Children of Darkness and Light

by Aquaman

Soldiers

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“We knew the Orlovians had taken Bärentatze, that the war in Senna was over, but the one in Mizuma was just beginning. Ten million creatures, down to the kids, ready to pick up a spear or a butter knife and die for the wrong Empire… we were scared. Nobody’d admit it, stars forbid talk about it, but who wouldn’t be? I don’t think a single one of us was still with the unit we’d started with. We’d all lost friends, brothers and sisters, everything we’d grown to know, and now we were about to lose it all again…”

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The news of Twilight’s arrival spread through the outpost like ripples through gelatin: every creature they passed saw the staff sergeant with his guest, paused for a moment to twitch a brow up or let out a disinterested “Huh,” and then went right back to what they’d already been doing, which didn’t seem to be much of anything. If Twilight was disappointed at her reception, she hid it well. In fact, she seemed more distracted by the soldiers than they were by her, her gaze darting from foxhole to foxhole and her eyes widening with every step.

“There’s, ah… not much cover out here,” she said to Garnet, a questioning — or maybe just uncomfortable — hitch in her final word.

“There’s enough,” Garnet told her. “Trees keep us out of view from above, and if anyone gets past the outer patrols, we’ll see ‘em coming.”

“But what about artillery? If the Mizumans knew you were here–”

“Then we’d probably all be dead, yeah.” Garnet gave the Princess a sidelong glance, keeping his stride steady even as she lost a step behind him. “Good thing they don’t know we’re here, then.”

Twilight bit her lip, and said nothing else. A private might’ve rolled his eyes, but Garnet knew better. She was a capital-P Princess, and she couldn’t be expected to be casual about anything the little ponies beneath her encountered out in the field. It wasn’t something to be bitter or dismissive about. It just was what it was — and he suspected, but never said aloud, that his understanding of that was why he was a staff sergeant and the privates were still privates.

It didn’t take them long to reach the “airstrip”: a gap in the trees just wide enough for a column of sunlight to reach the ground unmarred by branches or leaves. At the edges of the clearing, pegasi and griffons performed final checks on single-creature ornithopters, one of which — stenciled in black paint with the Crystallian royal crest and a blocky number “82” — rose vertically from the clearing’s center and ascended past the treetops as the staff sergeant and his guest approached.

From there, Garnet led Twilight to the left and up a small rise towards a squarish tent bedecked in camo netting. Just beyond it, he could see clear blue sky and open air where the forest ended and the valley began. He’d only been up there once, when they’d first scouted the area several days prior, but he could still picture the view perfectly in his mind’s eye. After four years of fighting the Mizumans on islands and archipelagos across the endless sea, it had been the first time he’d ever laid eyes on one of their cities.

“In here, ma’am,” Garnet told Twilight, gesturing at the tent’s front flap before coming to a halt outside. Twilight stepped past him and raised a hoof to pull the flap back, then paused.

“Aren’t you coming in?” she asked him, and he was just quick enough to disguise his snort as an officious clearing of his throat.

“My orders were to get you here safely, Princess,” he replied, as gently as he could. “Nothing more.”

The Princess glanced at the tent flap, then set her jaw. “Well, what if I order you to accompany me? I’m pretty sure I can do that.”

Technically, she could — but less in the chain of command sense, and more in the sense that a robber holding a knife to your throat could order you to hand over your wallet. Instead of telling her that, Garnet continued to stand at attention and waited for the Princess to provide further instructions. Soon enough, Twilight added, “You seem trustworthy, Staff Sergeant. And frankly, I… I could use the backup. Will you accompany me?”

“Is that an order, Princess?”

“Yes, it is.”

At that, Garnet relaxed, lifted a hoof to pull the tent flap open, and inclined his head. “Then after you, your Highness.”

Twilight entered the tent, and Garnet followed just far enough to occupy the spot inside the tent opposite where he’d stopped outside. From across a metal table covered in maps and typewritten memos, the tent’s only occupant gave him a questioning glance, and he answered it with a nod towards Twilight — violet magic washing down from her horn as she restored her natural color and form. The staff sergeant received a nod of acknowledgement in response, and was promptly forgotten.

“It’s good to see you, Flurry Heart,” Twilight said, proffering a thin smile across the paper-laden table. Princess Flurry Heart, Supreme Commander of the Eastern Alliance Forces, did not smile back.

“It’s good to see you too, Twilight,” Flurry replied, closing the file she’d been reading with a snap of thoughtless magic. “What can I do for you?”

Comments

[Sunny]

Well, I guess that fully establishes our Germany and Japan analogues here.

Is Mizuma meant to mean anything specific? Water-something?