//------------------------------//
// Feelings Unveiled 
// Story: The Last Heroes of Equestria 
// by ZeroStar 
//------------------------------//

	He opened his eyes to the welcome sight of his bedroom in his log cabin. The warmth of the stone fireplace giving the place a cozy feeling. He smiled as he stretched in his bed. He got out from under the blanket and walked out of his room into his shield hall. He walked to his cabinet in search of breakfast, only to find all his food spoiled.
“I guess that’s only to be expected…”, War Heart said to himself. He closed the cabinet and walked outside, breathing in the fresh morning air, “It’s good to be home.”, he told himself as he took flight. He soared over to Ponyville to find the town itself just awakening from its nightly slumber, all the ponies beginning to head to their workplaces. He landed on the edge of town and began walking through the streets, receiving an odd look or two but relatively uneventful. He walked over to Sugar Cube Corner to catch the Cakes just opening the shop for the day.
“Well, Hello there, Welcome to Sugar Cube Corner, What would you like?”, Mrs. Cake asked War Heart as he walked in.
War Heart walked over to the counter, looking through the glass for a moment at the selection of treats to choose from. He rubbed his chin with his hoof, then looked up to find Mrs. Cake missing and young pink pony in her place. War Heart jumped a bit at her greeting.
“Hi! I’m Pinkie Pie, what would you li-… War Heart? We thought you were dead!”, the pink pony was not informed of what happened.
“Well, no, I was taken into another world, but now I’m back.”, War Heart explained simply.
“Oh! Did you bring back any of that maple syrup!?”, Pinkie asked excitedly.
“I wasn’t even near the place I could get some, sorry.”
“Aw, that’s okay, so you going to buy something?”
War Heart looked at the bounty of pastries once again, “I’ll take whatever you recommend.”
“Sure!”, she said before pulling out a cupcake with pink frosting, “I made it myself!”, she said with an enthusiastic smile.
“Alright then…”, he said as he dropped a few bits on the counter to pay for the treat, then took it and started walking away.
“Oh! By the way, I wanted to tell you that there is a party tonight! You going to show up?”, Pinkie asked as War Heart reached the door.
“A party? Any occasion for it?”, War Heart asked.
“It’s a Hearts and Hooves day party, silly!”, Pinkie giggled at his ignorance.
“What is Hearts and Hooves day?”, he asked.
“Well it’s a day where everypony spends time with their very special somepony, or finds their very special somepony.”
War Heart rose an eyebrow, “Seems strange to have a holiday about it…”
“Who cares? It gives everypony to have an excuse to party!”
“I guess you have a point. I might show up, I have a few things to do, though. Bye.”
“Bye, War Heart, seeya later!”, she shouted to him as he left the store.
War Heart walked out of the bakery to sit down on a bench nearby and enjoy his pastry. He took a bite of the pink frosted cupcake, savouring the sweetness that he believed was only found in Equestria’s foods. The taste making one’s moods be lifted no matter how low they were. He finished the cupcakes after a few bites, knowing the sustenance will tide him over until he restocked his cabinet at home. He looked around at the streets of Ponyville, enjoying watching the ponies go about their business blissfully, a welcome sight to him after what he had been through. He saw a white unicorn with a curly purple mane struggling to carry a heavy bolt of fabric on her back. He walked over to her, “Need any help?”, he asked as he approached from behind.
“Why, yes, I would, if you don’t mind.”, she said in a strained tone.
War Heart walked up next to her and shifted the bolt onto his back using his wing.
“Thank you, very gentle colt-like of y-”, she stopped mid-sentence as she looked towards him, “War Heart?”, she spoke in a disbelieving tone.
“Hello, Rarity.”
“But… How… Weren’t you… Deceased?”
“No, I was taken away to a bad place, but I’m back now.”, they conversed while walking towards Carousel Boutique.
“Oh dear…”, she said in a concerned tone, “Are you feeling fine?”
“I’m trying not to think about it.”
“I apologize, I shouldn’t have asked.”
“You didn’t know, it isn’t your fault, it isn’t anypony’s fault, really.”
“Though, something seems strange… About you… You seem… More calm, gentle…”
“I don’t know… I never really thought about it. Is it a bad thing?”
“No, no, it’s a rather welcoming feature, if I do say so myself.”, she said as she smiled politely.
“Alright then…”
They soon reached Rarity’s shop. She unlocked the door and opened it. Rarity walked in and stood over in a corner of the shop, “If you could just place it over here.”, she pointed with her hoof.
War Heart walked over and lowered himself and let the bolt roll off his back and onto the floor.
“Marvellous, thank you for helping me with that, War Heart.”
“No problem, glad I could help.”, he said as he walked out of the store. As he was walking out of the store he nearly bumped into somepony. A small yellow Pegasus mare with long pink mane. She cowered at first, not realising who it was.
“Hey there, Fluttershy.”, War Heart greeted in a gentler tone than usual.
Fluttershy looked up to see a face she remembered, “War Heart?”, she said in her usual quiet voice.
“Yes, and no I wasn’t dead. In case you were going to ask.”
“Oh okay… Why are you here?”
“… I don’t know, but I believe that we make our own way in life, choosing our path around, over, or through all the obstacles life sets in front of us…”
“… Um… I meant why are you at Rarity’s shop…?”
“Oh… Right, I was helping her carry something.”
“How nice of you.”, she said, smiling.
“I’ll just get out of your way.”, he said as he moved aside.
“Thank you.”, Fluttershy said as she walked into the shop, closing the door behind her.
War Heart walked back in the direction of his home. He passed by the great tree that was Twilight’s library. He stopped in front of it, “Maybe I should pay Twilight a visit.”, he said as he walked to the door and knocked.
“Come in!”, a mare’s voice called from inside.
He opened the door and walked inside, closing the door after he entered. He looked around, not seeing Twilight there, “Hello? Twilight?”, he called out.
A purple unicorn poked her head around the corner from the upstairs room, “Oh… War Heart… Um, Hi, I didn’t realize it was you.”, she smiled nervously.
“Well, I was in town and I thought I should check how you were doing.”
Twilight paused, “I’d have thought you would have needed checking on. You were looking awfully… Depressed.”, she said hesitantly.
“Well, I’m feeling a lot better.”
“I wanted to go to you and help, but… I don’t know… I probably shouldn’t have left you alone the rest of the day…”, she said apologetically.
“I wasn’t alone.”, he replied.
Twilight put on a look of confusion, “What do you mean?”
“Well, on my way home, Dash came by. She ended up coming over for a little bit, then we went flying for a while.”
Twilight’s expression turned to one of self-pity, “Oh… sounds like you had a good time…”
“It was rather pleasant, yes.”, he replied.
Twilight walked down the stairs to War Heart, “I’ve been meaning to tell you something that happened… When you fought that dragon that attacked Ponyville, and you were knocked unconscious… I helped the doctor heal you…”
“Thank you, Twilight. I wouldn’t expect anything less of a pony from you.”
“It wasn’t my magic that saved you. The doctor said your lungs had deflated, that you needed them pumped back up with air. She told me to blow air back into your lungs by mouth to mouth. I never told you because at first I was only trying to save you. Later on, I felt differently towards you. I’ve been hiding the way I feel about you for some time now. Then you left on that mission and didn’t come back with the others. I wanted to know what happened for myself, where I ended up meeting Fizz. When he told me we could bring you back, I thought I would burst into tears with joy. I worked with him for a long time to bring you back. Now that you’re here… I wanted to tell you how I felt and that is that I feel you are somepony special to me.”, she looked up at him, wondering how he would react.
War Heart looked down at her, a smile on his face. He moved next to her and put a hoof on her back, “You’re somepony special to me too…”
Twilight’s heart went aflutter as she heard him say that. Feeling in a state of bliss that she could hardly contain.
“You’re one of the best friends anypony can have.”, he said to her, “You are definitely one of my very best friends.”, he took his hoof back, leaving Twilight staring at the floor in disbelief. He walked towards the door, “I’ll see you later, Twilight.”, he said as he left the library.
Twilight sat down on the floor. Her eyes wide, not making a sound. The shock from his reply to her pouring her heart out making her speechless. Her eyes started to well up with tears. She then ran to her room upstairs, jumping into bed to cry her eyes out from heartbreak, realizing that in all her efforts, she was still rejected by one of the only ponies she ever loved.
War Heart left the library and took flight back to his cabin.
“Hey, War Heart! How’s it goin’?”, Rainbow Dash flew up next to him.
“Hey, Beautiful, just had breakfast, going home to clean out my cabinet, it’s full of spoiled food.”
“Gross. Need any help?”
“Not really, I guess I could always use the company, though.”
“Cool.”
They flew to War Heart’s cabin together. He opened the door and let Dash walk in first. He closed the door once they were both inside. He walked over to an empty sack he had and took it to his cabinet, then started to empty the cabinet’s contents into the bag. He shuddered from the awful smell.
Dash held her nose from the odour of the rotting food, “Ugh, that’s nasty.”, she commented.
War Heart finished emptying the food into the bag, “No kidding.”, he said as he carried the bag outside. He flew over the trees and dropped the bag somewhere in the middle of them, then flew back. He walked back inside and looked at his now empty cabinet, “Looks like I need to go shopping.”, he said to himself.
Dash walked up next to him, “I’ve got food at my house.”
“Where is your house? I’ve never seen your place before.”
“It’s up in cloudsdale. You should come over for lunch.”, Dash told him.
“Yeeeeah… I can’t walk on clouds.”, he sounded a bit embarrassed about this fact.
“Well… That’s okay, I can bring some food down and we can have a picnic instead.”, Dash suggested.
“Sure, that’d be nice, I’ll bring one of my bottles of mead along.”
“Okay, I’ve never had it before, and I was wondering for a long time what it was like.”
“It’ll taste a little strange at first, but you’ll begin to like it after a little bit.”
“Alright, I’ll go get some food, I’ll be back soon.”, Dash said as she walked out the door, taking flight and heading back to Cloudsdale. 
War Heart went back to his bedroom and reached under his bed for a bottle of Honey Wine. It rolled out from under the bed. He picked it up and walked back into the shield hall and placed it on the table. He waited there for a few minutes, grabbing some cups and straws while he waited. A knock was at the door, he went over and opened it.
Dash stood there with a wicker basket on the ground beside her, “You ready?”, she asked.
“Yeah, I’ll just grab the drink and we’ll go.”, He walked to another sack he had lying around and put the bottle, cups and straws in it, then put it in a saddlebag he just put on. He walked back to the door where Dash was waiting.
“Okay, I got a spot we can go to, follow me.”, Dash said before taking flight.
War Heart took off after her, flying alongside her.
Dash flew him to a place in the middle of the forest, a clearing in the trees with a small meadow and a stream. There were a bunch of flowers all in bloom at the moment, making the once green meadow to a multitude of colours, “There it is.”, she glided down with War Heart, landing in the flower-filled meadow.
“It’s a nice spot.”, War Heart commented as he admired the surrounding area.
Dash opened the basket and pulled out a blanket. War Heart took it from her, “I’ll take care of that.”, He said as he spread the blanket on the grass while Dash rummaged through the basket. He took a seat on the blanket, taking off his saddlebag and bringing out the bottle, cups and straws. Dash put down some sandwiches and took a seat across from him.
War Heart poured the Honey wine into the glasses and put a straw in each one. He put the cup down in front of Dash. He took a sip from his drink, as did Dash. Dash shuddered from the taste, it tasted sweet, but strange as well.
“This tastes weird.”, she commented looking at it.
“I know, after a while, it’ll taste better.”, War Heart said with a light smile.
“Okay then.”, she said as she took another sip, “So, what do you wanna talk about?”, she asked.
“I don’t know, what do you want to talk about?”
“How about you tell me about what happened when you left?”
“Which part?”
“As much as you want.”, she laid down holding her head up with her hooves, eager to hear about his adventures.
“I guess I could tell you what happened…”, War Heart said before he began to tell Dash what happened in the Dragon Land.
“Wow, that’s so awesome! You must be really strong!”, Dash commented after he finished telling her about the Giant Spider he fought.
“Yeah, after that, the Dragon Lord said he would leave Equestria alone so long as we took care of the other two Dragon Lords.”, War Heart explained, leaving out the hallucinations of Ditzy and the filly. At this point Dash and him had been drinking a bit, Dash feeling slightly intoxicated.
War Heart continued retelling his story to Dash. Often pouring more Mead into his cup as well as hers, taking a bite out of their sandwiches once every little while.
At a certain point Dash wasn’t paying attention to what War Heart was saying and was more focused on War Heart himself. All the way to the point where War Heart stopped telling his story. The bottle of mead was empty now, it had been a good few hours that flew by.
“Do you have anything to talk about?”, War Heart asked her.
Dash tried to stand up, not being able to keep her balance very well at this point of intoxication. “Why, can’t I keep my balance?”, she asked, not quite sure what was going on, but not alarmed in the least.
“One of the effects of this stuff, you drank a lot, for somepony your size.”
“Oh… Okay.”, she said as she walked over next to him, laying down, “I feel like I forgot about something…”, she said while looking up at the sky. It was almost sunset.
“Well, I think Pinkie was throwing a party tonight…”, War Heart told Dash.
Dash covered her face with her hoof, “Oh right, that Hearts and Hooves Day Party…”, she said in an unenthused tone.
“Something wrong?”
“Every year has been the same, a lot of couples go there and talk all stupid to each other, going gaga over their special somepony.”, Dashed rolled her eyes at the ‘special somepony’ bit.
“I guess you’ve never gone?”, War Heart assumed.
“Nah, I usually just went flying.”
“I wouldn’t do that now if I were you, the drink has affected you a lot.”
“Oh yeah? What if I try to take off now? Gonna try and stop me?”, Dash asked in a playfully challenging tone.
“Not sure if you could, but I wouldn’t take any chances.”
Dash got up stumblingly. She spread her wings and smirked, she started to tilt to the side then quickly steadied herself, nearly falling over.
War Heart raised an eyebrow, “What are you doing?”
“I’m gonna go flying.”
“You wouldn’t…”, his eyes narrowed.
“You going to stop me?”, she challenged him.
“I will if I have to.”
Dash began running away, War Heart taking off after her. He was overtaking her quite easily. Not even getting out of the meadow she tripped and fell to the ground, War Heart trying to stop immediately after her, but sliding a feet forward. He walked over to her, “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, could be better though.”
“I figured… I’ll take you to my house, you can’t be flying around like this.”
“Okay, then.”, she said as she stood up again. Walking over to their picnic spot War Heart packed it up then put all of the stuff into his saddlebags. He walked her all the way to his cabin. He opened the door and let her walk inside.
Dash stumbled inside, War heart closed the door and put down his saddlebags. He walked to Dash and led her to his bedroom. She walked in and dove onto the bed, rolling around and enjoying the softness of it.
War Heart spoke up, “You should get some sleep, or you’re going to have a real headache later.”
“Where are you going to sleep?”
“I have some stuff to do, and I’ll just sleep on my chair in the other room.”
Dash got up off the bed and approached War Heart, “I wanna ask you something.”
“Okay, What is it?”
“Do you have a special somepony?”
“Nope, can’t say I do.”
“Wanna be mine?”
“Nope, because you’re drunk and not thinking clearly, now you should go to bed.”
Dash was not happy with this answer and quickly grabbed his face and forced it into hers, their lips colliding in a forced kiss. War Hear pushed her away gently, “That isn’t helping. If you go to sleep now, we’ll talk when you wake up.”
Dash sighed and walked over to the bed and laid down on side of the bed, leaving plenty of room for somepony else to sleep next to her, falling asleep within seconds.
War Heart closed the door. He smiled as he went to the fireplace and threw a log on the fire, “She’s pretty insistent. Then again, when drunk, a lot of ponies are.”, he said with a slight chuckle. He thought for a moment if she was serious about making him her special somepony, “She’s a good pony… I didn’t really think of her that way before until now…”, he sat on his chair, thinking about Dash.
Dash was still awake in War Heart’s room laying there in the dark, looking through the window to the stars in the sky. She heard the door handle jiggle, she quickly closed her eyes and pretended she was asleep. She heard the door open, then close, followed by some hoof steps. She felt the bed sink down a bit on the other side and something drape over her. She opened one eye to see War Heart’s black wing on her. She smiled to herself and closed her eyes to go to sleep.


Morning arrived with its rays of light shining through the window of War Heart’s room. He opened his eyes to see Dash was gone, “Weird, I thought she would have slept longer.”, he said to himself as he sat up, immediately rubbing his eyes. He looked at his door to see it was cracked open slightly. He got up and walked out of the room to find the main room of the suite in Unex. He looked around confused, “What the…?”, he walked into the room. The floor suddenly broke out from below him, sending him into a hard stone floor. He landed on his back, feeling one of his wings crack on impact. He cringed in pain, slowly getting up. He looked around to see only darkness. He heard something behind him and turned to it. He saw a pony in the darkness, “Who are you?”, he spoke out to it. The pony didn’t answer. Soon the shapes and shadows of several dragons appeared, then those of humans, all surrounding him. He could feel their stares, judging him for what he had done. They shadows all started to draw closer to him, they slid across the floor, getting closer. War Heart couldn’t do anything with nowhere to run. He panicked at the approaching shadows. Chains shot out from the floor and wrapped themselves around War Heart, pulling him to the ground afterward. He was trapped  as they were on half a foot away. There was a pause, a moment of absolute silence. One of the human shadows put its foot on War Heart’s side and abruptly tore the wing from his body. War Heart began to scream as all the shadows began to tears pieces from him, forcing him to watch them consume his flesh in front of him. It was only minutes but it seemed like eternity to War Heart that they devoured him, piece by piece. He soon felt himself grow weaker as the dark enclosed itself around his vision.
War Heart woke up feeling his head pressed up against Dash’s coat, with her holding his head.
“You were tossing around in your sleep, you were having a nightmare.”, Dash said as she stroked War Heart’s mane with her hoof, “You’re okay now…”