In the Realm of Iron and Snow

by Imperaxum

II - Survival Is Not Hope

The stallion saw the squat shape on the tracks hours before he reached the train. He'd started out during the morning; now, by the dull light that filtered through the haze of pollution above him, it must be early in the afternoon.

The train rested on a siding, its engine smashed in, innards spilled out onto the frozen ground. The foundations of a guard shack poked up from the earth nearby, the burn marks on the concrete giving away how a pegasi raiding party had attacked this little station. The cars of the train were in slightly better condition, frozen over; an arrangement of stones could be seen a few hundred hooves down the line, and the stallion resolved the look it over once he was done with the train.

The old, brutish engine, albeit better than any of the ones that had chugged past him to the factory, was passed without inspection. It had been wrecked by the pegasi, and the faint thought of food paid no heed to the thing. With a growl in his stomach, the stallion strapped his rifle to his back, and climbed in to the first car, the officer's car by the aged gilding.

The inside was a mess, the stallion passing through the empty doorway, the door itself lying splintered against a wall. Pegasi. They probably hadn't even been thinking of decapitating the leadership, just wanting the glory of facing higher ranking enemies. The windows were shattered too, shards of glass crunching under his steps. Pegasi had probably dived through those. Broken tables and cases were everywhere, slashes and gunshots dotting the walls. A shudder passed through him even as he bent down to rifle through the debris.

Nothing. Of course, even if the pegasi had left anything, an earth pony salvage crew would've gone through at least the officer's car by now. Perhaps he'd have better luck in the soldier's cars. More shattered doors allowed his entry, and after passing through an intervening heating car filled with boilers to warm the whole train (a curious oddity, and a sure sign of the train's age if there ever was any), the stallion walked into a far less decorated car.

Devastation, but of a more organized kind. A makeshift barricade was piled high in the middle of the car, spent cartridges surrounding it, broken rifles of an older, more advanced type propped on the thing. Scattered on the floor were bits of bone and blade.

With a flash of dull inspiration, the stallion considered the destruction around him, realizing he'd be lucky to find anything besides wreckage in the cars ahead. He reached down, snatching a splintered board off the ground and gripping it in his teeth, and began smashing the barricade. When a few solid blows only shattered some ice off, he took to prying out debris. His board was broken and replaced many times, but in only a few minutes, five decent-looking boxes and cases were laid out to the side, freed from the barricade.

He easily smashed the brittle walls of wood and cloth with a hoof, and counted out his findings. Ammunition, sleek and finely made compared to the crudely machined cartridges in his pack. Too bad they didn't fit his rifle.

More pleasingly, packets of rations tumbled out. Many were long rotted away, but some of the hardier stuff, bulk rice and wheat, had survived. Products of the past, certainly, modified to be resistant to the most extreme environments.

The scientists probably didn't think those environments would include the Confederacy itself.

No, this food was from a time when ponies had traveled across oceans to fight for relics, ways to win the war. Cities and armies had been obliterated, ancient evils unleashed, but ponies had still endured and outlived it all. For what that was worth.

The stallion shook his head vigorously, shaken by how far his mind had wandered at the sight of packaged rice and wheat. He hurriedly stuffed all he could into the pack, weeks worth of food at a quick estimation. So long as he didn't abruptly freeze, he could travel very far east indeed! Maybe even make it to the coast . . .

The coast. Abandoned for a century, apparently frozen by the cold sea storms. Confederacy guns could keep pegasi from inflaming the weather unduly, but they could nothing to stop the natural storms. The coast would be an fantastic thing to see, and all the places along the way he could explore . . !

He would travel far with this food, and see much.

Yet hope did not warm his chest.

The stallion made his way out of the train, resolving to eat after he'd looked over that arrangement of stones further down the tracks. If he didn't know better, they looked like gravestones; though certainly not of the style of earth ponies.

Comments

[ademonsdream]

This interests me i shall watch it and you