Snow Heart walked down the street of the quaint little town. She had lived here all her life--well, at least most of it--and she’s enjoyed it ever since she wandered into the town ten years ago. The locals were extremely nice to her, even if they were concerned why an eight-year-old filly covered in blood was walking in the snowy wasteland. They checked her over but couldn’t find any wounds, so they cleaned her up and asked her who she was. She, however, didn’t know who she was, where she was, or even how old she was. "Amnesia," they said, which didn’t stop them from being nice, however. They gave her a new name, and since they figured she was around eight--that’s when cutie marks could start appearing--they set her up in the town's orphanage. It wasn’t glamorous, but she didn’t want glamorous; she just wanted a place to sleep. She got more than that, though. She got friends like Stargazer, her best friend, who was walking behind her.
Stargazer was a dark blue pegasus with a black mane. On his face were a few light blue freckles that Snow Heart to this day says are cute, which lead to many, many blushes from the stallion. It amused Snow Heart to no end, which is why she kept saying it. Stargazer had three light blue stars for a cutie mark. When Snow Heart asked him how he got it, he explained that he had always been fascinated by the stars. He always would look at the stars and read about them. One day, before Sombra took over, he and his parents went to the Crystal Empire. Apparently, there was a big to-do about the child princess. His parents were taking him to a family friend’s house for a party when the big takeover happened. He was a bit secretive of what happened then, but she could surmise what happened since he then went on to say that he used the stars to navigate back to this village since he was alone--well, that and he was also now in an orphanage, so it was pretty easy to see what happened, though she never asked him about it specifically.
Then there was the third member of their little party: North Star, a rather large bat. Stargazer found him while he was out of town in the woods, studying the stars, when a bad blizzard came in from seemingly nowhere. It covered the clouds and Stargazer couldn’t find his way. North Star, however, was able to show him how to get home, and they’ve been friends ever since. Thankfully, North Star expanded his friendship to Snow Heart. The bat was a weird one, as far as Snow Heart was concerned; it seemed almost intelligent, though she still was happy to call it a friend.
Together, they walked through the market, looking for the different supplies they needed to make dinner tonight, as it was their turn to make it. The older ponies at the orphanage were asked to help out around the house. Most ponies accepted it, and some didn’t. They were still allowed to live in the orphanage either way, though the ones that didn’t accept the responsibility were usually looked down upon. Snow Heart and Stargazer both took on the responsibilities, though; they both felt they owed the owner, an older unicorn mare that insisted on being called Mum.
As they walked through the market, they couldn’t help but notice that all of the vendors seemed on edge. That wasn’t very uncommon, with Sombra’s death squads roaming around to ‘keep the peace’. They were actually called Peace Keepers, but the amount of times they stopped violence was grossly outnumbered by the violence the squads produced. Of course, they didn’t do it in the open, but stories from survivors had spread pretty fast. But the vendors seemed to be more on edge than normal. Snow Heart trotted up to one of the vendors, a nice stallion that specialized in cabbages.
“Sir? What’s going on? Everyone seems scared.”
“It’s the Peace Keepers. They’re raiding different places in town,” the stallion said. Snow Heart and Stargazer looked at each other in confusion. What did he mean by raiding? As if to answer their question, they heard a scream come from the other side of the market. They galloped over to see what was happening and to help if they could, though any thoughts of helping were quickly diminished as they saw what was happening.
A death squad had surrounded a house and were in the process of grabbing everypony inside. The screams were coming from a mare who was on the ground, obviously in pain, if the unnaturally-angled foreleg was anything to go on. Snow Heart took a couple steps forward to try to help the mare any way she could, but Stargazer held her back. She looked at him, and he pointed back at one of the squad members going over to the women and violently punching her in the face. The mare was knocked out instantly, though it looked like she was dead.
It wasn’t over, however. They looked back at the house as two of the squad members dragged a stallion, presumably the mare’s husband, out of the house. They were asking him questions the two bystanders couldn’t quite make out, so they slowly walked closer till they could just barely hear them.
“I swear I’m not a rebel! I’d never do anything like that against King Sombra!” the stallion exclaimed.
“We’ll see about that; we have very good intel suggesting you are,” the apparent leader of the squad said through the black barding that was the squad’s normal uniforms. The victim was about to say something else when another of the squad came out of the house.
“We have confirmed that there is Equestrian contraband in the house.”
“What? No, no, if anything is from Equestria, it's from before the war! I swear! Please!” the stallion pleaded. The leader looked like he was reaching for something when he brought his head back around fast. In his mouth was a small dagger. Snow Heart and Stargazer gasped as they saw the stallion’s neck start to bleed. The two barded ponies holding him up till then dropped his soon-to-be-lifeless body.
The leader started to make his way over to the unconscious mare on the ground. Snow Heart wanted to look away, she didn’t want to see what was about to happen, but she couldn’t take her eyes off of the scene. All she could see was the stallion’s life-blood draining from him and the soldiers about to do the same to the poor mare.
Before she did something stupid, Stargazer grabbed her. “Come on, Snowy. Let's just go,” he said in an attempt at a calm voice. He was just as scared as she was, but they couldn’t stay, so he had to take her home. She looked at him and nodded. They turned back towards the orphanage and trotted away, not looking back as the soldiers produced a small sword and brought it down.