Death occupied Pathfinder’s mind. How easy it would have been to step through the threshold and into the peaceful non-existence that waited for everypony on the other side. He didn’t remember what it was like, before he’d been born. But it hadn’t bothered him then. It hadn’t given him pain, or sorrow, nor had it broken his spirit and defiled his body. Why not, then, go back to the eternal sleep?
The low rumble of thunder overhead interrupted his silent reverie. A cold rain was falling from the skies above, the droplets pattering down from gray clouds onto the column of pegasi marching across muddied roads. High winds buffeted the soldiers with cold, freezing a thin sheen of rain to their armor. It made them glisten like stallions and mares of crystal, a proud sight if not for their anguished eyes and sloughed wings.
Seeds of despair had taken root in their souls, and the bitter fruit it yielding was bare for even the colt to see in his fleeting bouts of consciousness. Between those moments he fought back the nightmares that threatened to break the little left of his spirit. If he was lucky, he was only out for a moment, and the nightmares didn’t have a chance to take hold. If he wasn’t lucky…
Claws.
Screaming.
Spear.
Pain.
Pathfinder gave a sharp kick as he snapped awake, the action sending bolts of pain through his ravaged side and earning a yelp from the unarmored back he was riding on.
“Ow! Dammit, kid, don’t kick me!”
“Better you than me, Rain,” another voice said with a laugh.
“Celsus, I don’t care how bad you got flogged, I will salt your back and make you carry him.”
Pathfinder groaned. His head was throbbing and he could feel the pounding of his heart in his ears. Each beat of his heart made the pain in his head get worse, like he’d stuck his head into the jaws of a great vice. He raised a hoof to try clutching at his aching skull, as though holding it might somehow alleviate him of his discomfort. However his efforts were fruitless.
“Ow!” Rain growled when his flailing hoof struck her behind the ear.
“I’ll give him more wine,” Summer said, and Pathfinder could hear her hoofsteps getting closer, the mud of the trail sloshing under her weight.
“He’s fine, Summer,” Rain growled. “You’re giving him too much of that shit already.
“If by fine you mean he’s been groaning and thrashing for hours, then sure, he’s perfectly fine.”
Finder heard Rain start to talk again, but her words faded away with his consciousness. Just as quickly as he’d been awake, he was unconscious again. Around his hooves drifted a pale blue smoke. He wandered through it and coughed as it filled his lungs.
To his left, he saw his mother, Longbow, and their father. It was their kitchen, with the three gathered around the fire as his mother cooked his favorite stew. Finder could smell the herbs in the air. His mouth watered, and for just a moment he even felt the heat from the flames in his cheeks.
Then he looked to his opposite side. There he found fire. The wall of orange, yellow, and red consumed the walls with an insatiable hunger. Finder turned to warn his family, but it was too late. The flames had consumed them too, leaving only skeletons that screamed as they were turned to blackened ash. Soon the floor too had burned away, and Finder found himself surrounded by blackness.
“Mama!” he called out, his voice not even making so much as an echo in the void.
“Mama!” he cried again, the rhythm of his hooves getting faster as he started to run.
The ground behind him turned to sand. Pathfinder tried to fly, but realized his wings were gone. Where they had been were ragged, bloody, holes. He could see down to his lungs, just like when Magnus tore Longbow’s wings from his body. The colt screamed again and ran faster. No matter how fast he ran, though, the collapsing world behind him was faster.
He fell into the dark, and his body hit the cold earth as he screamed.
Something held him down. Stronger limbs pinned his flanks, chest, and head to the ground. Finder felt his heart clench in his chest. All over again he felt those wicked hooked claws digging into his hips. Voices were yelling at him. The griffons were laughing at him.
‘No no no no no no,’ he pleaded, with fresh tears burned his eyes.
Claws dug into the flesh of his cheek and pushed his head down. He screamed and tried to pull away, but his screams were laughed at, and his head was forced between the griffon’s rear legs. Longbow watched him all the while. His lips pulled down into a revolted sort of frown. There was a stabbing pain under his tail, and Finder’s scream was gagged.
“KID!”
The voice was loud, sharp, and Pathfinder snapped his eyes open. Every breath lanced pain through his chest and he struggled to flap his broken wings in a futile attempt to fly to safety. Strong limbs held him still, and two blue eyes were locked with his own while hooves held his cheeks in place.
“You’re alright,” Rain whispered into his ear. “Shhh…shh…you’re safe now…You’re safe…”
Pathfinder gasped for breath, cringing and coughing with the exertion, and slowly felt the pounding in his chest begin to slow. Rain leaned away, letting him see the golden fields that stretched for miles around their encampment. The sun hung low in the sky, suspended over voluminous clouds.
Slowly, oh so slowly, the horror of his nightmare faded. His breathing slowed, his heartrate settled, and he felt a sense of warmth and safety.
“Hey buddy,” Carver’s voice joined the others. “How’re you doing?”
Finder gritted his teeth, biting back a pained groan as he looked to the stallion. Carver was wearing new armor, polished and trimmed in gold. The bandage around his eye had been changed for a more proper fitting eyepatch out of tanned leather. He paused, noticing the colt’s lingering gaze, then allowed a moments smile. “Heh, promotion. Don’t worry about it. You’re still stuck with me for a while, kid. I’m in charge of security for the column.”
“And yet here you are,” Rain reminded him with a cold tone. “Have you sent out pickets and scouts?”
Carver gulped, and seemed to momentarily shrink under Rain’s withering glare. “Yes Ma’am. I have pickets positioned at regular intervals and scouts patrolling for any sign of enemy activity. If the bastards make a move we should see it.
“’Should’?” Rain repeated the word with no small amount of scorn. “Should, Carver, is the difference between victory and defeat. Nimbus should still be floating above the Kataigismós Plain. The hybrids should be begging for our mercy as the Legion batters down the walls of Agenholt until not a single stone is left. But we are here because some damn fools thought that should was good enough!” Rain’s voice raised to a shout and made Carver flinch.
Silence settled between the three ponies for a few moments, then Rain sighed, containing her temper once again. “We are vulnerable here, particularly to guerrilla attacks. We need as much warning as possible so another ambush like the one we survived at Nyx doesn’t happen.”
“It won’t Ma’am,” Carver assured her, standing up straighter. “I’ll make sure of it.”
Rain made a thoughtful sounding hum, and seemed less than convinced by his argument. “See that you do, Centurion. Anything else?”
“We need to talk about rations at some point,” Carver said with a cautious tone. “We’re down to scraps.”
“I’m aware, Senator Celsus assures me he’s doing all he can in the Senate to see we get what we need.”
“We need it soon. Much longer and we’re going to be eating grass and most of the soldiers won’t be able to lift their swords.”
Rain sighed and turned her head to call out to a pony out of Finder’s sight. “Haze!”
“Ma’am,” The stallion said, trotting up beside her.
“Take a hundred ponies, the fastest you can find, and assemble them into foraging parties. They’re to collect any game they find. Rabbits, wild swine, birds, fish, anything.”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
“Fly only to the north, east, or south,” Rain instructed with a firmness to her tone. “Cirra has nominal control of anything west of our line, but you’re guaranteed a hybrid ambush if you venture too far from the pickets.”
Haze nodded. “By your command.”
Pathfinder pressed a hoof down to the ground and groaned as he forced himself to a sitting position. The effort made a cold sweat break out over his body. The burn that Todesangst had left on his hoof ached from the touch of sharp grass, but the mending muscles in his chest made that pain seem almost quaint. He forced an eye open, barely able to see the silhouettes of Rain, Summer, Carver, Haze, and Thorn watching him.
Summer was at his side in a moment, bracing him with her shoulder. “Easy, Finder, you need to rest.”
“I...I can fish…” he wheezed.
Thorn raised an eyebrow and noted dryly, “You can barely breathe.”
“Grew up,” he passed for a breath, cringing as his side protested the simple efforts of being alive. “In Altus… I c-can fish…”
“We’ll go fishing later,” Summer promised as she tried to ease him back down. “But you’ve got to rest first.”
Finder wanted to argue. He wanted to get away from everything, to do anything that would make him feel useful again. But try as he might his body would barely move, and increasingly he found himself relying on Summer’s shoulder to hold himself up. Bit by bit his strength ebbed, and the voices around him grew muted again as he passed out.
How long he was unconscious for, he didn’t know. He knew he was riding on somepony’s back again, and that they were walking. He realized that he was laying on his stomach, his legs dangling off a large pony’s body and his head drooped around that pony’s right shoulder. The smell of dust and sweat filled his nostrils.
“How’s your back?” Rain asked. Finder realized it was her carrying him once more.
“Bad enough I took a bit of wine,” Summer complained, though Finder couldn’t see her.
“Think the kid needs more?”
“He’s been pretty quiet since last night,” Summer said before yawning. “I’ve been giving him watered down doses. Hopefully that’ll help perk him up a bit.”
“Don’t think I’ve ever seen you this focused on a patient,” Rain teased, her tone surprisingly light.
“Most others’ are shitty patients,” Summer seemed to retort. Pathfinder could almost hear her smirk. It was the smirk she’d given Carver when Finder had accidentally cut out the stallion’s eye back in training. “What about you?”
Rain was quite for a stride. “What about me?”
“You know what,” Summer teased, Pathfinder felt Rain’s gait momentarily waver as she was prodded by the smaller mare. “The kid. You’ve been with him since that camp. What gives?”
Rain hesitated before she answered. “I owed him.”
“Yeah, that explains why you gave him your room in Nyx, not why you’ve been taking care of him and carrying him when there are litter-bearers who could do the same.”
“He’s light,” Rain countered. “And we’re already short on stretchers as is.”
“And that didn’t answer my question,” Summer said with a hint of mirth coming to her voice. “Is our dear Legate thinking about trading the sword for the scalpel? Or do you just have a thing for younger ponies?”
“I-What?!” Rain balked, and Finder nearly slipped off her back when Rain lashed a wing out at Summer.
“What?” Summer teased and laughed. “I mean, it’s not that weird. You’re seventeen, he’s fourteen. Give him a couple years he’ll be the envy of every Nimban mare around with all those scars.”
“Clearly you’re the one with her head in the bedroom,” Rain growled. “It’s nothing like that.”
“Then what is it?”
Silence answered Summer’s question for a moment. Pathfinder’s dazed vision focused on the trodden grass under hoof.
“Weeeell?” Summer asked, dragging the word out with an almost sing-song tone.
Rain sighed. “I… I admire him.”
“I’m sorry?” Summer said with disbelief.
“What?”
“You and I were raised with swords in our teeth, Kalokairi,” Rain emphasized Summer’s Nimban name. “War is in our blood. The rest of Cirra is soft. They like their bath houses, festivals, and creature comforts. But this kid...Pathfinder...He wasn’t drafted. He didn’t have to put himself on the line for the Empire. But he did.”
Rain looked over her shoulder, and for just a moment her eyes met his half-lidded orbs. Pathfinder found himself transfixed as the Legate who had terrified him when they first met now seemed almost warm. In her gaze he found something: an unspoken promise that as long as she was there, nobody could hurt him anymore. It made his heart skip a beat and his cheeks start to burn like they had when Dawn teased him.
It had only been for a moment that their eyes were locked, but for Pathfinder it may as well have been a lifetime. When she turned away he found himself only wishing to see that look in her eyes one more time. But it was all he could do to keep his own eyes open. He fought the creeping exhaustion for as long as he could, afraid of what awaited him in the dark.
“You’ve got to admire it,” Rain continued, her voice soft. “He could have been safe at home and nopony would have given it a second thought. Instead he chose the Legion and took a spear for a Nimban mare he didn’t even know.”
Finder shivered as his strength failed and his eyes fell shut. The last words he heard before the void claimed his mind were from Rain. In those words he felt something he’d not felt since Longbow died.
Pathfinder felt safe.
“You really have to admire it.”