Planet Hell: The Redemption of Harmony

by solocitizen

16. War Letters

Planet Hell
Solocitizen

16.
War Letters

1st of Planting Season, 10,056 AC
Hearts and Hooves Day

Thunder Gale woke in the night suddenly. He rolled over in his crinkling and twisting uniform and reached a hoof for Breeze Heart’s side. It was cold, and there was no pony there. Even the weight of her body on the bed was missing.

As he sat up, confused, the memory of the day before rushed back to him. He groaned, smacked his head, and lay down, staring at his ceiling. The clock on Breeze Heart’s nightstand read 23:41 in vivid orange numbers drifting in the dark. He still had over six hours before he had to wake up, and an hour on top of that before the start of his shift.

He closed his eyes but couldn’t find sleep. He decided that his officer’s cuirass was too tight and twisted up to fall asleep in, so he got up and unfastened the buckles and threw it to the floor before he tried again.

Thirty minutes passed, and he still he couldn’t sleep. It was too cold; that was the problem. So he crawled under the bedspread and pulled the sheets over him. He kept his back to the empty side and closed his eyes.

Ten minutes later he got up again and flicked the overhead lamp on, much to the discomfort of his unadjusted eyes.

“This isn’t working,” he said. “You know exactly why you can’t sleep, Thunder, but just because you don’t know what to do about doesn’t mean you can lie to yourself. Face it like a stallion.”

There’d been plenty of times over the last several years when Thunder Gale didn’t see much of Breeze Heart, such as during the outbreak of an exotic form of ponypox that left over half the crew unable to stand or concentrate. Breeze had practically lived down in sickbay while Thunder had managed the ship as best he could with a skeleton crew. They had seen each other for maybe a couple hours over a three-week period. That hadn’t even been the first time either. At least four times a year—and that was the actual figure; he had tallied them up at one point—their jobs would force them apart. Sometimes, they’d even fall into a pattern of hot-bunking. Such as during the ponypox outbreak, when he would often wake up to start his shift right when Breeze Heart walked in to rest her work-reddened eyes. Sure, it wasn’t ideal, but they always parted and reunited under good terms.

But that was the point: right then and there they weren’t on good terms. She wasn’t away because he’d been working odd hours to handle an emergency or because she’d disappear to treat a sick or injured pony, but because she was angry with him.

Thunder Gale hopped out of bed and trotted to his desk. He dug his datapad out from the drawer and held a hoof on the power button until the screen flashed on. He flipped past all the reports forwarded him over the few hours, past the ship operations log, and into a folder labeled “Private Correspondence.”

Two weeks into the ponypox outbreak, Thunder Gale had decided to write Breeze Heart a letter. Not a five word IM sent to her datapad, but something sweeter. He invented a fictional war between the mythological city state Cloudsdale and the Crystal Empire, and wrote to her pretending to be a soldier in the Cloudsdale Legion writing back to his love back home and far away.

At first he worried over whether or not what he did was something supremely cheesy—that was what he was going for but he didn’t want it to get too cheesy—or kinda creepy or just plain stupid.

He let the contents of the private correspondence folder load, and skipped to the second file. Two days after he sent his message, she wrote back to him:

---

My Love Thunder Gale Special Snowflake,

I won’t pretend that I understand the need for this war with the Crystal Kingdom, and why it must take you so far away. But I know that your task is important to you, and so I support your decision to hear Commander Hurricane’s call to arms. Life isn’t easy here in Cloudsdale. There is a profound lack of pegasi with any experience in the weather patrol, and though I myself only attained the rank of acolyte before the start of this conflict, I find myself to be the senior-most member of the staff and responsible for tasks far over my head. It’s extremely difficult to move clouds around when you’ve got a cutie butt symbol in glue making, not clouds.

Gripping clouds with your teeth all time becomes tiring as well, and I fear that I will have no teeth with which to kiss you with by the time you return. I am trying my best to keep my spirits high, but truth be told I have always been my happiest in your company, and the mere thought of seeing you again and the life we might have once this war is behind us raises my spirits enough to meet the challenges of the coming days.

Your smoochy whoopy toothless pony pumpkin pie,

Breeze Heart Cherry Pit

---

They kept up the game, and during their times apart they constructed an elaborate canon for their fiction. All of it jokes to pass the time, and all of it sincere. Especially the jokes.

Thunder Gale opened a reply box and started writing. Maybe if she was too angry to listen to him, maybe Cherry Pit would still be willing to listen Special Snowflake.

---

Dearest Cherry Pit,

I apologize sincerely for having missed another Hearts and Hooves Day. I feel I have become the most deplorable and detestable of ponies for doing so. I originally set out with Commander Hurricane on this crusade with the hope of securing the old family airship, the one my grandfather wrangled from a diamond dog in a bid to save our family from a sinking battleship. My family once called it home, and I always believed my fondest memories were attached solely to it. However, I have come to realize, right after we secured Canterlot in the final days of that heroic battle which surely a great many fan works shall be written about, that I have always felt most at home when I’m with you.

I am, therefore, deserting the Cloudsdale Legion at the first available time and returning to your loving embrace, should you still choose to have me, so that we may have the life we always wanted.

We shouldn’t have to wait any longer, and once again I’m so sorry.

Your sorry detestable idiot foolish doopy-kins,

Special Snowflake

---

He sent the message and waited for a reply until he fell asleep face-first on his datapad.

Author's Note:

Planet Hell: The Redemption of Harmony will continue on November 25th! I know that there has been some talk in the comments section and on my blog speculating how I'm going to wrap up this entire series that was planned to span multiple books and short stories, all in the next few chapters, and the long and the short of it is that I'm not. I think that when I said I might have attempted to give this story a more definitive end, a lot of people thought I meant wrapping up the series.
That's not something I can do in a few short chapters.
My goal in revising this piece was to provide the best possible ending to this story. Thunder Gale and Breeze Heart's story. Not Lumina's, not ANIMUS's, not the rest of the elements. The only debate I had was how conclusive I wanted to wrap-up Thunder's narrative, and that I won't tell. You'll get to see that when the story's done.
Sorry if this bursts a few bubbles, but please keep in mind that there's no good way of resolving this entire universe in a few chapters. If I tried I'd only disappoint everyone who cares about this series, myself included.
So, please enjoy what there is and know that there's much more to come.

Comments

[Yami Vizzini]

Awww. Hope he heard back.

[RoboRed]

Dem closings, tho'.

[solocitizen]

7715517
I don't know. I like to keep my options open. For right now though, the only thing I have planned is to get this story done, take a break, and finish some original fiction. Right now I don't know if there will be others released for this series or not, but I have ample ideas if I were to sit down and make them happen.

[book_burner]

7715654 This is a wonderful universe. Please either continue it with some short-stories or leave it open.

[Derpmind]

and the long and the short of it is that I'm not.

I respect that. Not all stories get told, even the best ones, and I'm grateful for what you were able to write.

[solocitizen]

7700813

However, I never really got that idea fro Thunder last chapter, that this was some noble epiphany, that he was doing what he thought right. It just.. came off more like he was so overburdened, had dealt with so much shit... he simply did not give a fuck anymore. He didn't try to defend them, simply because he didn't care enough to and was to busy wallowing in his own self pity to be doing anything for anypony else.

It wasn't supposed to be. But even if his decision was accidental, he now understands a great deal more about the context his actions are taking place in.