Iron Rain sighed and flung her helmet to the ground. The grassy hilltops to the east of Nyx rippled in the wind, and the amber light from the sunset made it looked like they were bathed in fire. The mare fidgeted where she stood, then ultimately collapsed into the grass, carefully nursing her swollen leg.
Rain’s eyes traced the distant horizon, but there was no smoke to be found. Swallowing hard, Rain bit on her lip and curled her legs closer against her chest. Not seeing the smoke hurt her more than seeing it in the first place, because when the smoke was still there, it made her feel like her home still had some fight left in it.
Now, there was nothing. The ruins of Nimbus lay cold, silent, and dead, far to the east.
The legate held her gaze for several minutes. As the sun receded behind her, she sat, still as a statue, while the cold winds of the coming autumn slowly began to chill her coat. Her cheek twitched, and she fought the urge to scratch it. Move, and she’d break like glass. The dam would burst, and then she’d be trying to stem the flow of tears for hours. So she closed her eyes, gritted her teeth, and tried to stuff her emotions in a bottle. Just like Steel told her to do before griffons killed him years ago… and now her father was gone as well…
The thoughts rolled off one after the other, and Rain was powerless to stop them. Whimpering, she buried her head in her forelimbs and heaved as her eyes betrayed her. Muted sobs accompanied her wracking shoulders as she tore at the grass with her hooves in frustration. She couldn’t save Nimbus, and now she was crying like a little filly.
“Rain?”
The mare stiffened at the familiar voice, but refused to answer. Instead, she burrowed her head further into her forelimbs. She didn’t want anypony to see her like this, especially those who looked up to her in battle.
A sigh. Brittle grass crunched underhoof as the newcomer walked to Rain’s side. There was a moment’s delay, and then Rain felt a warm presence lie down next to her. Wings pressed against wings, and the small figure laid its head across Rain’s neck. Rain twitched once, twice, but let loose a shuddering squeak and leaned into the embrace for dear life.
The two ponies laid side by side until Rain’s tears finally wept themselves dry and her shaking stopped. Even then, the second pony didn’t move, and quiet, feminine humming filled the air between them. Rain could feel the reverberations from the pony’s humming on her neck, and she wistfully closed her eyes as the mare hummed her lullaby. It ended a minute later, and then nothing but the crickets and the ponies’ quiet breathing disturbed the rapidly dimming night sky.
“I forgot how beautiful your voice is when you sing, Thorn,” Rain murmured, happily snuggling into the small blond mare’s warmth. The smaller mare adjusted to compensate for Rain’s almost titanic size, and Rain felt the ghost of feathers wrap around her shoulders.
“That’s not singing. That’s humming,” Thorn replied, her voice stoic and emotionless as usual. But Rain knew how to read Thorn; underneath the cold and disinterested monotone that usually dominated the small mare’s voice, Rain found a hint of mirth, and a touch of worry.
Sighing, Rain opened her eyes and stared out at the distant horizon. “What’s bothering you?”
“You,” was Thorn’s answer. Rain raised an eyebrow, but even without seeing it, Thorn continued. “You’ve been flying down to this hilltop every night, Iron. I…” Her words caught in her throat, and Rain could envision the small mare frowning and staring at her muzzle like it was somehow its fault that she couldn’t find the words she wanted. Eventually, she adjusted her blond wing and pressed herself tighter against Rain’s side. “I’m worried about you, Iron. We all are.”
Rain grumbled and turned her head to the side, forcing Thorn to lift her head. “I’m fine.”
“You’re not.” Rain saw Thorn narrow ruby eyes at her from the corner of her vision. An irritated frown hung from her muzzle and the corner of her lip twitched. “Iron, admit it. You’re barely holding together as it is.”
“I’m fine,” Rain growled. For a second, she strongly considered simply shaking Thorn off and flying somewhere else. She knew the mare would leave her alone if she did. But the warmth of her body made her feel safe, secure, loved… That was something that she’d been missing for longer than she cared to admit.
“You’re not going to get any better just hiding your feelings,” Thorn deadpanned. “That raid on the POW camp? Your father would have spanked you in front of the palace gates for pulling something as stupid as that. You know we were all lucky that there weren’t any reinforcements nearby, otherwise we all would have died.”
“And your point is?” Rain hissed back. This time she turned her head all the way around to glare at the small mare, inadvertently bumping their noses together. Thorn winced and leaned back a few inches, before she reset her hardened stare and met Rain’s glare with a look of overwhelming irritation.
“Killing yourself isn’t going to make anything get better, Iron.”
The simple statement made Rain wince and recoil. She looked away, shame building beneath her cheeks. “I’m not…” she began, but the words trailed off into a whisper. She couldn’t even convince herself otherwise; there wasn’t any use trying to convince Thorn.
Thorn didn’t attempt to press her; it was one thing to drive a point home, and another entirely to twist it. Sighing, she rolled onto her side, putting an inch of space between herself and Rain. The snowy mare shivered at the loss of contact, but Thorn did her best to ignore it. “Iron, if you die… you’ll be wasting everything your father gave you. Everything Steel taught you. You need to live, and not just for their sake, but for yourself.”
“How…”
Thorn’s ears perked; Rain’s whisper was so quiet that she almost didn’t hear it. She noticed again that the larger mare shook like a leaf, and she gently placed a hoof on Rain’s shoulder. “Iron?”
The Legate of Nimbus shuddered at the contact and curled into a ball. She pressed her knees against her muzzle and ran her nose up and down the white hairs. “How can I live for myself… when there’s nothing left to l-live for?”
“Iron…” Thorn gently tugged on Rain’s shoulder, successfully getting the larger mare to look at her. Tears matted the snowy mare’s cheek hair and she sniffled quietly as she met Thorn’s ruby gaze. “What about us? What about Haze and Stonewall?” She gulped and swallowed, briefly finding something interesting to look at on the horizon while her throat bobbed up and down. The words struggled to come to her, but when they did, she blurted them out. “What about me?”
Rain couldn’t find the words to answer that question. Instead, she turned away, eyes staring once more at her fetlocks. She began to shiver and whimpered quietly. “Thorn?”
Thorn blinked. “Yeah?”
Rain hesitated several seconds before speaking. “Can you… h-hold me? Like that night on Agoge?”
Thorn didn’t answer with words. Instead, she slid a hoof under Rain’s neck and gently wrapped it around the mare’s chest. The other foreleg joined it, and then the wings followed, until Rain found herself in a downy nest of feathers wrapped around her torso. Thorn rested her chin on Rain’s forehead and maneuvered the snowy mare’s neck to fit snugly inside of her own, and she carefully used her hind legs to intertwine Rain’s tail with her own.
The nest of feathers started right below Rain’s chin, and the mare buried her muzzle in Thorn’s soft, blond wings. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, letting the comforting smell of roses help soothe her nerves. Her muscles relaxed, and her breathing slowed. She gently wrapped a hoof around one of Thorn’s forelimbs, held it tight against her body, and let the small mare’s steady breathing lull her to peace.
The two mares remained like that for some fifteen minutes, until the sun had finally dipped below the horizon, and the shadows of the night began to steal in from the east. Rain struggled to fight off the beginnings of sleep, and she felt Thorn’s breathing begin to slow behind her. A tiny smirk made its way to her muzzle, and she gently head-butted the crests of Thorn’s coiled wings to get her attention. “What would Haze think if he saw us right now?”
A scoff escaped Thorn’s muzzle. “He’d ask why I didn’t invite him to watch.”
Rain chuckled softly. “Of course he would.”
The two mare’s quiet laughter persisted for a few seconds more, before once again only the sounds of the wind filled the twilight. It would be several moments longer before Rain spoke again.
“Thorn?”
The mare’s ears perked. “Hmm?”
Iron Rain’s teeth toyed with her lower lip. “What’s it like?”
Thorn blinked. “What’s what like?”
“Love.”
“Love?”
“Yeah. I…” Rain’s words trailed off and she licked her lips as she tried to find them again. “I see you and Haze together all the time in Nyx. I see two ponies so happy with each other that they can forget about the horror they just barely survived and simply… live, you know? I just… want to know what that’s like…”
Thorn’s brow furrowed, and she took her time to gather her thoughts. “It’s special,” she finally said. “You feel like that other pegasus means more to you than you yourself. You’ll do anything to see them happy, and it’s…” Her words trailed off, and she eventually sighed and squeezed Rain tighter against her body. “Didn’t you and Haze have a thing a few years ago?”
A harsh laugh escaped Rain’s throat. “When we were sixteen and stupid. It didn’t last more than a few weeks. I’m sure you remember.”
Thorn hummed. “I dunno, Rain, I think I was pretty busy padding my lead over you while you were tripping head over hoof after a stallion too fast for you.”
A harsh red fluster made its way to Rain’s cheeks. “Hey!” she exclaimed, poking her muzzle out from underneath Thorn’s wings. “Haze was not ‘too fast’ for me! I could keep up! And besides, I already passed your score four months ago!”
“For the Legate of Nimbus, you sure took your sweet time catching up to me,” Thorn teased. “Griffons don’t just lie their necks down for you, you know.”
“Maybe they should. They can either die standing up or lying down, but they die the same way regardless.”
The two mares giggled, but that too died down in time. “I’m happy for you two, though,” Rain said, filling the empty silence with her voice. “I don’t think there’s a more perfect match.”
Thorn’s ears perked. “Uh… well, thanks, Iron.”
“No, seriously,” Rain continued. “You’re going to make a great wife, and I can’t wait to see the kids, a-and we can t-take them to the parade grounds, after we rebuild the city of course…”
Thorn felt Rain begin to tremble in her embrace. “Iron?” she asked, lifting her head off of the ground. She saw fresh tears glistening on Rain’s muzzle. “Iron, what’s wrong?”
“T-they’ll be such g-great little warriors, like their p-p-parents,” she stammered, “and one d-day, maybe they’ll h-have a R-Rainstorm of their own.”
“Iron, stop,” Thorn said. Her face screwed up in worry, and she carefully rolled Rain in her limbs to get the larger mare to face her—no small task, given Iron’s immense proportions. When she did so, she put her hooves behind Iron’s head and pressed their foreheads together. “Stop it. Please don’t.”
“But I’m scared!” Rain whimpered, squeezing her eyes shut and knocking a few tears loose in the process. “I don’t want you to die, Thorn! Or Haze! Or anypony else.” She ground flat white teeth against each other in frustration. “So many ponies died in Nimbus! Father, Red, Downburst, Longbow… I-I’m afraid that the stupid war’s going to take you all from me and ruin your futures and everything all because of me and—!”
Rain’s eyes shot open as she felt lips meet hers and a foreign tongue wrest the words away from her. Electricity shot up her spine as Thorn rolled her onto her back and wrapped her hooves beneath Rain’s shoulders. The blond mare seemingly lifted Rain off of the ground with the kiss alone, forcing the larger mare to arch her spine just to keep their lips connected. Tawny wings settled into the soft and downy pockets between Rain’s own wings and her coat and held tight, trying to squeeze the emotion out of her.
Rain’s forelimbs shot up from the ground and wrapped around Thorn’s neck, pulling her back down with her. Thorn grunted slightly but used the movement to reposition her lips for a better angle of attack and renewed her assault on Rain’s muzzle. The snowy mare groaned and covered Thorn entirely with her wings as they rolled across the grassy hilltops in their ecstasy.
They came to a stop with Thorn straddling Rain’s chest as they broke off the kiss. Panting, the two mares took their time to recover from the sudden osculation. Rain felt a warm feeling building in her nethers, and she looked to Thorn with a sudden longing. “Thorn…”
Thorn worked her jaw and wiped her lips on a wing feather. She looked down at Rain, and for a moment, temptation flickered across her face. But that bled away to sympathy all too quickly, and she shook her head. “I’m sorry, Iron. I shouldn’t have done that.”
“Thorn,” Iron whimpered again. “What do you mean?”
“It’s not right,” Thorn grunted, turning away. “I shouldn’t have done that. I just didn’t want to hear you bawling like that. I… I’m sorry.”
“Oh… o-okay,” Rain whimpered, pulling her forelegs back against her chest. Sighing, Thorn slipped off of Rain’s chest and sat down by the mare’s head. She gently took Rain’s head in her forehooves and settled it in her lap, where she began stroking the trembling mare’s mane with her hooves.
“You’ll find the right pony someday, Rain,” Thorn whispered. “It’s not me. I can tell it’s not any mare. You just have to live long enough to find him.”
It took a few seconds, but Rain feebly nodded. “…okay.”
That little ‘okay’ was enough to make Thorn smile. She tenderly nuzzled Rain’s forehead and leaned back, watching the stars appear one by one on the eastern horizon. As the constellations brightened against the sky, Thorn finally sighed and stretched her wings. “We should probably get going, you know.”
Rain didn’t immediately answer her. “Rose?” Shimmering blue eyes sought Thorn’s face, inadvertently capturing the beauty of a million galaxies within their glossy sheen.
Rose perked her ears. “Yeah, Iron?”
“Can we… will you stay, just a little while longer?”
Rose planted her forehooves behind her and leaned back on them. Ruby eyes wandered across the stars, and within, they saw the beauty of the night, pristine and warm upon that lonely hilltop.
“Okay,” she said, carefully lying on the ground next to Rain. “Just a little longer.”