//------------------------------// // 2 - Day One // Story: Shingeki no Uma - Attack on Horse // by Ketchi //------------------------------// It was difficult to say goodbye to Twilight, my sister. I’ve had her by my side for most of my life, and we’ve been the best of friends since childhood. But now that she’s left on a ferry directly to wall Rose, I don’t know if I’ll ever see her again. All I can do is pray that we’ll meet again someday, but even if we don’t, I have no regrets. She’s safe and that’s all that matters. For now, I need to escape from the Horses with Cadance. In the very least, because the gargantuan Horse seems to have vanished, we should be safe past wall Rose. But we must be swift, and the journey will be long. After taking a few seconds to breathe and leave the crowd, I find Cadance and we immediately increase pace towards the north, in the direction of wall Rose. We’re trotting as fast as we can manage, but she keeps glancing at the item we both care for. Because we’re far enough from the Horses, I can finally ask her. “Cadance, do you plan on taking that portrait with us?” “Shining, it’s the only thing we have. It’s the most valuable thing we’ve ever had.” Cadance is being defensive about it. Despite the screams and bloodshed - despite all that’s happening, she’s still really attached to it. But considering what it is, it makes sense. “Please, if we’re planning on travelling the entire 100 kilometres by hoof, it’s really going to slow us down. We have three days’ worth of galloping ahead of us.” It’s a sad truth, but I need to convince her to let it go. Her life means so much more to me than any piece of art. “Any unnecessary baggage could mean our deaths.” “Do you really call this unnecessary?! Have you forgotten what it means?” She’s still exhausted, but she’s wasting valuable energy on our fight. This is bad. I don’t want to start our long journey with an argument, and we need that energy to keep galloping, but we really need to lose it. “Please, my love. I remember it. We had it made on our first anniversary. The first night we started talking about our future together. The night we had our first kiss. I remember.” Remembering these things, it’s getting harder to persuade her to leave it. We had it moved to my room because she spent so much time at my house. It’s hard to keep convincing myself that it’s worthless. I don’t want to lose such a valuable item. “Then how can you just throw it away?!” She’s wasting more energy. This is taking up too much time and energy, too much out of us both. “I care about you. We don’t need it as long as we have each other.” I slow our trot and turn towards her for an embrace, but she pushes me away. This must be a serious thing for her if she won’t even accept that. We continue trotting and stay silent for a few valuable seconds to think. This is going nowhere. If I destroyed it on the spot, I’d only repel her more and waste time. If I let her take it, it would slow us down too much. There is no correct answer here. I can’t protect her either way. “You two had better get a move on if you want to live. Time’s running out.” With us both focusing so much on the argument and the road ahead of us, neither of us noticed the brown earth stallion catch up to us. He has a charismatic face, witty expression, and a cutie mark of a time glass. Trotting next to him is a strange looking blonde and grey pegasus mare with a bubble cutie mark and a nearly identical unicorn filly perched behind her neck. “Pardon my interruption, but if we travel together and share the burden, we won’t be slowed down and our chances of survival will increase.” I could barely believe it. I could only thank Mother Celestia for granting me such an option. “Cadance, would you be okay with that?” It’s a bitter thought, but even if they ended up stealing or destroying it and leaving us, we wouldn’t have the burden and she wouldn’t blame me for it. There was no way this could turn out badly. “I’ll accept your help but please try your best to not damage it.” As expected, she wants to protect it above all else. The two ponies nod to each other and answer in unison. “We promise.” The stallion continues to speak. “So you wouldn’t mind keeping an eye on our little one on occasion? She enjoys wandering off and it could be dangerous out there.” Suddenly his offer of assistance made sense. His companion looks like a clumsy mare and the filly could only make things harder. I optimistically look at Cadance. “We can consider this training for the future.” I didn’t really mean it, but I’m sure she knows that. She looks back towards me and nods. “We’d better be going now. The Horses are probably right behind us.” I take the portrait from Cadance and the four of us start galloping together with the strength formed from newfound hope. Somehow, even amidst all the chaos, things don’t seem as bad as they did before. Twilight should be safe on the ferry, we’re slowly outrunning the Horses, and we’ve found some needed assistance. The thought of getting used to such a dangerous environment begins to scare me just as much as the environment itself. Snapping back to reality, I notice that the stallion is galloping ahead of us. Following him around an unexpected corner, he begins to shout. “Our home is in this direction, just a bit to the north west. If you follow me, we can stop at it for supplies.” “Yes, of course we’ll follow you.” Surprised again by his generosity, I can’t help but question it. “You’re willing to share with us?” “We don’t mind eating a bit less if it means we won’t lose Dinky.” I assume he was referring to the filly perched behind his companion’s neck. Cadance replies in my stead. “Thank you for your kindness. It’s great to know there are ponies in Equestria who care about others in times like this.” She sounds extremely sincere. Perhaps she’s also aware that our argument might have ended up escalating with us wasting more time, or maybe she’s just really grateful for their offer of help. We get a hoof on it and arrive at their house after ten uneventful minutes of galloping. The stallion rushes inside and throws a tablecloth off the floor, revealing two double-sided saddlebags, already completely packed. I quickly slip the broken portrait from my mouth into the emptiest saddlebag as fast as I can, but glimpse at what looks like a 15 inch landscape family portrait, the same size as ours. It seems to show the three in addition to a unicorn stallion. I shouldn’t pry, not at a time like this. Not when we’re galloping for our lives. I’ll ask about it later. I notice that the stallion looks less exhausted than me, so we agree he should carry the now heavier saddlebag. I strap the lighter saddlebag to myself, knowing that the mares outside are probably too exhausted from their own burdens - both emotional and physical. Trying to keep ahead of the Horses, we rush outside to our loved ones and continue galloping north. Seeing their family picture forces some thoughts into my head. Just like our portrait, I’m sure that the image is worthless, but the memories it carries are priceless. It’s not just a reminder of the event or the ponies on it, it’s a reminder of the memories and feelings those ponies shared. It’s a reminder of the two of us, spending great times together and enjoying our youth. Our first date, our first anniversary, our first kiss, and now my proposal. It’s even become a reminder of my promise to Twilight. I understand why Cadance cared so greatly for it. “Cadance, I’m sorry I tried to force you to give up the portrait.” She has never rejected a sincere apology from me before. Cadance faces so lovingly towards me. The same face I’d fallen in love with over the years. “You’re forgiven. But as you said, we need to get out of here. There’s time for that later.” I could look past her facial expression and gaze into her horrified soul. Even with all that’s happening, she’s trying to comfort me. But she’s right. I look forward to resting and bleeding my thoughts. This entire experience has been taxing, but it could only get worse. Sundown is a few hours away. As soon as night time arrives, we should be able to rest. There’s no sense galloping if we can’t see what’s in front of us, and any lighting would attract the Horses. We continue galloping as hard as we can, out of town and into the increasingly dense bushland, each of us breaking well past our second winds and known limits, even as it turns dark. In that time, the stallion introduced himself as Time Turner and his companion as Ditzy Doo. Likewise, I introduced myself and Cadance. Although Turner has been rather helpful and vocal, Ditzy has been distancing herself from us and focusing on Dinky. As we reach a heavily forested area, I realise the situation. “We should stop.” I steady what’s left of my pace, hoping they’ll do the same. With a strong breath, Turner slows down to match. “He’s right. It’s too dark to see. We could bump into a Horse and not realise until it’s too late.” Realising she’s pushed her limits, Cadance falls to an immediate halt and I trot over to help her up, but Ditzy keeps galloping with Dinky perched behind her neck. Without even a word or glance to either of us, Turner chases her. Hearing a nearby thud, I assume they’re relatively close, but I can’t quite understand what either of them are saying. All I can overhear is repeated emphasis of the words “he”, “care”, “Horses”, “Corps”, and “safety”. Cadance and I trot past the concealing forestry and find that Turner’s heavily pinning Ditzy with all four legs on a pile of damp rocks. She looks like she’s trying her best to not cry, but just can’t manage to stop herself. I know she needed to stop, and although it’s for her own good, it’s such a brutal course of action. I’ve only known him for a few hours, but he’s made certain impressions. I’m surprised that Turner, who seems so wise and sympathetic, could do such a thing. Glancing at Cadance, I don’t know if I’d be able to do that to my love, even if her safety depended on it. Maybe I just need to stallion up. Ditzy looks like she’s calmed down a bit after realising the futility of her efforts. With another deep breath, Turner releases her with a shameful expression. “I’m sorry I did that to you. I went too far.” She slowly manages to stand up while staring at him, but doesn’t say a word. I think she understands that he was only trying to protect her, but she doesn’t want to forgive him for what he did. Ditzy turns to Dinky, who looks extremely frightened and puzzled by the incident. “I’m sorry you needed to see that, my little muffin. But mommy’s alright now, see?” She cheerfully brushes herself off, trots over to Dinky, picks her up, and gives the biggest smile she can. Dinky cutely responds in kind, the lovable way that only a foal can. We all seem to calm down after that. The power of a smile really is an amazing thing, sometimes. It can make a pony feel safe, but at the same time it can make the worst of actions seem justified. Taking advantage of the events, I turn to embrace Cadance. The four of us agree on searching for an enclosed location to spend the night, ideally somewhere easy to hide in but easy to scout from. While searching for the spot, I manage to survey the general area. It’s hard to tell in the dark, but the trees appear endlessly tall and are blocking out the moonlight. The air is bitter, cold, and humid, but has a welcomed revitalising effect. The rocks are damp and mossy, and there are no signs of edible vegetation. Judging by the completely un-trampled earth, we may be the only ones to have made it this far. I can barely accept the grim reality that they may have all been devoured by the Horses. Keeping that frightening thought to myself, I simply judge the area as vacant of ever having witnessed pony life and impossible to support it. After a few minutes of finding nothing useful but two large pieces of bark and an abundance of hanging vines, we find two thin hollow trunks, each a tight fit for two adult ponies but great for our purpose. Turner retrieves the two large pieces of bark we found earlier and says there’s some food and water for us in my saddlebag, so Cadance and I bid a good night to the three. We bar the hollows with the bark like a hinge-less door and lie down together, Cadance on my left and us both facing towards the entrance. We should be safe in here until morning. I open the right side of my saddlebag and find two canteens, each filled with two litres of water. The left side contains another two litre canteen, eight oranges, a pear, three apples, and a few small items, probably with significant personal value to Turner and Ditzy. As expected, the contents are very inefficiently organised, so they were probably packed in a hurry. Realising the large portions of food in the saddlebag, I’m forced to remember that Turner’s had no food in it, something I noticed while placing our portrait in their saddlebag. But I only had a look in one side, so there may be food in the other. I sincerely hope they have something decent to eat for tonight - they’ll need their strength tomorrow. Cadance agrees to share two oranges and half a canteen. We both understand that we need to ration the food, especially if this is all the five of us have. The moment I begin drinking I’m instantly reminded of Twilight by the taste of her moistening blood, spilled from the moment I carried her. It starts off disgusting, metallic and dense in flavour, but I gradually get used to the taste and it starts leaving my mouth. I give Cadance the canteen and begin peeling the first orange. We’re mostly silent while eating it, but I’ve begun questioning myself. Peeling the second orange with my hoofs, I quietly share my thoughts. “Have you thought about your parents yet? Do you think they’re safe?” “I’m sure they are. They can handle themselves.” Cadance optimistically takes the last slice of the first orange and smiles at me. “They’re smart.” She hungrily slips it into her mouth, giving me another turn to speak. “I know they’re smart, but... I’m starting to worry about my own parents. I’m starting to worry about Twilight, if we did the right thing by leaving her there.” It’s going to be hard to say this, but I need to get it off my chest. “I’ve already seen an old friend devoured.” Cadance swallows her slice of orange and looks at me with a shocked and sad expression, passing her right hoof through my mane, attempting to comfort me. “I’m sorry, Shining. I didn’t know.” “It’s okay. We haven’t spoken to each other for over six years and we already said our goodbyes when he left school. He was smart and kind, a generous pony. But even though he was always just an acquaintance when I knew him, watching him die in such a horrible way-” The memory of watching him die, watching him beg for his life, forces my hoofs to stop and a small tear to fall from my right eye. He was one of the noblest ponies I’ve known, I just never realised it, and now that I have it’s too late to tell him. The thought of so many other ponies, no less important than myself, dying in such a way that can even make a pony like him beg for their life makes me want to give into despair. “You don’t need to say any more.” Cadance kisses my cheek and takes the half-peeled orange from me, continuing to peel it as an obvious effort to soothe me. “Yes, I worry about my parents. But we’ve made it out here. We’re alive. Their home was further north, away from the gate, so they’re probably even safer than us.” Looking in her eyes, I can tell this conversation is taking its toll on her emotional state. But for both of our sakes, we need to get this off our chest. Keeping it all bottled up won’t help later on. “Have you stopped to think? What if they tried to reach us before leaving?” “If they tried to reach us, then we can only hope they noticed we were already gone. I’m sure we’ll meet them once we reach wall Rose.” Her hands are slowing down and she’s losing her gentle smile. I can tell she’s losing faith in her words the more she says them. I force out a deep sigh of relief, at least to convince her that I believe her. “Yes, you’re probably right. I’m sorry for how I’ve treated you today.” Cadance gently pushes a thick slice of orange into my mouth. “Shining, my love. I more than forgive you. You saved Twilight the only way you knew how. It’s because of you that I’m alive right now.” I had almost completely forgotten that I snapped her back to reality when the gargantuan Horse appeared. Chewing on the orange and unable to speak, I let her continue. “I had fallen into despair, but you picked me up. You gave me the strength to gallop for kilometres. It’s because of you that we can enjoy these sweet oranges and the company of those three ponies. You’ve done nothing but your best for both of our sakes. You always know what to do, my love.” I’m delighted Cadance chose her words so well, but I couldn’t help disagreeing a bit with some of them. She’s grown into such a mature, beautiful, and loving mare - my new fiancé and future wife. She happily puts another thick slice of orange into her mouth as I swallow mine. “I promise you, my love. I promise to you by all that I believe in. If we get out of this and reach wall Rose, I’ll protect you with my life. You’ll never need to experience such horrors again.” It’s as much of a promise to her as it is to me. I won’t let anything happen to her. I’ll never let her be in danger again. “Without you, my life has no meaning. You are my life - my love, my only love, my eternal love. I would do anything for you.” I unstrap my saddlebag and carefully shift it to the side of the hollow, towards my right. “I love you so much, Cadance.” A small tear of joy falls from her face as she memorises the words. “I’ll keep this promise, no matter what it takes.” Cadance shoves what’s left of the orange into my mouth. “Oh you sweet thing, Shining Armor. I’m sure you will.” She kisses me gently and endearingly watches as I awkwardly chew the orange. We quietly laugh as I swallow the last of what’s in my mouth, trying our best to not alert any potential Horses outside. “Come here, you.” Cadance drags me across what little room there is between us and embraces me with her forelegs. “This will be our first night together, you know.” I chuckle a bit at the idea. “Yes, it will be.” I bury my head into her neck and relax on my side. “Tomorrow’s going to be a hard day. We need to rest now.” Warmed by her body and using her soft mane as a pillow, I start drifting off to sleep. We were lucky today. We made some friends and escaped the Horses, for now. But I can’t help wondering if our luck will change. The Horses will almost certainly spread far beyond our location when we wake up, but we still have a few days of running ahead of us. There’s no guarantee that we’ll make it to wall Rose, and there’s no way of knowing if we’ll find as good a hiding spot tomorrow.