More importantly, are we scared of the answer?
There's four of us in the tent. Well, probably not. It's a big tent, there's probably at least a dozen good soldiers milling about in here. But here in this corner, where it happens, there's only the four of us. There's Pinkamena, sitting with her back to a tent post and eating out of a feed bag. I can't help but crack a smile; she looks like an elephant. There's Maud, cleaning the blood out of my wing with oil and a strong cloth. She pushes hard enough with her teeth and hooves that I feel it at the base of my wing, and it almost feels like I can feel it in my feathers. There's the kid, staring at her hooves and not even bothering to hide her tears. Good for her.
Then there's me. I'm the Iron Wing. They used to call me Rainbow Dash. Then again, they used to tell me I was just one pony.
"Are we the good guys?"
It was the kid who said that, that's what makes me look up. She's still looking at her hooves, still rubbing at splatter that was washed away hours ago, but her face looks just a bit more solid under all the tears. She doesn't want to just sit there and cry, she wants to try and understand the tears.
Pinkamena rolls her eyes and mumbles something through her bag, something that sounds a lot like "Shut up, kid". If anything, that actually manages to make the poor kid look even more bummed out. I lock eyes with Maud as she's working on one tough feather, and jerk my head at the kid. She looks out the corner of her eye, gives a slow nod, and tosses me the cloth to tend to myself.
"What makes you ask?" is the first thing she says. Well, really it's all she says before fixing the kid with that blank stare that still manages to make me feel something new every time.
"Well, I just..." She does her best to wipe away the tears, but they aren't about to stop. Her horn glows a sickly green, and I wonder if there's a point in grabbing a medic. "They don't know what they're doing, do they?"
Pinkamena snorts into her feed bag, an ugly, pig-like noise. I do my best to ignore her, trying to preen a wing that wasn't built to be preened.
"As far as we know, no. They don't." To those who know her, Maud is choosing her words very carefully. "We don't quite know what effect the helmets have yet, but we know that the ponies under them can't stop."
"So, why do we kill them?" Not gonna lie, the cloth almost fell out of my mouth. It's been a real long time since a why was put to those words instead of a how.
"You suggesting we try something else?" Pinkamena's taken off the feed bag now. That alone's enough to make the kid double her crying. That frown just wasn't designed to be seen by allies.
"I mean, they're just helmets. Can't we take them off, get the crystal ponies somewhere safe, out of the fighting?" The kid keeps talking faster and faster, like that's going to even slow Pinks down for a second.
"You saw them out there today. This is how it is. Do you really think you could have gotten their helmets off? And even if you did, you know what would have happened?" Even though she isn't facing me, I can hear the grinding of Pinkamena's teeth. "Sombra would have had the ones who would fight kill the ones who wouldn't. They mean less than nothing to him."
"So shouldn't they mean something to us?" the kid shoots back, a lot more than I'd expect from someone facing down Pinkamena. "We treat them just as disposably as he does, but it's just okay when we do it? Since when does Equestria get to decide what passes for a life worth saving?"
"I never said it was okay," Pinks growls out, yielding to a child. "I just said this was how it was." I have to nod. This is how it is.
"Then we're back to my first question," the kid answers, clearly bolder now. "Are we the good guys? We kill just like he kills, hay, we're the instrument he uses to kill them. Far as I can tell, the only difference is the uniform and the fact that we get nightmares."
"You think they don't?" This is me speaking, and I can feel the tent fall silent. Not just the four of us, but the whole tent. The Iron Wing is talking, the murmurs say. Listen to the Iron Wing. "They aren't seeing ponies in those helmets. They're seeing things so horrible that they can't imagine running. A nightmare that scares them so senseless that the only reaction that makes sense in their brain is to fight for their lives."
The kid's staring wide-eyed at me, trying to fight down her hero worship long enough to keep asking her questions. "So, what makes us different? They fight like us, they die like us, they cry like us, so who says which side we're on? Please, just tell me. Are we the good guys?" She's so desperate, so lost, so uncertain. This kid needs a rock. The crowd that's listening, they need a rock. So I make that rock.
"Yes."
Of course one word isn't enough, but it's a start. In a small way, they have their answer. Now, they want details. I just hope I can put this into words.
"You want to know what makes us different? It's easy; we are fighting for something. They're just fighting. The crystal ponies are an extension of Sombra, a big dumb claw for a big dumb dragon. And here we are, standing for freedom, for friendship, for a life well lived. You ask what makes us right?" I stand tall, spread my wing and grit my teeth. "We stand for something. All he's got is a desire to kill, but we've got a reason to."
"But... what makes our killing right?" So lost. I wonder how clear this kid's memories of the time before the war are. She must have been born before the empire came back, she just looks too big to be a baby.
And then there's the sinking feeling in my stomach as I realize, I don't know how long it's been. Deal with that later.Cry on that later. You have to be strong right now. Tell them what to do right now.
"Nothing. Nothing makes it right." I look at the blood still on my wing, tracing a hoof along the feathers to make sure they all understand what I'm looking at. "I heard what you said, about getting the helmets off. I promise, we tried. And they died. Every day, there are mages in Celestia's inner sanctum studying the helmets, trying to find a counterspell. The moment they find it, this war is over. But until then, we can't afford to waste resources and time on restraining murder weapons."
The words feel dirty, and I have to pause a moment to swallow them. She cringes too, and I know there should be an effort to fix that. "For the time being, they don't get to be ponies. We can't afford for them to be ponies. Believe me, when this is over there will be mourning. A lot of mourning. But for now?" I offer a hoof. She takes it, and I pull her up onto her hooves. "For now, we're the good guys. And maybe one day they'll say we were the bad guys. But the only way we keep fighting tomorrow is if we believe that we're doing the right thing. So how about it?"
"How about what?" Still lost, but it's a different kind of lost. She's been swept up in the words. Heh. Didn't think I had that gift.
"Will you be fighting tomorrow?"
A long second goes by, and she smiles. It's no happy smile, like you'd get before Sombra, but it's the best I'll get in these times. "And the day after."