“Holy shit...” Hopeful released along with a faint gasp. “Has it always been that beautiful?”
“I honestly can not say...” Aurora added, the two of them entranced by the golden sunrise bursting out of the horizon like a phoenix returning from the ashes.
They'd been traveling for nearly half a day, about to reach the center of Earth Pony territory, Hopeful's old home town being one of the first stops they could arrive at. Which they would, in about an hour, by Hopeful's estimate.
The train’s fire had done wonders to rejuvenate them; their eyes now sparkled, their skin shone, and their voices were steady and warm when used. They had, in fact, thrown off their coats and other clothing due to the, if it were not absolutely freezing outside, unbearable heat. It was odd seeing each other in their own flesh; the wool of their coats felt like an extension of themselves and to be able to throw it off was a new, thrilling experience for both of them.
Aurora kept Hopeful updated on her pregnancy as even her baby was refilled with energy and life. Apparently kicking every few hours, the sensation was simultaneously quite painful and still delightful. Aurora giggled every time it happened.
But now their attentions were sealed in the portratesque view of the rising sun, looking through the muddled glass pane of their side-view window.
For a while, they were happy. Life just felt good again. They felt whole, made complete and tranquil. At peace with themselves.
It took a while before they were able to peel themselves away as the sun lost its golden shimmer and hid behind the pavement of cloud in the sky.
“Much further till Buckingham?” Aurora contemplated aloud, awaiting Hopeful's report back.
“We're actually coming up to it quite soon, believe it or not. I recognize these hills.” Hopeful trotted up and pressed his hoof against the slippery wet glass, singling out a mount of dirt and snow from all the others they passed by. “That there is, or at least I'm pretty sure, the place where I saw a mangy dog when I ran away from home and got so scared after it growled at me that I ran all the way back home.”
“You can remember a hill?” She thought it was a bit funny.
“Yup, that fucking dog taught me a lesson I will never forget,” Hopeful stated with pride.
“What lesson?”
“Don't fuck with mangy dogs as a ten year old. What else was I supposed to learn? The meaning of friendship?” He chuckled.
“I wouldn't be surprised. What if the dog just wanted to cuddle?” She prodded him with a jokey tone.
“It probably did want to cuddle with the torn apart remains of my little colt body, yeah. I should have just stood there and let it happen.” He stuck out a tongue, bursting out into a short laugh with a child like glee.
Aurora let out a blissful sigh. Everything felt so good again. She reflected on the hardships she and Hopeful had gone through to get here, but in a matter of minutes, it would be over. Their long wait. Sure, it wasn't to plan, but they would escape north in due time after her baby was born, and this time they had a place practically guaranteed. No mystical Zebra chieftain was going to kick Hopeful out of his own home. At least she hoped not. That would be quite strange.
“Look! There it is!” Hopeful refocused Aurora back onto the road ahead, seeing the tips of snow-topped building's appear from beneath the rising horizon.
A warmth filled his heart and eyes at the sight of his old town, he could recognize those building-tops from a mile away, which he nearly was in fact doing as their train sped into town.
Hopeful eased on the break, finding it hard to keep his eyes off the road, but it had to be done for him to retain concentration on a gentle deceleration.
A screech and grinding of metal came through the padding of snow surrounding the wheels, painfully pulling the train to rest. Hopeful excitedly brought Auri out of her seat to bring her outside.
He hoisted all of his bags and things around his back once more, retightening his coat and aiding Auri in putting hers on, including her Earth Pony disguise, seeing as they were about to enter a huge Earth Pony town. Then once they were finally ready, he kicked open the door and hopped down into the snow.
He turned his head upward and searched around, met by a familiar assortment of buildings nearing the town’s edge, all covered head to hoof in an unfamiliar coating of snow, not a single path trodden or roof wiped cleared in far too long.
“What...” He questioned to himself in a whisper.
“Hopeful…?” Aurora called for him, sharing in his confusion while simultaneously requesting his aid in descending from the top of the door's ladder.
Hopeful quickly helped her down, his worry never leaving his face.
“We need to get to my farm.” he informed her with a determined hope, refusing to believe they had gotten his town.
He quickly began guiding her into the town, the high snow making it a tedious task, taking a long and tiring length of time to even arrive at the town hall. The entire thing was bombed down to bits, not a standing pillar holding it up any longer.
Hopeful tried his hardest to ignore that sight as he pressed on right past it with Auri, visible anger and despair fighting for room in his head as his resentment grew for the ponies that did this to his town.
The place was barren and lifeless, their crunching of snow in their trot the loudest noise, bar a few grunts and coughs coming from the slowly enraging Hopeful as he spotted several other bombed in buildings, the blast seemingly random in their targets but generally focused in the center of the village. Hopeful wondered if that meant his farm was safe, being on the far outskirts.
They made it to the dead-still farmland within the hour, not a spur through the snow-topped entrance since Hopeful's departure. It gave him a small upswing in hope as they sprinted through the long, painstaking trot up to the farmhouse.
Upon arrival, they found themselves on Hopeful's old porch, the old chair he used to sit out and watch the sunrise and sunset with his daughter still unmoved, a thick snow sheet sitting on its surface.
And while it was clear no Pegasian bombs were dropped over his homestead, the weather decline showed the same luck-driven mercy.
The winds of hurricanes and blizzards had shattered his windows, along with his roof, which collapsed in some areas, leaving the house to build up with months and months of snow, making the place uninhabitable.
Hopeful didn't mourn, though. He wasn't going to bother shedding another tear, no matter how much it hurt.
He dragged Auri down to the barn, its unharmed roof a mere red-herring of hope, as once they had gotten close enough, they found a partly blown open door, the locks apparently not enough to have kept back the winter demons.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck!!!” Hopeful kicked in some fencing inside of the barn. The two of them rested there. While it was also filled with snow and below freezing, it gave a light layer of isolation from the air outside.
“Hopeful...” Aurora called for him, feeling particularly weak.
“What, Auri? Tell me. What am I supposed to do? I have no fucking clue, ‘cause every time I think we have a fucking chance with any damn solution to this whole fucking thing, it's thrown back in our faces! It's bullshit!” He finished yelling and pacing around the barn, catching a concerned glance from Aurora. Hopeful realized he was being aggressive, which he regretted. “I'm sorry. I just... I just need a moment.”
Aurora conceded him that, finding a spot to rest against the wall while Hopeful wandered around his old barn for a while, inspecting a year's worth of no maintenance in this weather, each crack and snow filled crevice earning a remorseful gaze from Hopeful.
“We'll find some place, Hopeful... We will. I know it.” Aurora spoke up to him, trying to break him out of the painful nostalgia he held with the place.
“We have to. There's no question about it,” Hopeful agreed aloud while stroking an oakwood pillar jutting out from the barn’s inner wall. Sighing heavily, he decided it was time to let go. “And we shouldn't waste time finding it. Let's go.”
Hopeful approached her again and helped her up to a stand. He then promptly headed to the large door and held it ajar for Auri.
“Don't you want to say goodbye to your home first?” she asked, his lack of hesitation surprising her. Hopeful always seemed the sentimental type.
“This isn't my home anymore, Auri. Me and you still have to find our home.” He creaked the door open by another inch, prompting Aurora to step out, Hopeful shortly following.
They found themselves in the train before sunset.
For the rest of the day, they passed town after town in their little train engine, each of them abandoned, bombed and left to waste. Hopeful felt an overwhelming dread, knowing that this was what they were fighting against. This was the battle he had run from, and now his country had been raped. Each town or village was stripped for food and forgotten by even his own race, who he hoped would appear from behind the horizon at any second, but they never did. How far south they've been evacuated, he may never know.
The sun began to dawn and they were still traveling, the coal needed to continue beginning to run noticeably short. They rode their black, steel train head into the never ending void, which seemed to kill even the sun as it became impossible to see a thing out of their windows. They could be traveling right past a town bursting with ponies and life and they wouldn't know it.
Aurora still sat in the driver's seat, holding a hoof around her large belly, feeling the baby's warmth radiating through. “We'll find some place in the morning; I know it,” Aurora attempted to assure Hopeful's painful doubt, barely being able to keep up her own sense of hope.
“I don't know anymore...” Hopeful was too tired to cry, but he wished he could.
“We can't give up, even if it seems to be all lost. You taught me that.” Aurora tried to find the old, unstoppable, confident soldier Hopeful once was.
“I...” And while it was hard to see, deep down, he was still there. “I know...”
“Why don't you tell me another story? It'll take your mind off things,” she suggested.
Hopeful let out a losing huff of laughter, “I think I already told you them all... I don't think I can think of anything else.”
Aurora softly reminded him. “The last story I remember was when you told me how your wife and daughter died. You haven't yet told me about you being recruited.” Aurora placed a hoof onto his foreleg, trying to show her empathy.
Hopeful smirked, the sadness in his eyes being a sensation he now could look upon with nostalgia. “Yeah... Sure.” He took a minute to collect himself before he began with his tale.
“It was about mid day, a bit later when I found myself on that train platform. I had nopony. I barely knew what i was doing... I met a pony named Spring on that train, and at first I didn't like him but... Eventually, he'd save my life, so, you know...”
Hopeful sighed and motioned his gaze over to Auri, seeing her tiresome yet perky eyebrows invested in him telling his story.
“Well, we were on the train and it was about, I dunno, the middle of the night or something, kind of like it is now...” Hopeful noticed, he thought the coincidence was quite quaint. “And then the train had to stop...” His speech slowed down, becoming a whisper as he tried his hardest to remember something, his eyes growing in worry.
Aurora was made concerned by proxy, “Hopeful? What's wrong? Why did the train have to stop?” She asked, assuming his problem arose with that memory.
“Because... OH FUCK!” Hopeful leapt at the train's break, pulling it down with all of his might.
The scrape of metal rushing against metal burned through the atmosphere as they began to decelerate, the ice and snow covering the tracks making it harder as the train continued to slide forward. In the next few seconds, Hopeful and Aurora, who was already projecting a protective barrier around the two of them, felt the weight of the train succumb to gravity as it slumped down into the crater created by the Pegasian Lightning shell that was dropped on the these tracks nearly a year ago. Thankfully, they had slowed down enough for this to be a mere bump and bruise, and not a bone-crushing death caused by flying into the ground at nearly a hundred kilometers per hour.
Hopeful and Aurora took a moment to let the dust settle as the two of them now sat upon the train's upturned windshield.
“Hopeful..?” Aurora spoke out in a shuddery panic.
“Yeah, I know,” he grunted as his back cracked, bringing his body up from the rubble.
The train was sunk into a large, snow-filled bowl formed in the world's crust by the explosive magnitude of a Lightning shell. The fire in the train's engine had now gone out, and anything not bolted against something else had crashed down along with Hopeful and Aurora onto the train's downward-pointing front face.
The two of them spent a long while slowly climbing their way out of the sideways cabin door and crawling out onto the snow.
Once Hopeful had gotten Aurora onto the security of flat ground, he bothered to finally assess the damage, seeing the completely toppled over train-head stuck into this several meter deep crater made it really hard to remain positive about his situation.
“Well... Shit.” He sighed, too tired to be overly disappointed.
“W-what now?” Aurora gently asked, a shiver already drowning her frail tongue.
“I...” He dropped his head, feeling a hopelessness wave over him as no answer immediately followed.
After a few seconds of his mind reorganizing itself he struck upon something, “I have an idea...” Hopeful searched for the direction in which the tracks lead, seeing a painfully familiar treeline in the extreme distance, the weather clear enough for the trees’ outlines to stick out like an assortment of fiery beacons. “I've been here before! My old military training base is up just ahead!” he yelled out in sudden and explosive excitement, Aurora finding herself sharing in his overwhelming joy as she was lead forward.
They marched forward together with all of the energy they had built up in reserve from the comfort of their train cabin. Hopeful knew the journey would last about an hour just to break the treeline, but one hour felt like minutes, compared to what he'd been through. They passed several other craters as a result of stray Lightning shells being dropped all over nopony's land. Hopeful pushed through with immense strength, contrasting to Auri, who began to fall behind.
“Come on, Auri! We have to keep up the pace! We're nearly there!” he shouted back, noticing her stop and collapse to a knee. He quickly attended her, dashing back and hoisting her up around his shoulder; if he had to walk her there he would. He didn't care if trotting felt more like being impaled with nails than moving forward. “Come on, just a few more minutes, Auri.” He tried motivating her shaking body to keep going, but just a few steps later, she fell from his grip and into the snow, her face completely covered as she panted for air. The cold burned the inside of her throat as she forced the breath down.
Hopeful stopped and took his time as he dug his head down and hoisted Aurora's body up, pulling her onto his back so that her belly would lay on Hopeful's spine, her forelegs hanging off of one of his sides and hind legs, the other, now completely hanging loose, Hopeful supporting one hundred percent of her weight.
He continued as such, pushing their combined weight through the snow, and he did it with a grin. He didn't need anypony to help him this time as he marched all the way into the forest. Sure, his back felt like it was to collapse at any moment, and the fact that his legs were shaking with the intensity of earthquakes definitely didn't help, but he felt like a fucking war hero once he had stepped into the forest, instantly falling down, leaving Aurora tumbling into the snow beside him.
He panted and clung onto every bit of air for every moment it would last, his heart pumping like a shotgun blast every portion of a second.
They rested up until Hopeful regained his breath, stumbling into a stand as he checked up on Aurora, who looked up to him with a tiresome smile.
“Thank... you...” she praised him, amazed by his determination.
“We're not there yet; we've got to get to the hatch...” Hopeful quickly spilled out before latching onto another fleeting breath, giving Aurora the necessary help in order for her to stand.
Once she had her right hoof tightly wrapped around his neck, the two of them were confident enough to continue.
Aurora found herself in a violent coughing fit as she was dragged through the rotted, lifeless forest. She'd been getting sicker by the day, and her condition reached its peak in urgency. Her skin was below freezing, she had trouble speaking and keeping herself awake, her body beginning to deteriorate at the expense it was being pushed to.
But it's all going to get better, Hopeful thought. They were going to get into his old bunker and she'd be warm and safe. Then, in a few days, once her condition improved, she would give birth and Hopeful would help her take care of Lil' Midnight until they could finally return to their original plan and escape to the north. He was so engrossed with this train of thought that he could barely hear Aurora calling his name.
“Hopeful...” she whispered into his ear, him finally taking notice and stopping their trot.
“What is it, Auri?” he impatiently spat out, he hated the prospect of wasting time right now.
“T-the... b... baby...” she muttered. Hopeful noticed that she was clutching her stomach and contorting in great physical pain.
Hopeful swiftly eased her down to lie with her back against a tree. It provided a small and irrelevant point of comfort, and she felt the worst contractions she'd had yet. She could barely help but scream a whimpering, pain-filled scream as she felt it get stronger.
“Auri what's happening? Are you okay?” Hopeful promptly asked, trying to understand how he could help the situation.
“It's...” She struggled to speak as her pains burned again and again, small screams of agony leaving her every few breaths. While she wished to chalk it up to only be some extreme contractions that would pass soon, that was quickly changed as she felt a new and horrifying sensation.
“What's wrong?!” Hopeful yelled out as saw Auri's eyes bolt open, her mouth stuck in an open shock.
“M-my...” Her stutter overpowered her as she desperately tried to answer, mustering up the strength with a few breaths.
“M-my water... b-broke...”