ROB's Speed Fics

by ROBCakeran53

Window Seat

Author's Note:

Contest #82: Dictionary of Thoughts #2 - 10/12/20 Prompt: Experience Quote: “Experience is the extract of suffering." - A. Helps (1st place)
Special thanks to Holt, Nexus, Vis, and Nailah for the help of pre-reading and edit suggestions.
This story has the possibility of being part of another fic I'm working on, and if I end up doing so, it will be removed from this anthology.

Twilight Sparkle looked across the battlefield with a grim expression.

War was not a new thing to Equestria, but it was to Princess Twilight Sparkle. Even a war that had been going on for nearly three years now, with countless lives lost on both sides. Heavy losses for seemingly meaningless causes. Celestia and Luna had told her of them, and what cost it really had on a nation, and its rulers.

This was, however, the first field of battle she had been present for.

Celestia had told her, some time ago in confidence, that there would be a day the ruler of a nation would need to be on the scene, when the moral would be low and the ponies of her command in distress.

The presence of Twilight had helped greatly, and yet she could not unsee the dead eyes of those fallen, or the sorrow in ponies gravely wounded, their life essence draining away into the soil once home to ponies, maybe even their own families.

“Your Highness?”

Twilight blinked, eyes still out on the war-savaged hills. “Yes?”

“Um… we’re… waiting for your thoughts on the matter.”

With a slow, agonizing motion, Twilight turned her head back to face her generals, neck creaking like it was a dry door hinge. Of course, nopony actually heard such a sound, but in Twilight’s mind it felt that way. Sounded that way.

A war map was before her. Pieces of spent brass, children’s toys, and broken pottery were used as pieces of a game, strewn about seemingly randomly, yet to the children there was a pattern.

Apparently, the actual pieces were lost from a previous retreat when the enemy had advanced at an alarming rate. A carrier pegasus offered to retrieve them for Her Highness, but Twilight strictly forbade it.

Painted pieces of wood were not worth a life, even if the pony were fast. Even if they were a descendant of her close friend Rainbow Dash. It should have been a rule in general; nothing was worth the cost of a life. Land, resources, even other lives.

Luna had scoffed, and said Twilight had sounded like a very young, naive Celestia from eons past.

“Your Highness?”

Twilight looked from the table to the pony addressing her and nodded.

“Do you need us to repeat the plan?”

She shook her head once.

“Very well. We will begin in five hours, providing we’re not under-”

In the blink of an eye, Princess Twilight Sparkle found herself looking up at a destroyed ceiling. Plaster and pieces of wood rained down, some landing on the wood floor with a clatter, other pieces muffled by softer targets.

She began to stand, but she was held down by a pair of forelegs, one of her generals was restraining her.

“Don’t-” he coughed, “move, Your Highness. You have a wound.”

Twilight stretched her long neck, her eyes going wide at the scene before her.

The table was gone, as well as the entire wall that was in front of her, and behind her row of generals. Two clearly mangled bodies were there, and signs of movement from a couple more.

She didn’t feel hurt, or in pain. The only sensation she felt was the concussion in her head, and a damp, warm liquid covering most of her face and neck.

The general holding her down was still, and didn’t even stir when she stood, and realized what they had thought was her own injuries, were in fact not.

The pony trying to hold her down was missing his entire back half. It was his blood upon her. And he was now dead, his cold, soulless eyes looking where she had been.

The building rocked from another explosion. She didn’t even have a chance to react before two ponies came running in.

“Is everypony-” the first guard started, then froze upon making eye contact with Twilight.

The other guard was quick to start checking bodies.

The first one approached Twilight, talking to her, but she was focused on the other guard. Watching him check each body for life, one at a time.

After the sixth body, the guard approached with a small bow. “Your Highness, I’m sorry, but none of them survived.”

Somewhere in the back of her mind, Twilight remembered asking to be near the window, against all of her generals' protest in case of a sniper. She was supposed to sit where they were all now dead.

Another explosion.

“Your Highness! We must leave, the enemy will be upon us shortly.”

She looked to the two guards, then to the deceased around her.

She licked her lips. “You two, were outside the door, correct?”

They looked at each other distressingly, but the first guard to enter nodded.

“And you heard everything discussed here?”

Again the two shared a look, but the second guard stood straighter and nodded. “Yes, Your Highness.”

It was fair to say this was still a new experience for Twilight, but if Celestia had taught her anything, it was that sometimes you needed to act on quick hooves.

“Very well. What are your names?”

“Captain Steel Plate.”

“Captain Silver Shield.”

“Alright, and are you both confident in remembering everything discussed in this room?”

Both guards nodded.

“Excellent. General Steel Plate, General Silver Shield, let us move.”

Both guards gulped. Steel Plate struggled to talk. “Ma’am? Er, Your Highness?”

“You heard me. We must move, get this plan moved up and push back.”

While on shaky hooves, Princess Twilight Sparkle marched out of the collapsing building with an air of confidence, her two newly appointed generals close to follow.