The Winter Solstice

by DEI Caboose

Goodbye

I don’t believe anypony who says they didn’t see this coming; it’s been pretty much the only thing ponies have been talking about for months.

I think they’re trying to be optimistic about the situation, like if they don’t acknowledge its inevitability then maybe they won’t be affected by it. It’s not like you can blame them, even if they are being ignorant, after all it just proves they’re a good pony, one who would rather avoid conflict than embrace their savagery.

Problem is though this is not a time for pacifists. War is unavoidable, despite those claiming otherwise.

I mean once the moon went up and stayed up ponies started running left and right, almost as if without rhyme or reason. I myself went with the Celestia supporters, I have my reasons but they’re not important. What’s important is that right now were bunkered down in a trench, hastily dug out by some friendly earth ponies, opposite the Luna supporters, who were fortified along the front of the Everfree forest, blocking the path to the Castle of the Two Sisters.

And today was the day we went over the top.

Was I scared? Of course. For a variety of reasons, dying being the main one. But also because of the possibility of failure, I was after all a royal guard, it was my duty to protect the princesses, or in this case princess, and if we failed, who knows what would happen to Celestia.

But then again who knows what would happen if we won? We knew almost nothing. Lunas detachment of guards apparently by command blocked the path to the castle in the middle of the night, a night which has yet to end. Ponies started to rally with them, whist others started to rally with us, not guards or soldiers but farmers and school teachers, heck there were a few filly’s and colts trotting about!

That was a week ago, and since then we just sat and waited.

Apparently General Firefly decided that wasn’t an effective battle strategy so now we were going to charge and ‘storm the castle’ so to speak. After all nopony had heard from either princess for over a week, Luna hadn’t left the castle, and Celestia wasn’t there to begin with, at least that’s what ponies are saying, maybe she was, who knows certainly not me.

All I do know is that this fucking sucks.

I, and a lot of ponies were perfectly happy serving two princesses, but once tensions apparently started to rise between them ponies started jumping on bandwagons, picking sides and turning on each other surprisingly fast. As I said before I was a Celestia loyalist, for reasons I will once again not get into. But plenty ran to Luna, and some even deserted from both princesses’ personal detachments, like those Thestral things that Luna prefers as her guards, I’ve seen a few of them walking around, but we were up against a whole lot more.

Which brings us back to the situation at hoof.

It was eerie, quieter than it had been for a while; nopony was socialising, talking, heck some were barely moving. Can’t fault them really, it’s not like they were experienced in warfare, not even us guards were. Equestria had been up to this point peaceful; the most trouble I’d ever had to deal with was the occasional drunken brawl.

We were so bad at fighting we had to relearn how to load the cannons, some of them had never been fired and we haven’t exactly been able to test them. The local commander didn’t want to risk accidently aggravating the ‘enemy’.

We weren’t fighters, and neither were our ‘enemies’, we were a bunch of stupid ponies scrambling about under the gaze of our superiors, who themselves were squirming under the gaze of somepony else and so on.

Some ponies have tried to run, and those who were caught were taken prisoner, both to stop them from joining Lunas forces, and also because apparently it was treason, but then again, in our eyes we were fighting the traitors, and in the eyes of our enemies we were the traitors. So honestly who was in the right? Some ponies weren’t here out of loyalty to Celestia, they were here simply because they hated Luna more or liked her less, there was even one upper class twit who joined our army because, in her words “It’s what everyone was doing”.

This whole thing just makes me angry. I except that I am meant to fight and die for my princess, but that was my choice to make. I wasn’t obliged to make any oath; I did because I wanted to. Yet ponies are being forced and pressurised to choose who they are loyal to more, they don’t want to be here, and those that do are ignorant of the consequences, not thinking about any long term impacts today could have on their lives.

‘Could’ being important as it implies they may not survive.

But it’s not my place to decide what ponies do with their lives; I’m here because I want to be. I wouldn’t stop somepony if they ran, even if I’m meant to. Because if I decided to run, I wouldn’t want to be stopped either.

It wouldn’t be long now. Stallions and mares were starting to prepare and occupy themselves, some very mundanely. Where one pony would be sharpening their weapon, another would be writing in their journal, as if under the assumption this event will be looked back on and their words remembered. For a time it may be, but eventually all knowledge of today would fade, the writing would degrade and the stories forgotten. The inevitability of time.

And even if it was remembered it wouldn’t be accurate, nopony was going to mention the build up to all this, or the specifics, they’ll just remember it as ‘the battle of the Everfree’ and nothing more. They won’t know of the fear the ponies felt as they were ordered to charge against their former neighbours, or how much we stank after living in a ditch for a week. And then if we lose, we will be the villains, that’s how time will remember us, not as ponies that remained loyal to their princess, but monsters who the brave knights of the moon marched against.

But that goes both ways.

Time will forget us. I’m certain of that. But that’s irrelevant. Right now, was the single most important, and likely final moment of my life. I don’t care how I’m remembered, because I’ll be dead it’s not like I’ll be able to care. But if I do nothing, or if we fail, I’d rather not be remembered, I am here to serve the princesses, I chose to serve Celestia over Luna, I chose to be here, and I chose to die here.

Nothing else matters, like I won’t matter.

With my more cynical thoughts over with I decided to preoccupy myself in any way I could, honestly I just wanted a distraction, something to take my mind off the horrors that will soon lie above the wall.

I decided to look for Doo, a fairly young but rather interesting character I had the pleasure of becoming acquainted with. There was a childlike innocence about him, to the point I often wondered whether or not he could truly comprehend the gravity of the situation we were in. I liked him due to his unintentional ability to defuse a situation; he just had that aura of glee you rarely find in a pony.

Because of his simple nature he was often taken advantage of, often for the amusement of others. For some reason he almost seemed to admire me, even though I’d never really spoken to him, and when I asked him about it he said it was because I didn’t treat him any different from how I treat everypony else. If that was enough to earn his respect I’d hate to know what his life outside the trench was like.

Not like I’ll get a chance to find out.

After some searching I found him in a more secluded part of the trench where he had taken up residence. He was sat on top of a disused cannon, his wings occasionally fluttering to keep him steady as he kept his head locked forward, pointing out over the wall, towards the Everfree. He seemed unusually contemplative.

“Doo”, I called, getting his attention. I felt like berating him for making himself an easy target, his yellow mane was basically neon against the darkness, but soon we were both going over anyway so it wouldn’t make a difference whether they saw him or not.

“Oh hey!” He all but yelled, tumbling off the cannon after losing his balance, if it wasn’t for the fact he’d done it before I would have been concerned. He stood up, and made his way over to me, his grin not seeming appropriate, “Big day today Sir! We’re gonna get out there and save the princess! About time too!”.

I would have told him for the umpteenth time that he doesn’t need to call me Sir, but for whatever reason it seemed to make him happy, and I really didn’t feel like taking that away from him. Not now.

“It seems that way Doo”, I say simply, sitting down in the mud, not caring how dirty my armour would get.

Doo sat down as well, taking care to sit on a plank of wood, as if to ensure his own makeshift armour wouldn’t get any dirtier than it already was. I could tell immediately something was off with him, his movements seemed simulated and exaggerated, as if he was trying to look more energised than he actually was. Fortunately my time with him allowed me to catch this.

“You okay?” I realise immediately it was a stupid question, given everything that was going on. I clearly wasn’t okay so there was no way Doo wasn’t.

Although he seemed to disagree, “Absolutely Sir! I was just thinking about the quickest way to climb the wall, wouldn’t want to fall behind would we?”

Normally I’d find his blatant lies humorous, it added to his charm. But I didn’t want him to feel like he couldn’t talk to me, least of all now. “Doo?” I say, and I watched as his mask seemed to crumble, the light of his golden eyes almost seemed to dim.

“Well it’s just that…”, he stumbled over his words, as if he was trying to make up an excuse as he was saying it. But once he did, it was enough for my resolve to fall, even if it was just for a moment.

“I’m… scared Sir”.

The look in his eyes was enough to make me turn away. It was one of curiosity laced with fear. Like the look of a child asking a parent about the monsters in the closet. Confusion as to why something was the way it was, and almost a plea for it to be different.

What should I tell him? Don’t be scared? He should be and I was. It’ll be alright? I can’t guarantee him that. Grow up? Should I discipline him? Tell him to be less afraid of dying and concentrate more on killing?

“Me too”.

That was my answer, I wasn’t going to lie or get his hopes up, he was here and so was I, whatever happens now was going to happen, as much as we didn’t want it to.

Doo was quiet, I didn’t like it when he was quiet, he was loud and bombastic that’s what I liked about him. If this was the last time we would be together, it would not be in silence.

“Tell me about your son Doo”, instantly he perked up, the joy he felt far outweighing his fear. He could ramble on for hours about the family he had somehow acquired. Which was exactly what he did, talked, while I listened. And for those moments we were both happy.

He told me of his child, his wife, his parents, his work, the accidents at work, where he seemed to remain purposely ambiguous as to how involved he was. All the time he smiled, the dank environment we were in seemingly forgotten. At that moment I was content, I would have gladly sat and listened to Doo until my time came, nothing needed to be done, and nothing needed to change. I was there with my friend, and nothing more.

But it did change. The sky suddenly lit up all the colours of the rainbow, a beam shot out of them middle of the Everfree, traveling through the clouds to the amazement of us below. It kept going and going, until it hit the moon, sending out a shockwave of light that blinded us for a moment.

By the time I turned back to look, an indentation of a mare had appeared on its surface from out of nowhere, a could make out a horn but before I could examine further a piercing sound screeched through the air, which I immediately identified as a whistle. More started to sound off along the trench and I could even make some out in the distance coming from the Everfree, probably Lunas forces.

The content feeling I had was gone, I had heard the whistles, and whistles meant only one thing.

Time to go over.

I grab Doo who was looking around in confusion; after all he wasn’t conditioned to react to orders as I was, I quickly tell him to get his spear before we position ourselves next to a ladder, with other ponies joining us on either side. The whistles had stopped now, which meant the next time they went off, we had to go over.

I was shaking, I was scared, and I was going to die another nameless pony in a pointless conflict that would only be forgotten. What was the point, the princesses can fight over who’s in charge, I don’t particularly care. So why do I have to be involved.

I think of possible plans of escape, I could slip away in the confusion and chaos; I could even take Doo with me. He had a family, he didn’t need to be here, none of this was his fault so why should he have to pay for it?

My panic was unbearable, consuming me. I had to run but I couldn’t. Why couldn’t I? Why wouldn’t I?

“Sir”, Doo says disrupting the silence, I turn to him, about to tell him what we should do, and that he would see his family again, reassuring him that it wasn’t wrong to run.

“I’m glad you’re my friend”.

Those words were enough to drown the thoughts from my mind. I couldn’t run, I couldn’t ruin my friend’s perception of me, not now.

This was noble, we were noble, scared yes, but this was the right thing to do. We chose this, I chose this, and I will not turn my back on my comrades, my princess, and my friend just to save myself.

“I’m glad too Doo”.

I turned to him one last time, history will remember us as two nameless ponies, but we meant something to each other and to others. We were going to die, but it would not be as cowards.

We heard the whistle, ponies started to climb, and cannons started to fire. Doo and I broke our stares and proceeded forward together into uncertainty.

Author's Note:

I wanted to do something thought provoking. That and seeing Blackadder goes Fourth only fuelled the idea. I always felt like the Nightmare moon thing was resolved fairly quickly, so I thought, "Hey what if ponies were fighting over it?" not an entirely original idea I know but I started to write about it any way.

Comments

[Diamond Sparkle]

Delightfully different from most pony war stories.

[Unbridled Dolly]

Interesting concept and a delightful read. However, I do suggest getting an editor or proofreader, because I found a lot more than a few mistakes. The biggest problem was run on sentences. Other than that, it was a job well done.

[kitkat0528]

You know? This was a good story. But Sun-Butt was in it.