• Published 12th Sep 2012
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The Youth in the Garden - The Descendant



The youth fought for the Union. Fluttershy tended to her garden. The two met somewhere between.

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Chapter 1

“The Youth in the Garden”
Written by The Descendant
Cover Art by AnneHairball


Chapter 1



Fluttershy stood in the bathroom, once more running the towel up and down her forelegs.

She squinted in the pre-dawn darkness, trying to see what could have brought her the unusual sensation, the one that had woken her.

“I-I could have sworn that my hoovsey’s were all wet… they seemed so, wet,” she said aloud to nopony. “L-like, oh, like splashing in water…”

She lifted the towel and touched it to her face. It was as dry as a bone. Even as the sensation began to fade away it seemed to linger in her memory. It had felt so real, seemed so much like actual water.

With a heavy sigh she departed the bathroom, leaving the towel draped across the sink and countertop.

She tread on light hooves, not bothering the sleeping form of Angel. As the rabbit slept on, she stood before her bed and pulled the covers back gently with her teeth. She ran her hoof across the sheets. She was very grateful when her touch revealed no wetness, and the awful memories of wetting the bed at flight camp washed out of her. As she stood there, in the dark, tiredness crept back in to claim her.

Still, it had felt so real. She could have sworn that she was rushing forward, that she had splashed through water, or that she had felt someone else do so.

Fluttershy wondered if a dream could be that real, that vivid.

“I-it felt so real,” she whispered to herself. Fluttershy’s head sank deep into the pillow, and as she lay there staring she wondered how long it would take her to fall asleep.

It was not long, but in the Land of Nod more visions would call to her and interrupt her rest…



The soldiers splashed through the creek. The cold waters instantly sank past their brogans and into their socks, wetting their trouser legs.

The youth listened as the first sergeant called the company back into line, reforming the long ranks as they clambered up the opposite bank.

“C’mon lads,” the youth heard the first sergeant calling as he took his first few steps in wet socks, “back into line! We’re the center, me boyo’s, we have to step smart!”

Other officers were calling out now, all of them from the first sergeant and captain all the way up to Colonel Tidball. As each shouted incomprehensible orders, the Fifty-Ninth New York Volunteer Infantry first dressed right, and then left, and then right again.

Around the youth, he could feel the power of the brigade as it formed once more. Riders on horses thundered down the line, and he looked up to catch the faintest glimpse of General Sedgwick pelting past, the general calling to his subordinates as he flew by.

No one cheered. Their eyes and ears were set on the space beyond the distant woods, the space where the rattle of musketry could be heard, and the low arc of shells could be seen even before the whistle reached their ears.

“Forward!” came the voice of the lieutenant colonel, Stetson, and the battalions tensed. “March!” came the order, and in unison the Fifty-Ninth began pounding at the earth once more.

“Company E! Right shoulder shift… arms!” came the voice of the captain, another officer the youth could hear but who he could not see among the thick morning haze. The youth brought his Springfield up from shoulder arms in time with the rest of the company, giving a slight sigh of relief as he tensed and flexed his right hand.

The stomp of the brigade carried out around him, and the youth could feel the strength of it.

The distant musket fire only grew louder, and as the youth jostled and bumped along with the rest of his company he felt the lump growing in his throat.

“Would ya’ look at that, Allie!” The youth heard the high, shrill voice of Lewis, another Kingston boy. He was calling to him, nearly shouting from the second rank. “The whole of General Gorman’s brigade is up there in line, and here we are, and General Howard’s boys are behind us a few paces or so! Why’d ya’ suppose General Sedgwick did that? Why’d he put all the division into three lines all together ya’ suppose?”

“I suppose that if I knew that,” answered the youth, “I’d be a general.”

“Quiet in the ranks!” called another officer.

“Most likely ‘cause General Sumner told him to, and Sumner ‘cause McClellan told him to, and McClellan don’t give a damn anywho!” answered an older soldier far down the line. The company erupted into laugher, ignoring the officer as they tramped along.

An artillery shell exploded over the distant canopy of trees, raining fragments of steel over the canopy of green. As they watched a great vast branch came crashing down with a moan, nearly landing upon the ranks of the soldiers in the brigade in front of them.

The company fell silent, and the distant sounds of the musket fire only became larger in their perception.

“One, one, one two…” called the first sergeant, making the company keep cadence with the rest of the battalion and the regiment as a whole.

Company, battalion, regiment, brigade, and division, corp… the chess pieces flew around in the youth’s mind. He swung his head left to right, looking up and down the vast sweep of the line of blue soldiers that marched forward across the field of low wheat, creeping towards the woods beyond.

“Damn Secesh roots!” grumbled a soldier to his left. As the youth watched the soldier stumbled across the first knot of trees they came across. The company laughed again as those nearest the soldier ducked away and his rifle went clanging to the ground and his canteen flew around him. “Damn reb trees! Almost were as many damn rebel trees in Virginny as there are hereabout in Maryland!”

The brigade broke up, the men moving in small groups as they made their way through the woods. Looking down the line he could see the Union flag dip low, joining the Fifty-Ninth’s battle flag in the careful hands of the honor guard, the color sergeant and his squad protecting the silk from the snagging branches.



“Company! Front! Into ranks, lads, into ranks!” came the first sergeant’s voice again. Near him the first lieutenant, Roosa, echoed the command.

More horsemen came up. The regiment formed quickly back into the long lines, gathering into the company front as General Dana came pelting up. “Form back on the Fifty-Ninth New York!” the general called to his soldiers as he sped along the long line of his brigade. “Dress on the Fifty-Ninth, dress on the Union Guards!”

In response the flags of the regiment came back up, and the youth could almost feel the brigade pushing against his regiment. He could feel the strength of the whole division, some five thousand men or more, leaning into him from the shoulders around him.

“Support… arms!” called Lieutenant Roosa, and with that the whole battalion brought the rifles in front of them, and then rested them now against their left shoulders.

Their was a fresh outburst of cheers, and some seventy yards or so ahead of him the youth could see the branches ending as Gorman’s brigade slipped out of the tree line.

At once they disappeared into a grey haze, and near him someone cursed aloud as a new round of artillery fire dropped its concussion around them. The artillery fire was coming closer now… was nearly on them.

The line began to surge, to buckle. “Steady on lads,” said Lieutenant Roosa, as he held his sword wide in front of him, making the battalion come back into their line. “We get into it together, there’s my fine fellows…”

The youth swallowed hard as the last few trees parted, and with that his company stepped out of the woods.



The sun streamed over Fluttershy as she strolled through her garden. Upon her head the sun hat bounced jubilantly as she hummed her happy song.

“Angel Bunny!” she called, lifting her voice in happy tones. “Angel? Could you p-please bring me my watering can?”

The rabbit gave her an unhappy glance, but still he turned and went off to fetch it.

Upon his return Fluttershy went towards the large cornstalks, each one standing proud, green, and tall in the late summer sky.

“Oh!” she called. “H-haven’t these just come up so wonderfully! Won’t… oh, won’t the nice corn taste so sweet, Angel?”

Fluttershy took the can, and lifting it she made to pour the water over the roots of the corn. Yet, no sooner had she lifted the can then a transformation overtook the tall, green shafts.

“Wh-what? Oh, oh no! Oh no!” she called again as she took to her wings. Before her eyes the wide leaves shriveled down to withered tassels, and the stalks lost their color. Soon her corn was no more, simply a shriveled mass. They soon snapped and fell to the ground, cut down in the prime of life and stark in death.

“Why!? Oh, h-how, what…” she mouthed, landing among the dry, brown stalks. “What…”

Fluttershy eyed the cornstalks, trying to understand what could have happened to the plants, ones that just a few moments before had been so green and full of life.

Her hooves danced, and there was a moan, many moans. Around her hooves something seemed to call out from within the earth. To her horror a white vapor began to lift from the hollow centers of the shorn cornstalks…


Fluttershy sat upright in her bed, coming awake. She gave a single small squeak of apprehension into the pre-dawn darkness of her room.

She lay there, her breathing ragged and uneven. It was still the deepest part of the night, and the darkness continued to sit heavily around her rooms, draped over the cottage.

As her breathing recovered she looked towards the box on the far side of the room. There Angel sat sleeping, and she wished that she could simply trot over, lift him up and bring him back with her, a warm presence perhaps helping her pass the night.

But, in reality, all that would accomplish would give her grumpy little companion more excuse for his rudeness and standoffishness. So, that being that, Fluttershy rested her head once more on her pillow and lay there awaiting sleep once more.



“Damnation!” called a soldier on his right, far down the line. “Christ!” called another. The youth sucked a deep breath as he heard Lewis do the same in the rank behind him.

The grey of the morning was mixed with another vapor. Thick smoke lingered upon the ground, hovered over what the youth realized what must once have been a cornfield.

A cornfield, it seemed, that had been shorn down to stubble, wiped away by shot and shell and ball as evenly and as perfectly as though it had met a harvestman’s sickle.



Among the stubble, forms moved and heaved… piles of them…

As he watched the feet of the brigade that marched in front of him he saw how the smoke from the powder of thousands of rifles still sat close to the ground, how the pounding of the feet of the soldiers of the other brigade kicked it up from where it sat among little spaces within the toppled corn.

The artillery rang out again, and the youth joined the thousands of eyes of the division as they snapped down to the left. There red flashes from upon a rise showed them cannon firing in anger…

It was Secesh cannon, rebel cannon… firing at them.

“Oh Christ! Oh Jesus!” came the cries of some soldier to his left, and as the shots streaked overhead the youth ducked at the sound, wincing as each shell shrieked above him.

More concussions fell over them, shaking their bones, but these came from the far right, from cannons that could only be their own. Union guns answered in loud reply to the challenge presented by their Confederate counterparts.

“Eyes… front!” came the command, the loud, hard voice of another officer, Lieutenant Colonel Stetson, demanding their attention. “Pay no mind boys,” he said as he walked briefly behind the youth, “Pay the shot and shell no mind.”

The youth concentrated on the distant figures of the other brigade. As he watched more shells flew overhead, and as they did he noted the way ripples went up and down the line as each shell shrieked past. The men of those regiments each winced and wavered as the sound reached them, sending waves along the line of that brigade as the men ducked and what little light that was drifting through the smoke reflected in their bayonets.

Bayonets.

The youth reached for his, jostling the soldier next to him.

“No one gave the word for bayonets, Bassett,” came the voice of Lieutenant Roosa. The youth looked up to the officer who marched along in front of him, spinning about with his sword across his shoulder.

“Mah’ apologies, sir,” added the youth, tugging at the brim of his kepi. “Just a touch anxious, sir.”

The lieutenant smiled at the youth, and then turned back around and held his sword wide, calling the battalion forward with him.



“What devil’s work is that?” called out Lieutenant Colonel Stetson. “Where do they think they’re off to? Look at that lads, General French’s division is taking a holiday! Either they’re wrong or we are… Ha! What do you think of this army, this brass-mounted army?”

The youth turned his head to the left, saw the other division that had come with them start to slowly turn, seeming to move towards the distant rise where the cannon flashed at them. In the distance he could see a small white building, and to him it seemed a primitive church, not unlike those of Quakers or Puritans.

Around it there seemed to be a heaving mass, and the youth squinted to see what it could be. All too soon he got his answer. His eyes snapped back to Gorman’s brigade before him, and the men now wavered and stepped around objects that rose from the desecrated corn.

Objects that looked like men… that looked like broken, bleeding men.

“Don’t step on me, I pray you,” called one of them as they advanced. All beneath them and before them the Fifty-Ninth New York and the other regiments of the brigade began to waver as they reached the groups of wounded, maimed, and dead.

“Water. Water, please…”

“Sir, lad, I can’t walk off, I can’t walk… won’t you help me?”

“Oh God, forgive me! Oh Christ, it hurts!”

The wounded writhed around among the shorn cornstalks. Others simply lay there, their uniforms ripped open and great pools of red standing out upon their shirts as they stared to the sky and mouthed their prayers.

The youth felt a hand wrap itself around the strap of his haversack. He knew that Lewis had grabbed hold upon him, was letting the youth guide him through the cornfield so that he would not have to open his eyes, so that he’d not have to look upon the mangled bodies torn open by fragments of shells or shattered by the musket balls that must have flown across the field by the tens of thousands.

The youth lifted his eyes to see that the cornfield was littered with the despondent forms. It was crawling with them, the surface of the field writhing with the wounded and dying.

The men who lay there among the ruins of the corn called to them, begged them for help.

Men of both sides…

“Please don’t go an’ trample me,” called a weak voice as the company advanced. “I beg you, please, step ‘round me!”

“I’ll not step on you,” the youth answered as he bumped into the soldier next to him, making room and dragging Lewis to the side as well. He looked down to see what poor figure could be making such a desperate plea.

He looked into the eyes of a boy no older than himself, one wrapped in a grey coat and torn trousers of butternut brown that revealed a pool of blood.

The youth passed by the rebel soldier, keeping him in his eye as long as he could before falling back into line.

The youth had seen his first rebel.

The youth focused back on the distance, focused on the backs of the brigade before him. The eyes of the young rebel stayed in his mind even as an officer called out “Shoulder… arms!”

His rifle settled back into his right hand and the barrel rested against his shoulder.

“Now look at that!” came the voice of Stetson once more. “What’s become of the Thirty-Fourth New York? Hello, lads! Off to take Richmond by yourself are you?”

The youth looked ahead through the fog and gun smoke, squinting into the distance.

There indeed a regiment of Gorman’s brigade had simply lurched out of line. The regiment simply wheeled about and marched off by itself towards the distant wood line and the little white church. Its band played and its flags flew as though nothing were amiss or to be bothered with.

The men of both brigades waved their kepis in the air. They called to the regiment and whistled at them. But, despite their calls, the men of the Thirty-Fourth New York simply disappeared into the fog and smoke.



Soon, the sounds of musket fire began to leap from where they had gone. Soon the brigades were silent once more, only the continued calls of officers reaching out above the cries of the wounded.

To the youth it reminded him of a sheep, one he had loaded upon the Albany, a steamer of the Hudson River Day Line. It had been one of the many he had loaded in the two years he had worked on the steamboats that arrived at the dock in Kingston.

The sheep had simply walked about the deck as the youth and the other porters had loaded the ship for its trip down the Hudson. The youth had watched it, knowing that it must soon be corralled.

As soon as the big wheels had begun to turn and the steam and smoke had begun to rise from the stacks he went to fetch it.

As he and the other porters had watched, the sheep, as though knowing what would happen to upon the arrival of the steamer in Manhattan, had simply leapt into the wheel. With that it was dashed to death against waters of the Hudson River.

The youth thought of that single sheep as he and the Fifty-Ninth New York kept their cadence and marched across the cornfield. They went forward as the hazy, humid morning drew on towards nine o’clock, parting for men who begged for help or lay still upon the smoking ground.

After what seemed an eternity the regiment gained the fence line along the road that ran parallel to the cornfield, a large field and another set of woods just on the other side.

More wretched figures were piled at the fences, some moving, many not.

He watched the brigade before them take the fences, the regiments stumbling over the first one in a disorganized mass. The other brigade then pelted across the road, over the opposite fence, and into the field beyond, reforming itself as it avoided the dead and dying that lay all about.

The youth steeled himself. He did not favor looking upon the bodies of those who lay near the fence, or the wounded that crawled towards it in desperate hope of shelter.



In a few moments, his regiment gained the fence, and the youth smirked to himself. For him it would be no different than jumping from the dock to the steamboat…

“Cross over boys! Save your strength for the top, lads,” came Stetson’s voice. The youth began to take large steps, to gain momentum for his leap.

A soon as he gained the fence the youth placed his rifle over the top. It waited, leaning there, even as he leapt up to the top rail. As he swung his leg over it brushed against other men who fought for the top, and he nearly toppled over. As he recovered himself he saw another rifle next to his… a Sharps.

He wondered where such a fine gun could have come from. He looked back and forth, and soon he saw the answer to the question.

Next to the very fencepost his hand rested upon a figure kneeled, pawing at the earth. The youth looked down to see the green uniform of a sharpshooter, one of the elite marksmen of the army.



“Hello, Greencoat!” called the youth as he slid off the fence. The sharpshooter did not look up to him, and the youth grimaced at the man’s lack of politeness.

“Heh, you drop somethin’, Greencoat? Whatcha pawing around like that for?” the youth asked as he reached for his rifle.

The sharpshooter turned and looked up to the youth. At once the youth dropped his Springfield, and jumped at the sight that the sharpshooter presented him.

The man’s jaw had been shot away, shattered and broken. The sharpshooter had been scrapping at the earth in some feeble attempt to recover the pieces, as if somehow believing they could be recast and remade. He stopped only to look at the youth with disgust and dejection, handfuls of grass and earth in his dirty hands.

The youth fought to pick up his rifle as the man continued to gaze at him. The sharpshooter’s tongue hung limp, and it waved around freely. As the man looked up to the youth it bobbled upon the remains of the sharpshooter’s beard, caked and matted with blood as it was.

“Bassett!” came the voice of Lieutenant Roosa, “into line!”

The youth looked into the eyes of the sharpshooter once more, and then leapt to his feet. The youth pelted across the road. Nearby he saw another Greencoat, this sharpshooter dead and with arms outstretched. To the youth it seemed as if the unfortunate soul had attempted to crawl away, dark black stains seeming to follow him along the road.

The youth cleared the second fence with a leap, raising the Springfield over his head, and quickly found his place in line.

As the officers found their voices they began barking orders once more. The youth settled back into his place in the chess game… company E, first battalion, Fifty-Ninth New York Volunteer Infantry, third brigade, second division, second corp, Army of the Potomac.

Surrounded as he was by these other pieces, even as he stood tight to them, he felt very much alone… very much scared.

The Greencoats are the best we got, thought the youth as the regiment first dressed left, then right, and then left again. If that can happen to them, to the Greencoats, then what chance have I?

Gorman’s brigade had stepped forward. In an instant the long lines of infantry disappeared into the woods, swallowed up by the smoke that lingered around the place.

In moments came the rattle of musket fire, and the shrieking, piercing calls of wounded men filled the woods in front of him.

What chance have I? the youth asked himself once more as he swallowed hard. What chance have I?



The dawn came crisp and clear, and as Fluttershy’s eyes came open they blinked in the light that came cascading in through the window.

She snuggled her blankets to herself just a touch more, wrapping her forelegs around them and giving them a nice firm tug, bringing them closer to her body. She settled back into the bed with a self-conscious yawn. The pegasus drifted lazily in the space between the waking world and the land of dreams.

She did not hover there long. Something tapped upon her. It was gentle at first, but soon it became more forceful. As her eyes came open, and once more she found the disapproving face of her longtime companion and chief enforcer looking down over her. “Oh, Angel, good morning,” she said as she gathered him into her forelegs.

The rabbit rested against her chest with a look of subdued reticence. As they lay there she wiped the sleepiness from her eyes with the back of her hoof and yawned discretely.

Angel crossed his own forelegs over his chest and gave a judgmental smirk. Though he certainly wasn’t opposed to being held by his mistress, the rabbit had not woken her for the single purpose of receiving a cuddle.

No, there was work to be done, and he had trespassed here in her bed in order to get her up and to it. There were animals to feed, and gardening to be done.

As he lay there, wrapped close to her, a rumble went through his stomach, letting Fluttershy know that he had a selfish interest in seeing her awake and at work.

“Oh Angel,” she said as she lifted herself, “I had such unusual dreams last night… I- I haven’t had dreams like that for… oh, ever, I suppose…”

He looked up to her with another dispassionate glance. She though continued to rub his belly, and as she looked towards the distant wall the rabbit could see her eyes focusing on nothing in particular. Angel could see her simply trying to make some sense of the visions that had clouded her sleep.

“It… oh, Angel,” she said as she simply let her head droop and her pink hair fell across the rabbit, “I-I don’t really know wh-what the dream was about, but there was a stream, and woods, and a little white building… and noise. A rattle… pops, lots and lots of pops all together…”

Fluttershy went silent again, her eyes panning around the room and settling on nothing. Angel sighed and ran his paw up and down her foreleg, the rabbit doing all he could to help her put away the strange visions.

She smiled down at him. Angel, sensing an opportunity to begin the day, once more adorned himself with an unhappy glare and pointed to his mouth. His stomach rumbled in time.

“Oh! Oh, my!” she said, seeming just then to discover that the morning has been wearing away. Fluttershy lifted herself from the bed, gently depositing Angel upon the floor as she stretched.

“Are-are you ready for breakfast, Angel?” she asked. “I bet you are.”

The rabbit crossed is forelegs in front of himself. He tapped his foot on the floor, and eyed her incredulously.

The rest of the morning progressed as per her usual routine, and she even made up the time that she had spent sitting in the bed, pondering what her dreams had brought her. “Good morning! How are you today? Are you well? Yes?” she asked each of her mute friends, the animals and birds answering her in the chirps, squeaks, and grunts that she among only the fewest of ponies could understand.



“You’re doing well? That’s just so wonderful!” The pegasus began to hum her usual little tunes. Her voice began to rise as she felt herself surrounded by all of her little charges.

Angel listened in, some small part of the rabbit finding it pleasant to hear her return to her usual self.

That, of course, only made it worse when she suddenly stopped.

Angel hopped over to the far side of the divider between the kitchen and the living room. There he found her once more simply staring, this time having dropped her dust cloth from her hoof. Her wings slowed, and as her hooves found the floor she gave a single heavy breath and stared out the window.

Angel sighed once more. He hopped over to his mistress, took her hoof in his paw, and began leading her outside. Perhaps, he hoped, the gardening could help her move beyond whatever revelation the dreams had draped around the pegasus.



“Oh, Angel,” she said as he pointed to her sun hat and the watering can, “it was just so odd, it felt like… a memory. Like something that had actually happened, but that I don’t remember… l-like it actually happened.”

The princess had begun lowering the sun a little earlier each day, and letting it rise that much later, matching the ancient rhythms of the world beyond Equestria’s borders. In short, autumn had begun to linger around Fluttershy’s garden. The bright flowers of spring had gone to seed over the summer, and now only the lingering hyssop, freshly bloomed chrysanthemums, and proud monkshood flowered there.

The colors of these plants were pleasant, and Fluttershy smiled as she looked them over, but they were not the reason for her presence in the garden. The harvest was upon her, and her garden was filled with vegetables that were soon to be ready for the picking.

She had not always kept a garden, but for Fluttershy doing so had come naturally, it seemed. Life was life, and be it animal, avian, reptile or, apparently, vegetable, her soft touch called it forth.

Angel sat against the watering can, basking in the light of the early fall as Fluttershy worked nearby. He panned his head across the garden and found a few more weeds that even his long summer of helping in the garden had not discovered.

He hopped over to the edge of the garden and looked upon the weeds with an air of extreme prejudice. He spit upon his paws, rubbed them together, and reached to remove the unwanted inhabitants of his mistress’s small garden patch.

“Ah!” cried Fluttershy, wheeling about her expression going wide. Angel startled in place at her movement, his ears coming straight up and spinning about as her hooves danced around.

Fluttershy’s eyes panned the horizon and her heart beat faster. No… no, it couldn’t be.

“The pops… the pop, pop, pop,” she breathed, her foreleg rising as she searched the space beyond the garden. “The rattle, Angel… Angel, I heard the rattle just now… just now!”

Angel hopped closer to her and put his paw on her leg. He too took deep breaths…

… he too had heard the noise that had rumbled across the landscape beyond the cottage.