Letters to Ponyville

by StapleCactus

Roseluck

Dear Lily,

You were right.

This isn’t what I thought it would be.

Boot camp was hard, but not all that bad. I was sore for the first few days, but it passed after a while. I never thought I would be able to lift so much or run for so long, but they really worked us hard there. We also had the opportunity to run through the woods and train there; I discovered some really pretty woodland flowers: pink and turquoise, five petals, no bigger than the tip of a hoof. Maybe you’ll recognize the ones?

Anyhow. We went on from there to the front lines. Just like that. Two days of walking and camping in open fields of wild flowers along well-trod paths, all cut and bleeding dirt from the tracks cut by carts. We camped in the meadows at nightfall, keeping watch in case the griffons flew past the lines and hit us under the cover of darkness. I actually liked it.

Some of the other cadets became my friends. Private First Class Racing Star and a (really) cute Corporal by the name of Iron Eye.

Star’s hobby was running. She’d go everywhere as quickly as she could, always galloping where she could trot and trotting when she should have been walking. We bonded on the race tracks when she’d slow down to help me along. During our marching drills, I’d help to keep her in line, stop her from marching ahead of the rest of us.

And Iron Eye, well, he was just cute. And nice, really nice. He got promoted a few days in since the Lieutenant thought that he would be a good leader, and he was. Always taking the time to explain things and always asking, never demanding. He’s the one that lead my squad towards the front lines.

We had a lot of fun on the trip to the front, talking and sharing stories. I told them about our little flower shop and named off as many of the flowers as I could when we’d trot by them. Racing’s family had a farm somewhere, big land all divided up into squares. She said that she had to run a lot to get from one end to the other; that’s where she started to love going fast.

Iron Eye was always a little quiet about his past, but he liked to listen and we talked, sometimes, until way past curfew. It was worth being tired the next morning.

The front lines changed everything.

The ponies there weren’t nice. They had hollow eyes. Mud was all over the place, so much so that only the hardiest weeds and tiny patches of grass would grow between the rows of tents.
Iron Eye lead us to our little nook of the camp and told us to wait. The orders for us to move arrived the next day.

It was a patrol, something I now know they make all first timers do. It shows us the battlefield, gives us a sense of direction, and “wakes us up,” as the sergeant said.

We pushed through shin-high mud and past little buttresses where ponies painted brown by dirt were hiding. They never smiled as they looked down on us. One of them told me to only look at the horizon, never look down.

We drove past them and over a hill on which a watchtower had been built. We could see everything from there.

Nothing but mud.

Hills and valleys carved apart by magical burns, broken swords and spears planted all over. Fallen trees cast twisted shadows all over. And the bodies. You couldn’t tell pony from griffin or any other.

On the hill opposite our own, a single twisted rose stood, petals opened to the grey sky as its broken stalk swayed in the fetid wind.

I started crying, until Iron Eye touched me with a muddy hoof, told me to be still.

We marched back in silence, heads down and eyes averted. My stomach almost heaved when I walked over a patch of earth stained red. That’s why he had told me to look up, always.

We couldn’t sleep that night and stayed huddled around our little campfire, some sharpening swords while others tried to wash off the mud. I had given up.

The Sergeant returned, told us they needed some volunteers for a night recon mission and that he had volunteered our squad.

I couldn’t do it, Lily. I just couldn’t.

The others had to leave in a hurry. They said that they understood, and I knew that they did; I could see it in their eyes. Lily, they had seen the same things as me. They had seen the bodies and the lifeless fields, yet they could still move on where I couldn’t.

Racing told me that I owed her a quick gallop when she came back. Iron and I shared a look for a moment. He smiled and I looked away.

It’s her screaming that woke me up a few hours later.

I ran to her, only to be stopped at the medic’s tent.

I won’t dilly dally in saying it. Iron Eye died. They encountered another patrol in the night and they fought. Turns out it was one of ours. Both were so caked in mud that they could hardly see one another.

Racing got sliced along her side by a thrown spear. They had to take both her right legs the next night. Infection had set in.

Lily. It’s been a week now. I’m all alone.

I don’t think I’m going to make it, Lily.

-Roseluck-

Author's Note:

RavensDagger

RavensDagger has done it again. I can't thank him enough for doing this, and he spit this letter out faster than I thought. Good show, Raven.

Comments

[Midnight Spark]

Alright. I'm interested. And I have the best idea that I'm going to go write before I lose.

[StapleCactus]

4023282
4024925

Aahhh! Who's who?! Two Midnight Sparks? This will be fun trying to figure out who's letter goes to who.

[Midnight Spark]

4026292
Mwuahaha. All according to the prophecy.

[StapleCactus]

4026378

Prophecy? *Smashes mural depicting said prophecy* What prophecy? I see nothing but rubble here!

[Midnight Spark]

4026457
It's too late. *maniacal cackling* Nothing will stop us now! *insane chortling*