Filly the Kid wiped the sweat from her forehead, she hated working in the cold, especially when it was hard work, the cold air stung her throat as she panted for breath.
Mr. Trench was leaning on the memorial just watching her and chuckling to himself as he puffed on his pipe, “If you fill that hole any faster you’re liable to catch hypothermia.”
Kid grunted as she picked up another shovel full, “Gee, thanks for the advice.”
Mr. Trench took a long draw and said, “I bet you think I’m a mule for letting you fill in the grave by yourself.”
Kid stopped shoveling and looked at Mr. Trench in surprise, “No that’s not what I was thinking at all.”
Mr. Trench laughed again then came over and sat down beside her with a grunt, “Ahhhh, That’s alright, it’s what I thought about my elders when I was your age and it’s what fillies and colts will think of you when you’re older.”
Putting the work aside for a moment Kid sat next to Mr. Trench, sitting next to a decorated war veteran was something she rarely had the opportunity to do. If anypony knew how to be a decent pony under pressure it would be him, she had to pick his brain, “Mr. Trench, what was Equestria like when you were a colt?”
Mr. Trench took a deep breath and took off his cover and spoke in a sigh, “Well now, back in my day Canterlot was nothing but a small village on the side of a mountain with plain wood shacks with dirt streets just like here back then they called it Canterville, my parents moved there from Saint Poniesburgh after the unification of the tribes during the market boom.”
Mr. Trench had hardly begun and Kid was already hanging on every word, “Saint Poniesburg, where is that? I’ve never heard of it.”
Mr. Trench rolled his eyes and remembered who he was telling his story to, “It’s called Stalliongrad today, Nightmare Moon renamed it when she took over Equestria. Now St. Poniesburg was an earth pony city and there was still bad blood between unicorns and earth ponies. They had what were called pogroms which were state condoned looting of anypony’s business or house that wasn’t an earth pony, some of them were violent. I was too young to remember much but I do remember my parents had a hard time making a living, I was too young to care then, I had my friends mostly earth ponies the politics of older ponies was something we never worried about.
By age four I was pulled from school and apprenticed by Papa in clock making, I promised myself to do my best for my family, but I was still young and my Papa had high expectations for me, so I learned quickly.
Then one night I was woken by the glow of torches and shouts outside my parents took me down to the basement and through the outside exit. Thankfully the house hadn’t been surrounded yet because as we ran I saw my home go up in flames.
A broke life in Canterville was better than anything we’d be able scrounge up in St. Poniesburgh, as soon as my Papa had his hooves on the ground I was put in school again, that was my first time meeting pegasi.
Back then I thought you all were the most arrogant, cocky, conceited pieces of work I had ever encountered and I still do but I respect you for it. When I graduated from school I decided to enlist as a combat engineer in the Equestrian Royal Corps of Marines.”
Kid’s already big eyes opened wider, “Equestria had a Marine Corps?”
Mr. Trench sighed, “What are they teaching in flight school these days? Do you all still get high from sniffing rainbow fumes?”
Kid giggled stupidly, “They did that back then too?”
Mr. Trench put his face in his hoof and laughed as he packed another pinch in his pipe, “They still do huh? I bet you were the first in your class to try it.”
Blushing sheepishly Kid admitted, “Heh yeah, it made my voice sound funny.”
Mr. Trench continued before he said anything that would curl the filly’s hooves, “Well getting back on topic, yes when Equestria was getting itself established the entire country was still a frontier and they needed an Amphibious Corps to enforce their claim on the land.
As soon as I set hoof on those gold hoofprints my life was never the same, I’ll never forget my Drill Instructors, Sergeant Red Buck, Corporal Sharp Eye, and Corporal Swift Heart. Honestly I don’t remember much about boot camp anymore just that it was a frantic blur of training, screaming, pain, and hate.
Combat Engineer School was a little better than boot camp, we were allowed more freedom and treated more like the stallions we were, it wasn’t that difficult really. We learned different forms of assault engineering everything from bridge building, to demolitions, road paving, and tunneling.
Once I had graduated from Engineer School I was assigned to 2nd Marine Raider Battalion Carmelton’s Kelpies.”
For some reason the name sounded familiar to Kid, “I think I remember a Carmelton, but I can’t be sure.”
“You should know him, he was Applejacks father, Major Carmelton, now he was a pony who could lead.
When I got to the Raiders was when my real training began everything up to that point had been a bad joke, but the leadership was the best I have ever known. Everything they did they took care of their juniors first and then themselves, and they also demanded the best from us.
They had us run everywhere we went, everywhere, they told us it was twenty five miles a day but it felt like more. Oh, and obstacle courses that pegasi were prohibited from using their wings and unicorns from using their horns, because, ‘if we couldn’t complete the obstacle course like an earth pony then we wouldn’t be able to accomplish the mission if we lost our wings or horns.’
Every day I went to sleep I felt too broke to go on but I couldn’t let my team down. We learned hoof to hoof combat and how to exploit our advantage as earth ponies, pegasi, or unicorns, we also learned weapons handling skills with spears, flails, clubs, tridents, swords, and shields but as an engineer they primarily focused on shovels, axes, and hammers with me. We learned small boat handling skills, swimming of course swimming and diving, we spent just as much time in the water as we did pounding sand. We also worked with the pegasi on a new type of maneuver called parachuting, and let me tell you those were some wild times, especially if you were being dropped into open water in a boat with your crew.
Once I was up to Raider standards was when I got back into engineer related work but the training continued, every week it was something new, it was mostly clearing beaches for assault forces, but we also practiced raids, and engineering reconnaissance.
I remember one time Major Carmelton came to supervise our training and we blazed through it flawlessly but the only thing he said when we were done was, ‘faster, and more violent.’
Whenever we were sent out to crush uprisings or disturbances, the perpetrators would always bug out before we got there. We thought we were unstoppable, until the Nightmare Moon Rebellion, when the Night Guard took over Everfree we were too far away to do anything and we had to go into hiding.
Of course we made raids on Everfree Castle, freeing high value prisoners and swiping food for ponies in need, the Night Guard started calling us the Inglorious Branders when we started carving the moon into our victim’s foreheads, but there was only so much we could do when Celestia was imprisoned and the Royal Guard had disbanded.
Most of us felt cheated out of our training by those damn Night Guards and their surprise coup, and once we had enough information on Celetia’s location we took point on her recovery.
As it turned out there was some dissention in the Night Guard as to whether they should release Celestia or not especially after the return of the Windigos.”
Kid’s jaw dropped, “The Windigos returned during Nightmare Moon’s rein?”
Mr. Trench just shook his head, “Flight School these days, they did, and It’s a good thing we sprung Celestia when we did, all the hate and mistrust from Nightmare Moon fueled their wrath to a fever pitch.
Carmelton, foal that he was, died trying to earn the Soleil de Celestia, I watched him pull three ponies single hoofedly out from a Windigo stampede and then went back in never to return. Celestia fixed things quickly once we had released her, never before and never since have I witnessed anything like the wrath of dueling Alicorns.
After Nightmare Moon was exiled the need for an Amphibious Corps of ponies was greater than ever, I was reassigned to 3d Combat Engineer Battalion for ‘recovery duty’ after the overthrowing of Nightmare Moon, but there was nothing I wanted more than to be with my Raiders. The ponies of 3d Combat Engineers just didn’t have the same demand for excellence that I was used to and the leadership was only concerned with looking out for themselves, little did I know that we would be responsible for the massive expansion of Canterlot.
One of the things that bugged me the most was that after my part in the overthrow of Nightmare Moon, they started looking into my service record and throwing medals at me, when the ponies with the Raiders still hadn’t received a single award for their part in the operation.
But I had little time to think about it, when Equestria’s capital moved from Everfree to Canterlot business picked up as if it had never left off and Celestia had big plans for Canterlot, have you ever wondered why Canterlot was built on a cliff?”
That one stumped Kid, “I guess I never thought about it but it doesn’t really make sense to build a city into a cliff now that you mention it.”
Mr. Trench dumped out his pipe and began cleaning it as he continued, “It didn’t to us either the only thing we could conclude was that Celestia was paranoid, but it was the best time to be in the Equestrian Royal Marines especially as an engineer, we had access to whatever we needed to build Canterlot properly, tools that I had never imagined much less hoped to set hoof on.
The hardest part was building the bulwarks as the base of the city, we had to use a hanging crane and move slabs of rock three times the size of Sugarcube Corner. I was mostly involved with the development of the city itself, by the end of a year we had built the Canterlot Barracks, most of the Royal Palace, and Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorn’s which at the time was an Officer’s Candidate School.
My Company First Pony who was the only pony I really looked up to in the Battalion, First Pony Hard Nose recommended me for the Warrant Officer’s program at the Officer’s Candidate School, at first I wanted nothing to do with it, I despised officers, but looking back on it now I think that I could have done more good if I had done it sooner.
Officer’s Candidate School was a croc, even though most of the instructors were combat veterans they had to tone down the classes for the Officer’s Candidates fresh out of High School, you should have heard the whining of those ponies, as a veteran myself I was my class leader and was held responsible for all of the stupid road apples they dumped.
It was then that I realized why Officers are the way they are, they can get away with things Enlisted ponies can only dream of, but if there is something wrong with their ponies they get hammered into dust whether it’s their fault or not. Coming from Enlisted to Warrant Officer was like a step into a different world and it took me about a year and a half before I figured out my job was to develop better training and techniques for the Enlisted Ponies.
When I graduated Officer’s Candidate School I requested to go back to 2nd Raiders and within hours of receiving my certificate of graduation I had my orders.
When I got back to the Raiders they had completely changed from what I had remembered, I only knew a few of the Senior Enlisted Ponies, one thing hadn’t changed though, they were still the finest Battalion I had ever served with. I actually met Meteor, Crazy Wings brother at 2nd Raiders right before the Pony Griffon war, I had never met a more fearless pegasi Crazy Wing was the spitting image of him.”
Kid had lost track of time, “Crazy Wing? Oh buck! I’m supposed to be on weather watch right now! Umm, sorry I had meant to have this finished by now.” She said flying backwards and apologizing profusely.
Mr. Trench smiled as Kid flew off already filling his shovel, “Don’t worry about it I’ll finish it up.” He laughed to himself as he packed his pipe again. “That one’ll turn out alright.”