“Apparently the reinforcements had set up closer to Appleloosa than we had. Celestia and Luna drove Spike and Twilight off while the others grabbed what was left of the unicorns.”
Broken rubbed at his jaw as the other ponies stared at him. Celestia coughed.
“That’s a rather anticlimactic finale, I must say.”
Broken laughed. “I apologize for my inability to sprint five kilometres in full guard armour on a forty-three-degree day after expending most of my energy on high-strength barriers without suffering ill effects, your Highness.”
“No, no, I cannot expect you to give a full account of events. That would be horribly unrealistic of me, especially given what you already have said.”
“Nonetheless, do you have anything to ask of me, Princess?”
“Only if you have any idea how the Revolution managed to spread to Trotown and Hollow Shades without your notice. Dodge Junction is rather close to Appleloosa, but Hollow Shades is…” She trailed off. Broken grimaced.
“Corruption in the guard ranks.” He said in disgust. “We found falsified reports, evidence of bribery, so on and so forth, which explains the equipment Twilight’s guards were decked out in. Apparently Twilight managed to kidnap some of the guardsponies and brainwash them, or just put enough bits on the table for them to betray their oaths.”
“But wouldn’t that have killed them?” Twilight asked. Broken shook his head.
“No. Only the higher-ups had those Oaths, these were just regular words. Ones that could be broken.” Broken sighed. “We caught most of them when we hammered down on the towns; Celestia had seen enough in Appleloosa to consider a ‘light touch’ an idiotic gesture. We completely pacified Hollow Shades, half the populace was loyal anyways and apparently the Mayor had only gone to Appleloosa because his family was being threatened. Trotown was a bit harder, had to post some extra guards there for a while, similar to Ponyville. Dodge Junction was totally gone, worse than Appleloosa, but we managed to destroy their crops and most of their industrial area before Twilight and her giant fire-breathing sledgehammer arrived.” Broken gave a grim grin and a laugh. “On the plus side, they blew up half the town along with fifty-eight guardsponies.”
Shining slammed his hoof into the floor. Dr. Path and Twilight both jumped, and Broken and Celestia raised an eyebrow at him. The stallion drew in a breath before glaring at Broken.
“How can you laugh at that?” Shining growled. “You find guardsponies that die to be funny?!”
“Of course not, Polished Closet.” Broken said. “I’ve just learned that the best way to avoid the crushing desire to strangle something when reminded of my own failure as a leader is to laugh about it. Not that I like it.” The scarred stallion gave a glare at Twilight. “Especially when the murderer is sitting across from me…”
Twilight blinked as a large white wing blocked her view of Broken. “As I have said-“
“Relax, Princess, I’m not stupid enough to actually attack her again. Hence my laughing.”
“So you consciously use laughter as a mechanism to cope with feelings of failure and resentment?” Path asked. Broken gave him an exasperated look, but nodded.
“I guess…”
“And you also use it to overcome the urge to commit murder.”
“No, no.” Broken gave a toothy grin, showcasing his new false teeth. “I said something, not somepony. It’s not murder if it’s not an intelligent being.”
“That’s beside the point.” Path clicked his tongue. “You feel an urge to cause the death of a living thing when reminded of or shown examples of what you perceive to be personal failings.”
“Yes.”
“Do you have any idea why you might have those urges, Mr. Shield?”
Broken blinked several times. “Because I’m insane?” He ventured.
“Insane does not mean violent, and you aren’t insane. You’re mentally ill. ‘Insanity’ does not actually psychologically exist, but that’s into another subject.”
“Then tell me, oh mighty doctor, why do I feel a compulsion to watch somepony’s eyes pop out of their skull when I’m frustrated?”
Path blinked. “Judging by your statements, and the results of your tests, I’d say that you enjoy being in control of a situation.”
“Duh.”
“And when you fail to do something that you wanted to do, such as stopping the Revolution or saving your family, or you are reminded of such an event, you feel like you have lost control.”
“That sounds about right.”
“So you perform an action that allows you the ultimate control, that is control over life and death, that lets you regain a feeling of dominance and superiority over somepony or something. You hate not being allowed to do what you wish, because you feel like you are losing control over your own life.” Path finished, his smile returning. Broken watched him for a few seconds, his eyebrow raised.
“That… could be it…”
“Well, that’s a limited analysis. It’s not like I can just glance at your claims and instantly figure out your favourite colour, Mr. Shield.” Path shrugged. “Plus, your brain’s likely wired differently from ours, so you may have different thought processes on certain subjects.”
“If I may intrude, doctor?” Celestia asked. Path gave her a smile and nodded, stepping back. She turned to Broken. “Broken Shield, did you recognize how… callous, I suppose, you sounded when describing the fate of the buffalo?”
“I was telling the truth, Princess.”
“And I greatly appreciate that, I assure you. But in my observation, you didn’t appear to hold any sympathy for the buffalo, even the ones who fled after the large conflict.”
“The buffalo as a group violated the law, Princess. We negotiated the land purchases with them, and they were happy with the trade and custom we gave them, but the minute we try to take up our side of the bargain? They immediately refuse to vacate the lands that we obtained in the trade. All take, no give.” Broken huffed. Celestia turned an ear.
“Did they understand what was meant in the agreements when they signed their ancestral lands away?”
“They should have, why would they sign them otherwise?” Broken rubbed his head.
“So they may have been misled.” Celestia stated. Broken blinked.
“Possibly…” He shrugged. “Not my problem if they were too stupid to recognize a bad deal. If they’d wanted to renegotiate, I’m sure Celestia would have been willing. Instead, they started harassing us. So we responded.”
“By destroying the majority of their population and dooming the rest to a slow, inevitable death.”
Broken’s mouth thinned. “When you say it like that, it sounds rather horrible, doesn’t it?” He sighed. “Look, Princess, I’m not saying that we wanted to kill the buffalo. If they’d been willing to accept and adapt to Equestrian life, we would have let them. But they insisted on clinging to their tents and beads, so we left them alone until we needed to expand onto the land they were occupying. We negotiated a deal with them, then they broke it. After that, they were legally vagrants; we would have gone down there to kick them out even if they hadn’t been violent savages.”
Celestia’s eyes narrowed. “You call them violent and savage, after what you’ve just admitted to?”
“What have I admitted to, Princess?”
“Blindly firing magical weaponry into a crowd of civilians, one that included foals, by your own statement.”
Broken gave a dry mix of a sigh and a growl. “They were trying to kill us, Princess!”
“You have no evidence of that.”
“Actually, I need to agree with Broken on this one, Princess.”
Four heads turned to face Shining in surprise. Celestia raised an eyebrow.
“Could you explain, Shining?”
“I think that, given Dawn’s hostility in the past as well as the attacks made upon the guardsponies in Ponyville, Broken Shield was reasonable in assuming that the mob in Appleloosa was violently hostile, especially after his ‘unintentional’ killing of the pegasus mare.” Shining took in a breath. “I do not agree with his response, especially given the foals’ presence, but I cannot fault him for his observations.”
“I see.” Celestia turned to Twilight. “Do you share your brother’s view?”
“Er… kind of.” Twilight shook her head. “I really don’t think that hurting any of them was okay, not with Spike’s fire or magical weapons, but given what happened in Ponyville, I can see why Broken would do so. Especially given what we know about his timeline in general. I mean, we would never have ordered guardsponies to attack that crowd, and I don’t think that they would have done it even with orders. At the same time, I don’t think that our mobs are as violent as his are.” She turned to Broken. “How many ponies died in the last pre-Revolution riot?”
“Twenty-six dead, eighty injured.” Broken rattled off instantly. He blinked as everypony stared at him. “Some Trottingham worker’s union ponies got pissed about industrialization, started attacking the machinists, the nobles that owned the factories sent down mercenaries to ‘protect their interests’, next you know a factory’s blown up and you have street fights erupting across the city between pro-worker and pro-industry protestors…”
“I remember that.” Shining said. “The union went on strike and negotiated a guarantee that nopony would lose their jobs. We were sent down to make sure tempers kept low.”
“We were sent down to crack heads, both the strikers and the idiots that the nobles hired to attack them, but asides from a few isolated cases they quieted down pretty quickly.”
“Did you have to kill anyone?”
“Not in the riots, no. There were trials, obviously, but of the twenty-six that were killed only nine murderers could be identified, and seven of those just got life in prison.” His expression soured. “Until Dawn set them loose, anyway.”
Twilight turned back to Celestia, who wore a thoughtful expression. “See, Princess?”
“I do, my faithful student.” The Princess said, her eyes turning to Broken and ignoring the look on his face. “Though I must ask, Broken Shield, whether or not you had considered not harming the crowd at all.”
“Of course I did. I recognized that we’d be more likely to get away if they were dealing with casualties.” Broken shrugged.
“And your Celestia was accepting of this, even after her statement against a ‘hammering’ method?”
“Yeah, obviously. I’d never have done it without the Princess’ clearance. She wasn’t foalish enough to think that we could have gotten out of there safely without doing some damage.”
“So she was fine with casually destroying the lives of her ponies?”
Broken gave the Princess an incredulous stare. “I… that…” he brought his hoof to his face, pulling the skin down. “No, she hated doing it. She spoke to Faust, for her sake, that’s not something that happened very much.”
“But she still cleared you to… ‘violently defend’ yourselves, shall we say?”
“Yeah.”
There were a few seconds of silence. Path was switching his gaze between Broken and Celestia regularly, as were Shining and Twilight. The one-eyed stallion broke the silence first.
“You mystify me, Princess.”
Celesita cocked an ear, though her expression remained the same.
“Why is that?” She asked. Path quietly replaced his clipboard’s notepad.
“You…” Broken waved a hoof. “You’re angry about this. All of you are. I don’t get it.”
“About what? About the Revolution?”
“No, no, being mad about that makes perfect sense. But you seem angry that we escaped from Appleloosa.”
“We’re not mad that you escaped.” Shining spoke up.
“We just don’t like that you hurt ponies to do it.” Twilight followed. Broken’s eye twitched.
“Okay, I’m going to lay this plain out for you. The ponies in Appleloosa were rebelling. Violently, at that.” He gave Shining a glare. “We knew we couldn’t beat them, so we escaped. What would you have done to ensure that you could get out of there alive, if not ‘hurt ponies’?”
“Place a larger, thicker barrier around the square, then another around the town itself, and a third at a distance around the town after you’ve left. Have the unicorns under your command push as much magic into the barriers as you can, make them as strong as possible. Keep everypony alive.” Shining stated. Broken coughed a laugh.
“Now why would Celestia want that?”
“Excuse me?” The mentioned Princess asked. Broken shifted his focus back to her.
“As I said, my Celestia wasn’t enough of a fool to presume or to expect that everypony that was following Twilight would be kept alive; Twilight was mentally ill, and Rarity and Pinkie might have been, but everypony else was a willingly violent secessionist. Why would you want to keep those traitors alive?”
“Because I value the lives of all of my subjects?”
“You view ponies that rebel against you as your subjects?!”
“How would you classify them, if not as Equestrian citizens?”
“Enemy combatants! Dangerous criminals! Target practice!” Broken gave an exasperated laugh as everypony’s eyes widened. “If I had my way, Celestia would have razed Appleloosa then and there, get rid of as many of those little thorns in our side as possible instead of letting them sit and fester.”
“But she didn’t.”
“No, she didn’t.” Broken sighed. “I didn’t want to either, at the time. This is hindsight talking, I’ll admit.” He flicked his eye between Celestia and Shining. “But I still think it’s foalish to expect that we escape without doing some damage.”
“’Timeline differences’, shall we say?” Celestia asked.
“I guess. Was there anything else?”
“Yes, you mentioned that you would have accepted the buffalo if they had ‘given up their tents and beads’. What did you mean by that?”
“I meant what I said. If they had started acting like real Equestrians, and obeyed Celestia’s laws, we wouldn’t have bothered them.”
“And what exactly are ‘real Equestrians’?” Celestia asked, her voice dangerously calm. Broken appeared to notice her tone along with everypony else, but he still answered her.
“Er, ponies, Princess. Pegasi, unicorns, earth? The three tribes of ponies that founded Equestria?”
“I see.” Celestia smiled, a small, sharp smile. “Might I ask why the buffalo would need to abandon their customs and traditions, and their entire way of life, if I understand you correctly, in order to join Equestrian society?”
“I should think that it would be obvious, Princess.,,” Broken replied. Celestia shook her head.
“Not to me. I’m sure that the Guard and other such professions could have use of their strength and ‘warrior’s honour’ mentality, and who’s to say that they could not have contributed to our scientific and scholarly pursuits with their cultural practices? You could have worked in harmony with them.”
“We were trying to work in harmony with them, Princess! That’s why they needed to give up their old way of life; the buffalo culture was too different from ours for any practicioner of it to effectively integrate into Equestrian society. We were already having problems keeping the damned pegasi in line, what with their floating cities, and those were ponies, at least. In the name of harmony and safety, we needed to keep everypony, or everybody, rather, following the same system.”
Celestia raised an eyebrow. “That’s… follows a kind of logic, if still horribly flawed and suspiciously motivated.”
“I’m guessing you do it differently here?” Broken flatly asked. Celestia nodded.
“We maintain and support a mix of cultural influences in Equestria, so that the groups they belong to feel welcome and are willing to work towards the betterment of Equestria and all citizens. The medicinal knowledge of the zebras has had a personal effect on Twilight Sparkle, in fact.” Celestia motioned towards the mentioned unicorn. Twilight nodded as Broken’s eye fell upon her.
“It did in my timeline as well. How’s Zecora been, if I might ask?’
“Rather well, last I spoke to her.” Twilight said, surprised. “You know her?”
“Know her? That stripy witch kept me alive after my first escape from Dawn’s custody.” He gave a small laugh. “Didn’t much like the décor, but the Everfree is a legal grey area when it comes to laws on property, and I wasn’t stupid enough to send guardsponies in to enforce what was essentially a fining offence. Lucky me, I guess.”
“Was she terribly affected by Dawn’s rule?” Twilight asked. Broken’s smile faded.
“Not initially. Dawn came to talk to her a few times, but she never searched around – which was good, because that mud hut Zecora ‘lived’ in was the initial base of the Loyalists while we dug out a more secure base deeper into the Everfree.”
“What happened next?”
Broken coughed. “The camps.”
Everypony but Twilight twisted their ears. She felt a small blade of ice form in her stomach.
“Pip told me about the camps.”
Broken’s eye widened. “How much did he tell you?”
“Enough that I can tell they’re not very nice places. He said that there were ‘re-education’ and ‘internment’ camps, for the non-ponies that were trying to enter Equestria as refugees?”
Broken nodded. “The camps were supposed to be places that would make sure no non-Equestrian cultures muddled with ours. Dawn was the same as us, same as everypony, on the whole ‘different cultures’ effect on Equestrian harmony’ thing.” He paused as Path’s note-taking became audible, waiting until the doctor’s writing had calmed down somewhat. “There were two versions: The re-education camps, where the immigrants would be brought to be learn about Equestrian life, so that they could blend in without causing too much ruckus, and the internment camps, where immigrants were held until they could be moved into a re-ed camp.
“As time went on, non-ponies stopped leaving the re-ed camps. There was such an influx of immigrants, Dawn said, that they couldn’t process them all. The re-eds turned into internments, ‘un-officially’, then more internments got built as more refugees piled onto the border, until there weren’t any immigrants trying to enter Equestria. Then Dawn announced that all non-equine species needed to go to the camps to ensure that they weren’t inadvertently messing up Equestrian life with their ‘natural inequine influences’.”
Broken coughed a laugh. “That was a crock, of course. But it was carried out, and eventually expanded to all non-pony beings, including those who had already been through. Zebras being the main target.
“That’s when Zecora got ‘terribly affected’, by the way.”
---
“ZECORA! Get your striped plot out here, NOW!”
Shining paced in front of the door to the zebra’s mud hut. The windows didn’t even have glass, so she couldn’t have missed that call, but the stallion nonetheless saw fit to start throwing rocks into the hut through said glassless windows in order to hasten her.
It was that or run out of time and be immolated in liquid flame. Given Zecora’s history with ponies and fire, Shining figured that she wouldn’t mind a few broken potion bottles.
“You need not assault my home’s interior; I am well aware what fate has in store.” A deep, rhythmic voice trailed out from the hut. Shining smacked himself in the face, feeling a slight twinge in both his horn and his eyesocket.
“Then I would strongly suggest that you get the buck out of here before your fate unstores itself!” Shining called back, gritting his teeth at the pseudopony’s speech.
“Fate shall do what fate shall will; for whom it acts is unsure still.” The door slid open, revealing a pony shape swathed in several cloaks and hoods. Corks and coloured bottlenecks stuck out of every visible pocket, and Shining could hear numerous clinkings of glass from under the cloaks. The pony shape shook its head back, sliding off the hoods and revealing Zecora’s black, white, and scarred pink face; one milky eye stuck to the side as her working one fixed on Shining’s own eye. Both nodded at each other before Zecora turned around and gently shut the door.
---
“Okay, hold on…”
“What, already?”
“What the buck happened to Zecora in your timeline?! She’s perfectly fine in ours!”
“Oh. After Zecora first showed up, Ponyville was all terrified of her, so everypony ran and hid whenever she came around. This was going on before you even went down there, by the way.”
“That happened in ours as well.”
“Okay, so when you showed up, you insisted that Zecora wasn’t evil, her odd habits were just a result of her horrible upbringing in a backwards nation, and she hadn’t received enough of an education to know how to function in civilized society. Or most likely any real education at all.”
“That’s… a bit different…”
“What, how’d yours go?”
“Er, it was less ‘She’s an uneducated savage’ and more ‘She comes from somewhere else and she might have perfectly good explanations for the differences in the way she acts, which aren’t inherently worse than how we do anything’.”
Silence.
“You ponies are weird.”
“No more than you are. Now continue, please?”
“Right. So, after your little explanation, Apple Bloom decided to go check out Zecora for herself, and when you noticed she was missing, everypony in your little group ran after her. Apparently, you were tracking Zecora until you saw her on the other side of a patch of Poison Joke, carrying an unconscious Apple Bloom on her back. Applejack freaked out, charged straight through the Joke, and attacked Zecora. Rainbow flew after her, and you levitated everypony else over.”
“Wait, how did we know that Poison Joke was dangerous?”
“Fluttershy told you on the way to the Everfree Castle; you encountered some after you faced down the manticore, but Fluttershy got him to carry everypony through after explaining what happened to ponies that touched it.”
“That’s not what happened in ours…”
“I would imagine that it wouldn’t be. So, after you got everypony over, you magically lifted Applejack off of Zecora and held her down so that she didn’t thrash herself into a broken leg. You asked Zecora what she was doing with Apple Bloom, and she responded that the filly had gone into the Joke and had some sort of abnormal reaction to it; the symptoms came on extremely suddenly, and Zecora had pulled Apple Bloom out in order to help her. Given that soon after this Applejack apparently began frothing at the mouth, made odd wheezing noises, and fell unconscious, it was apparently a familial allergy.
“With no other options in safe distance, you followed Zecora to her tree hut, where she brewed a potion and saved the Apples’ lives. You bid her farewell and went back to Ponyville, where you sent Princess Celestia a letter detailing how you learned that lesser cultures’ practices could actually be somewhat useful on occasions where access to real medicine or technology is unavailable.”
A pause.
“…So how did she get injured?”
“Oh, apparently some idiot went into the Everfree and set the Poison Joke patch on fire. A wild wind picked it up and blew it towards Zecora’s tree hut, causing it to catch aflame. It was completely destroyed, and Zecora got severely burned before Applejack and Rainbow Dash arrived and rescued her.”
“What were they doing out there?”
“Well, Applejack claimed that she was patrolling the orchard for apple-thieves when she saw the light and smoke. No idea where she got Rainbow Dash from, but neither of them was willing to say during the investigation.”
“Alright, then, did you ever find out who started the fire?”
“Nope. Zecora requested that we not pursue the investigation if it involved checking out her old house, for some reason. She was kind of… out of it, I guess, after that, sorta. I’m really not sure how much of this I’m just forgetting and how much I never learned in the first place.”
“You’ve been rather impressive in your relations of events for the most part, Broken.”
“Unusually so, in fact. Not many ponies suffering your conditions could recall these things so clearly.”
“Er, thanks, I guess. Should I continue?”
“When you are ready.”
---
“What took you so long? I thought I said to be ready to evacuate quickly.” Shining gave another look at the zebra’s coverings. “You’re lucky the bitch is running late. Can you move quietly when you’re carrying all that stuff?”
Zecora shook her head, easing the door shut with an odd amount of care. “It matters not the noise I make; I only hope it is she we take.”
Shining once again watched the zebra, noting the twitch of her dead eye. “You rigged the hut to blow up, didn’t you.”
Zecora smirked as she walked past him. “Are you requesting an answer, or stating a fact? Both are valid, one has tact.” She twitched the wisps of tail hair she bore up to hit his face; he shook the gentle touch from his cheek, scowling and complexion darkening.
“Don’t overstep your bounds, stripe.”
Zecora flinched at the word, though when she turned her face wore pity rather than anger. “I meant not offence to her memory; please see that I am truly sorry.”
Shining sighed. “Let’s just get moving.” The mare nodded, flipping her hood back up and disappearing into the brush. The stallion spared a wary glance at the former headquarters of the Celestian loyalists before following.
“Make sure you know where you’re walking, the manticores get antsy if anypony goes near them.”
“I have had my home here for years; I know what and what not to fear. And you are acting as my guide; any startled beasts are on your hide.”
“Right, yeah…” Shining shook his head. He cast a furtive glance over his shoulder; though nothing could be seen through the Everfree more than several feet away, he still had the compulsion to constantly watch his own back. Especially when an explosion was supposed to happen somewhere behind him. “When is your hut supposed to explode?”
“The blast shall come with the open door; potions shall spill on that accord. A moment they take to mix and bubble; anyone near shall be in trouble.”
“Wait, how much ‘trouble’ would you say you mixed up?” Shining asked. “How far away should we be?”
“The blast shall stay within safe bounds; the fire may spread vastly around.” Zecora gave what could have been a giggle or a shudder at the last line.
“What did you use to make the explosive?” Shining said, making his interest clearer. Zecora shrugged.
“Blasting water for a kick, fat and oil to make it stick. Black powder to gain a burn, the rest you shall need to later learn.” The zebra jabbed her head at a small opening in the canopy. Shining looked up, watching as a rainbow blur sped past.
“She has circled two times now; too close for us to talk aloud.” Zecora added quietly. Shining nodded, motioning her forward with a hoof.
The two equines walked mostly in silence, only occasional crunchings of twigs or rocks or skeletal remains making notable noise. They avoided any open areas, sticking to the thick brush; moving along the path to the Everfree Castle, no matter the convenience, would risk running into a revolutionary ‘guard’ patrol, probably including at least one Risen guard. Shining shifted his shoulders; the last Risen the loyalists had fought had killed three ponies and nearly put a hole in Shining’s neck before Applejack had kicked a rock into its spine. Then it bit its tongue off and drowned itself in its own blood.
Zecora stopped, raising her head and sniffing. Her voice was low and terse. “The air is torn; magic, be warned.”
Shining cussed, feeling the grimy aftereffects of somepony casting hard magic in the Everfree. Several trees nearby were splatted with dried blood, marking the results of the attempted spell.
Some days, he was almost glad his horn was dead.
There was a loud snap from Shining’s left; he tried to cast on instinct before pulling the spell back. Instead he ducked into the nearby brush, Zecora following close enough to put her chin on his shoulder. The two remained motionless for several seconds, before a Zebrican swallow called from their former position. Shining gave a low Equestrian swallow call back, which was returned in a higher pitch. He relaxed slightly, standing and slowly walking back through the foliage until an orange mare came fully into view.
“Your call was off. Zebricans do a shorter first chirp and a longer third.”
“Ah did what y’taught me.” Applejack shrugged off the criticism. “’Sides, yers sounded like a Canterlot bird, not a wild one.”
“You both sang like ponies, not birds. Trained, the difference would be easily heard.” Zecora shifted out of the brush as the two talked, and Applejack put her focus on the mare.
“Glad y’could make it.” Applejack greeted the zebra. “Sorry ‘bout bringin’ y’outta yer accomodations so suddenly, but-”
There was a sound like a close thunderclap, and several seconds later the ground every tree shook violently. Applejack had to spread her hooves to steady herself; Shining simply let himself shake, and Zecora didn’t seem to notice the earth’s movement. The earth pony picked up her hat from the ground and reset it atop her head before continuing.
“-what in the hay was that, if either a’ya know?”
“That was my former accommodation; I am happy to be moving to your station.” Zecora replied. Shining barked a dry laugh, and Applejack shifted her gaze between the two.
“So long’s y’took out somepony important, Ah’m happy.” She said, before putting her back to the pair. “Open entrance is this way. C’mon.” She slid into the brush with Zecora and Shining quick behind her; three other ponies greeted them, one of which Shining easily recognized.
“Captain.” Jade nodded in salute at Shining, the other two following him.
“Sergeant Jade!” Shining met him in surprise, looking him up and down. His mouth thinned, and his eye widened, as he saw the stallion’s disability. “Faust, your leg-“
“No worse than your eye, sir.” Jade responded, wagging the wooden stick that took the place of the stallion’s right cannon. “Lost it when the dragon landed on my station in Canterlot. They pulled me out and stuck this thing right into the stump.”
“You mean the rebels? You escaped Canterlot?” Shining asked. The green stallion nodded.
“I had… help, from the inside. Same as you, according to her.” Jade said. Shining blinked, but nodded.
“Well, I’m glad to have you, lad.”
“Glad to be here, Captain.” Jade stepped to the side, his eyes shifting to Zecora. “If you’d follow us, miss?”
“I should hope to enter cover from air; pieces of death shall soon fall from there.” The zebra responded. Jade raised an eyebrow at her, but she simply laughed and walked forward, following the small path Applejack had created. The two other ponies followed her, leaving Shining and Jade in the small clearing. Jade cleared his throat and was apparently prepared to speak when something crashed through the overgrowth, breaking branches and hitting the ground with a dull thud. Shining leaned down, lifting it with a weak and spotted magic, as Jade stared, moderately horrified.
“Sir, what are-“
“Bah, nevermind.” Shining let the pink thing drop. “It’s a mare’s, and the left leg besides.” He glanced at Jade, his face and tone deadpan. “It wouldn’t fit you.”
The three-legged stallion gave Shining an extremely odd look before the one-eyed stallion burst into strained laughter. Jade swallowed, but soon found himself chuckling along with his commander at the morbid joke. The two stood there, sharing an odd laughter, until another crash echoed through the forest, followed by an enraged roar.
Then they bolted through the foliage, close behind everypony else, for the safety of the loyalist base.