As the dark clouds blotted out the sky, I tried to focus on my work. My hooves sloshed through the wet mud which flicked onto my belly. The damp, cold, stench wafted to my nostrils with each new step, and I wondered to myself if I’d ever really feel clean again. Cold wind whistled by my face, sending a shiver down my spine. Above the sound of wind were the sporadic spells crashing above us.
My coat tried to fluff up, but too much of it was caked in mud to do any good. I stopped moving only briefly, just long enough to try and catch my breath, when feet away a spell came rocketing over the trench wall crashing against the helmet of a fallen soldier, making me jump. I kept moving, keeping my head down.
Ombré’s war took many by surprise which was why we got so behind so quickly. The first few years were difficult but not impossible to fight. It was guerrilla warfare, hiding in trees and blinds, ambushes on common trail heads, you know, the usual. But when we started to push back they hunkered down, built the trenches.
For those who are unfamiliar, the trenches are a few hundred meters apart, full of friendly soldiers on one side, and Ombré’s army on the other. The nopony’s land in between is littered with fallen soldiers, and residual curses. Unless you’re the best of the best, if you go in, you’re probably not coming out. The moment your head eases above the ground line, well...you’re not getting back on solid ground.
Another clang brought me back to my surroundings. The spells coming from the other side of nowhere seemed to be dying off yet not entirely. For a moment, I wondered if they were trying to gain some ground in nopony’s land, but dismissed the thought. While Ombré had added their jinxes to the land separating us, so had we. Nobody would be crossing any time soon.
Beside me another soldier slept as well as they could. Their fur was matted and filthy like mine, as they lay uncomfortably in the mud, head propped on a rock to avoid the tides of water threatening to suffocate them. I shook my head, remembering my own fitful sleep the night before. I took a seat beside them, keeping my head and horn low, and trying not to dip my wings into the muck.
My job was to engineer a way to fix this mess. Find some new way to make these trenches livable. It was harder said than done. With no way to adequately plumb the area, a mixture of wet mud and worse clung to everything. The boards which had originally lined the bottom of the walkway were no match for the wet rain and the sliding cascades of dirt from either side of us. Spells were attempted, but without dedicating a permanent spellcasting brigade to the job, they just wouldn’t stick and neither Reya nor Noct could spare such a large reserve of magic just for convenience.
So the job came down to me. My tools were limited. No spells that would take more than one spellcaster to manage, and any generic materials the military could afford. Certainly not a bountiful resource by any means.
My new neighbor twitched and cried softly in his sleep sending waves of muck onto my lap. I shivered with the cold but tried not to blame him. All our dreams were plagued with bad memories. For a moment I wondered how long he’d been here. His fur was navy blue, the bits I could make out, and speckled with the same white from his filthy mane.
I wondered to myself then what I looked like, if I would ever look the same again. My fur too was matted and covered in grime. The purple hue was hidden under the dark brown plastered all over my body. It would be pointless to clean up. The second I tried, I’d be covered again.
For the moment I breathed in a deep sigh. The crashes above had tapered out and the sun seemed to be setting as the grey clouds above grew dimmer. I wondered if we’d win. They always said it, but the way things felt nobody was really sure.
Laying in puddles of water and muck, I thought about the future, and prayed to anyone and thing, that I’d be coming home.