye narrowed. Her upper lip curled and drew back, exposing her teeth. “Happy? Am I happy? Do I look happy, you senseless fool?”
She sat up fully for the first time since his arrival. The blankets fell away as she turned, and in the dim light spilling in from the hallway he saw her face, as elegant and refined as any unicorn lord or lady’s, as graceful as he remembered from the forest. But half of it now was hidden, entombed beneath a wrapping of gauze. A terrible wound peaked out from the edges of the dressing, raw, glistening and red, carving a canyon from her mane down across her eye and through her cheek. It was a small mercy that the bandage hid the worst of the destruction.
For an earth pony to lose an eye was terrible but not catastrophic. Their lives were difficult and fraught with peril, and such wounds were not uncommon; they marked their bearers with an unquestionable sign of grit and toughness. To be a one-eyed earth pony was to be feared and respected, to be seen as a mare who had challenged the world and taken a beating for their impetuousness.
But unicorns were not earth ponies. They disdained even the slightest of scars as the stigma of toil. The bodies of lords and ladies were sacrosanct. They were as perfect as marble.
To be a one-eyed unicorn was to be an object of horror. Vermilion stared at her, at the wound marring her beautiful face. He couldn’t turn away.
Rose glowered at him, and a sneer twisted up the corner of her lips. She looked ready to leap across the gap between their beds and go for his throat, but instead she turned away, her remaining eye squeezed shut.
She set her head back down on the pillow, back turned toward him. The blankets glowed with a faint green light and floated over her shoulders.
“I’m sorry—” he started.
“The fighting didn’t end when Blightweaver fled,” she said to the far wall. “But you slept through the rest.”
They said nothing more that night. Vermilion lay awake for hours, shaking with emotions he was too ashamed to name.
In time, sleep claimed him, and troubled dreams replaced troubled waking.
* * *
The remains of the company met in the hospital cafeteria the next day.
The bleeding was worse than Vermilion had feared. Fewer than half the company’s original contingent was able to attend – the rest either dead or too injured to leave their beds. Many of the ponies crowded around the long, bare tables wore bandages, slings and casts. A quiet air of defeat hung over them like an overcast winter sky.
Electrum and Buckeye stood at the front of the gathering. Half of Buckeye’s mane had been shaved away, revealing a line of stitches running from his eyebrow up his scalp. He seemed years older than Vermilion remembered, through the blocky set of his shoulders hadn’t changed. The tile floors vibrated gently in time with each of his steps as he marched back and forth, waiting for Electrum to begin.
The captain had changed, too. Vermilion had few memories of Electrum from before – like most younger enlisted ponies, he did his best to avoid officers of any type. What he recalled, though, was a smart, sharp staff officer with an eye for details and an endless memory, exactly the kind of pony needed to resolve the company’s nitty-gritty needs while the major lead them into battle.
Now he stood taller, his neck held high in a graceful, imperious arch. He wore his armor, though beneath it Vermilion could see a few bandages still wrapped around his shoulders and left foreleg.
He cleared his throat, and Buckeye stopped pacing. The faint mumbles that had filled the large room faded and died.
“I know you’re all hurting,” Electrum said. He spoke quietly, so the assembled ponies had to strain their ears to hear him. “I know we all lost something out there, a friend, a lover, or our own blood. And there will be time to mourn soon.
“But we also saw the strength that hides within each of us. Every one of you fought, or hauled wagons for days during the retreat, or dressed bandages. And there were many remarkable acts of heroism.” Here he paused and inclined his head in Vermilion’s direction.
“Many of you have questions about what comes next,” Electrum continued. “I know you’ve all heard rumors that the company is disbanding, and that is not true. What is true is that we’re changing our mission – I have been asked by Princess Celestia herself to reform the company as the core of a new, modern army that will defend Everfree and Equestria from the monsters outside our lands. We will fortify our borders, constructing a line of defense that no evil will be able to cross. We will ensure that every citizen of Equestria can sleep safely in their beds. Everypony in this room who wishes to join this new unit will be allowed to do so, regardless of your injuries. We will find a job for you.”
He paused, and the room filled with a rush of babble. Ponies turned to each other, whispering. Beside him, Cloud Fire and Zephyr exchanged a laden glance. Quicklime frowned down at the floor.
Vermilion stepped forward. Just as quickly, the room went silent.
“What about the ponies outside our borders?” he asked. “What of them?”
Electrum’s eyes tightened. “Our borders are open to them, but so long as they remain outside of Equestria, they will not have our protection. I have asked Princess Celestia, and she has agreed to guarantee that never again will Equestrian forces be deployed to fight outside of the kingdom. We will shed our last drop of blood defending this land, but we will never repeat the mistakes of Hollow Shades.”
“Mistakes?” Vermilion blinked at him. “How was that a mistake? We saved lives!”
“At too high of a cost, private. You’re the last pony I should have to remind of that.”
“Would the major say that?” As soon as he said the words, Vermilion knew he’d gone too far. Hero or not, he was still a lowly private, and Electrum a captain, one chosen by Celestia herself to lead the new company.
Electrum would have been justified in giving him a harsh reprimand. Instead he closed his eyes for a moment and seemed to slump. When he finally opened his eyes, they were filled with the last emotion Vermilion expected: grief.
“I know what the major would say. I knew Canopy very well, private,” Electrum said. “But she is dead, and her choices were what killed her. She was a great pony, but we cannot afford any more like her, not now.”
The captain straightened and swept his gaze over the crowd. “The company’s barracks have been reopened and are being repurposed for our new unit’s mission. Those of you who wish to find a place in it, simply come back, and I will be glad to welcome you. All of you.”
He paused with a final look in Vermilion’s direction, then turned and walked out of the room.
* * *
Cloud Fire found Vermilion in the hospital’s expansive gardens the next day. Spring had crept in while Vermilion slept away his injuries, and fields of manicured flowers swayed in the cool breeze.
The pegasus settled down by his side. For a while they watched the flowers together.
Vermilion sighed. “So, are you joining them?”
“I dunno.” Cloud Fire shrugged. “Could do worse, I guess. You?”
Vermilion shook his head. “Join them to do what? Cower inside our walls? Let the rest of the world burn while we guard our lands, pulling back every year until nothing remains but Everfree itself? That… no.”
He tilted his head back, eyes closed, letting the sun warm his face. “I can see where that ends, Cloudy. I’ve had dreams about it. I’ve seen a land full of embers and darkness, an endless graveyard inhabited by monsters like Blightweaver or worse. A demon-haunted world, with Equestria as a tiny, helpless spark of light.”
Cloud Fire shifted, his wings ruffling. “Sounds a little dramatic. There’ve always been monsters out there, Cherry.”
“Not like that. Not like…” He stopped, suddenly panting for breath. Too much thinking about that night. “Like Blightweaver. We’re not safe as long as monsters like it are out there. And what about the next Hollow Shades? How many towns like it are outside Equestria?”
Cloud Fire didn’t answer, and they lapsed back into silence, each musing over their own fears. A cloud drifted across the sun, casting the hospital grounds into shadow and returning a chill to the air.
Zephyr found them not much later. She settled in on Vermilion’s other side and draped a mostly featherless wing over his back. It didn’t provide much warmth, being little more than bare skin, but he leaned against her in thanks anyway.
“You two look happy,” she said. “Gonna join Electrum, then?”
Vermilion shook his head. To his surprise, Cloud Fire did too.
“Cherry wants to be a freelance hero,” he said. “Somepony’s gotta keep him safe.”
Zephyr snorted. “And that’s going to be you? How’d that work last time?”
Cloud Fire shrugged. “Worked fine for me.”
Vermilion couldn’t help but smile. “Thanks, bud.”
“Sure, sure. I don’t know what the plan is, though. What are two ponies supposed to do?”
“Three ponies,” Zephyr said. “Whatever you idiots are planning, you need somepony who can fight.”
A new voice sounded as Quicklime joined them. She sat beside Cloud Fire, extending the line. “Who’s fighting? Aren’t you a little banged up to fight? Am I going to have to tell the doctor on you?”
“Cherry’s gonna save the world,” Cloudy said. “Me and Zephyr are gonna help. You in?”
“Hm.” Quicklime tilted her head. “Beats being in an office, I guess. And I always did want to save the world.”
And just like that, they were four. Vermilion still had no idea where to even begin with the rest of it – before that morning, his most rigorous responsibility was cooking breakfast. Now he was contemplating war outside Equestria’s borders.
But, as the earth pony saying went, even the mightiest oak started as a tiny acorn. And four ponies, so tightly bound by friendship, made for a great acorn indeed.
* * *
Vermilion was still floating on a cloud of hope when he returned to his room that evening. His last night in the room, with any luck. Then he could get started on his great work.
Granted, he had no idea how, or where, to get started. But that was something to worry about tomorrow. For now, he needed to worry about getting a full night of sleep.
Rose Quartz was in her bed when he arrived. She wasn’t alone – a third pony had joined them, a tall indigo unicorn. She sat on the floor at the foot of Rose’s bed, her tail spilled out behind her like a peacock’s fan. A pair of powerful, dark-feathered wings fluttered at her side.
He dropped to his knees reflexively. He was supposed to say something graceful and courteous, something about honor and service. Instead he stared at the floor and blurted the first thing that came to mind.
“Princess,” he said.
“Stand,” Luna said. Her voice was powerful and harsh on his ears, like an ice-filled waterfall. “You are Vermilion, are you not? I have heard much about you.”
He scrambled to his hooves and glanced at Rose Quartz. She snorted quietly, her nostrils flaring, and she turned away to look out the window.
So, no help there. He looked up – and up, for Luna was a tall pony, even seated – and did his best not to shiver in her presence. A palpable cold radiated from her dark form, like a misplaced fragment of winter night. A faint ring of frost had formed on the stone tiles around her.
“I am,” he said. “Vermilion, that is. Your majesty.”
She rose to her hooves, and standing dwarfed him. He’d never been so close to one of the princesses, only ever seeing them from a distance at public events. The ponies around them had seemed so small in comparison, and now he knew why. They were like foals around the alicorns. The chilled air swirled around her, condensing into beads of moisture on the floor and bedpost. He wondered if she was always like this, or—
“Look at me,” she commanded, and he flinched. Her gaze pinned him to the spot and peeled him open; there was no hiding of secrets from a god. “Yes, you have the touch of a hero about you. You have been through much, little pony.”
He shook his head. “No, majesty, I am just a simple soldier. The major is the real—”
“Stop talking,” Luna interrupted him as casually as he might scratch at an itch. Some unseen force wrapped around Vermilion’s jaws and squeezed them painfully shut. Her horn never glowed; it was the force of her will rather than magic that silenced him.
Luna inspected him. She peered at his bandages, squinted at the blisters on his hide, and touched the tip of her muzzle to his mane to catch his scent. Several hairs froze, broke and fell away at the contact.
“Smaller than I expected,” she mused. Even at a mumble, her voice shook the bones in his chest. And what was it with mares calling him small? “I would not have believed you could have confronted a monster like Blightweaver, but… well, I have learned not to judge ponies by appearances. Tell me, are you a brave pony, Vermilion?”
The invisible bands wrapped round his muzzle vanished, and he worked his jaw experimentally. “I suppose I am, your majesty, but so are all the ponies in the company. I am not special. My friends are braver than I.”
“Hm. And yet.” Luna tilted her head toward Rose, who stared back with a one-eyed gaze. “Well, I am impressed with you, Vermilion. That is a rare thing in these modern times. Rarer still for such a pony to survive whatever it was they did to impress me.”
She bared her teeth at him. After a moment, he realized she was trying to smile. Apparently she didn’t get much practice at it.
He bobbed his head. “Thank you, your majesty. I’m, uh, honored, especially about the alive part.”
“Please, call me Luna,” she said. “That is my gift to you.”
Um. He glanced at Rose, but she might as well have been a statue. “Thank you, Luna. Have you come to visit the wounded members of our company?”
She tilted her head. “Why would I do that? I am interested in you, Vermilion.”
Because of course she was. “I am honored by your attention, your majest—”
“LUNA!” she roared. Her wings rose, expanding out like a thundercloud, and she slammed a silver-shod hoof into the floor hard enough to break it – the floor, not her hoof. The sharp report shattered his hearing and left his ears ringing afterward.
A flurry of hooves filled the corridor. Vermilion turned to see a doctor start to step into the doorway. Just as quickly she froze, assessed the room’s occupants, then spun and vanished back down the hallway as fast as she had come.
Vermilion’s eyes were barely off of Luna for more than a second, but by the time he turned back she had already settled down, and no trace of her ire remained.
He’d heard the rumors about Princess Luna, of course. Everypony in Everfree was familiar with them – tales of her wild temperament, mercurial and shifting as the moon. They said she had lovers but never friends, whereas her sister had friends but no lovers. She ruled the night and dreams with an iron hoof, and violence was her preferred solution to life’s problems, no matter how large or small. She was passion incarnate – not just carnal passion, though certainly that too, but passion of all kind, of ideals and beliefs and hopes. If you had her favor, you were the luckiest pony in Equestria; they also said that ponies in her favor never lived for very long. Mortals were not meant to stand so close to gods.
They even said – in hushed whispers, for it would not do to be caught speaking such treason – that there was tension between the two crowns. That Celestia and Luna rarely spoke anymore. That, after a thousand years of toil to bring the three tribes together, the sisters had lost the precious thread that bound them together. Generations of peace were now accomplishing what all their enemies could not.
“You have been dreaming interesting dreams, Vermilion,” she said. At the word dreaming her face seemed to relax, her eyes focusing on something distant and unseen. A smile, a real smile, grew on her face. “You’ve seen the same visions I have, of the world outside our borders. You’ve seen the new darkness.”
Dreams. He closed his eyes and tried to recall the fleeting scraps of memory that remained from all the restless nights since Hollow Shades. From the fevered dreams while they fled Hollow Shades to the last few nights staring awake at the hospital ceiling. Images tugged at him, teasing him.
She drove on. “And you know how my sister plans to combat this? To fight the monsters? Not just Blightweaver, but all his wretched kin as well. Monsters that no pony has dreamed of in a thousand years, I see them returning. They lurk in the forests and the mountains and the deep recesses of the earth, in all the hidden places, waiting to leap out reclaim the world.”
“I have seen them. Dragons, basilisks, sphinxes…” An odd, numb feeling overcame him, as though this were all a dream itself. “They are real, aren’t they? What Princess Celestia plans won’t stop them. It will only delay the fall.”
Her smile grew into a thirsty grin. “So I told her. But she is afraid, Vermilion. The catastrophe in Hollow Shades wounded her more than you know. Every death, every injury, it is like she suffers them herself. She is too jealous of her ponies to risk their blood. But you and I, we know something, do we not? We know that sometimes blood must be spent. We know that to fail in one’s duty is worse than death. Canopy knew this – more than anypony alive, Canopy knew this. Do you think you are like her, Vermilion?”
He shook his head. “She was a warrior, your—Luna. I am no warrior, not like her.”
“I think you could be.” Luna leaned forward. The scent of primrose and ice filled Vermilion’s nose. “I have seen your dreams, Vermilion. I know what is in your heart. You want to take the fight to our enemies, but you don’t know how. My sister will not help you because she is afraid; you are too precious for her to risk. But I? I am not afraid to risk the things I love.”
“You’ll help us?” He leaned in close – the chill emanating from her skin no longer troubled him. “Give us what we need?”
“More than that,” she whispered. Snow drifted in her breath. “Pledge yourself to me, Vermilion. Be my knight, and all the resources of my crown will be yours. Create a new company, one worthy of the old, and hunt for monsters wherever they are. Bring the light of Equestria into a darkening world. Will you do that?”
He nodded. “If you will let me, yes.”
Luna placed a chaste kiss on his forehead. A cool, soothing chill washed over his hide where she breathed.
“Good,” she said. “For now, rest. Let your wounds mend. When you are ready, find me. Bring with you those who are willing to serve.”
She stood back and folded her wings around her like a cloak. The room darkened, the shadows welling up from beneath the bed and the recessed cracks beneath his hooves. They rose like the tide and swallowed everything for an endless moment, and when the light returned he was alone.
Well, not alone. Rose Quartz was still there, sitting on the bed. She blinked rapidly and shook her head to clear it.
He climbed up on his bed and settled down. Neither spoke. If not for the shattered stone tiles on the floor, he could have just as easily imagined it was all a dream.
“That…” Rose paused and swallowed. “She meant all that, didn’t she? And so did you? You’re really going to go back out there.”
He nodded.The others would need to know about this, he supposed. Perhaps he shouldn’t have agreed to anything without talking with them? Zephyr, at least – she was the sensible one, and more of a warrior than him too.
“And others? They’re joining you?”
Again he nodded. “If they want to, yes.”
“Ah.” She fell silent. She shook her head again, then reached up to brush her mane out of her face. Her hoof touched the bandage covering her eye, and she flinched.
“Do, ah.” She swallowed. “Do you think you’ll need a medic?”
Vermilion raised an eyebrow in her direction. She returned the gaze, unblinking.
“You know,” he said. “I bet we will.”