//------------------------------//
// Excavate 
// Story: Book 1 - The Behemoth came to Canterlot 
// by Equimorto 
//------------------------------//

"Have you ever gone through the archives?"
The soldier furrowed his brow, and shook his head. "Not the restricted section, right?"
"The public one, don't worry about it," said the one next to him. "I'm not going to admit treason in the middle of a battle. So you've never been there, huh? Been to the library at least?"
"I never found much reason to," the soldier said. "I figured if there was anything I needed to read to be a better guard then they would tell me about it. I'd rather have spent my time elsewhere, I did reading enough in school."
The other soldier, armoured slightly more heavily than the first one, groaned and looked at the sky as he rolled his eyes. "The greatest wealth of information available in the whole country and it's wasted on ponies like you. I would have let them cut my pay if it meant I could be permanently stationed in the capital." He looked at the machine quietly buzzing near the portal for a moment, sighing. "Anyway. There's lots of records available on official discussions held throughout the centuries to find there. Fascinating stuff, honestly."
"Why do you bring that up?" asked the other soldier, momentarily taking off his helmet with his magic to run a hoof through his purple mane. It wasn't the heavy, protective kind of helmet some of the soldiers there wore, just a regular head piece. Still useful for keeping his head safe, even if it messed up his manestyle.
"I was getting to that." The stallion, an orange-coated earth pony, cleared his throat. "There's this one transcription from two hundred years ago or so, it was a discussion on the topic of civilians being allowed to have weapons, among other things. And in it there's this one pony, he was against the idea, who said something along the line of, if I'm remembering right-" he cleared his throat again "-if everypony has a weapon, what even is a weapon anymore?"
"Sounds like a really stupid sentence that he probably thought sounded nicer in his head," said the unicorn. "Why do you bring that up though?"
The other stallion gave a nod towards a couple of mutated ponies walking around the crossroad, guarded at a distance by a couple of other armed soldiers. "I was reminded of it." He gave a look around to the whole area and the soldiers in it. "If everypony is a weapon, what even is a pony anymore?"
The unicorn stared flatly at him. "That also sounds like you thought it was cool when you came up with it. It's not. At least you didn't have it written down and recorded for all future generations to see."
"Like future generations are going to be reading anything, if you're any indication that's not going to happen." The stallion coughed. "Besides, if they're going to be reading about this battle they're not going to be reading the truth about it. They're not going to be told about the losses or the time it took."
"I thought you didn't want to get caught saying certain stuff."
"Eh. I'll take the risk for this one."