Embrace a Violent Wind
”I have been told that in Equestria, no legal distinction is made between any race of pony. They are all equal before the law, and know no master but their rightful queens.
Our great and tarnished republic, as you all know, does not enjoy such enlightenment. We are base liars to claim America’s freedom the greater while Slave Power grows weed-like to the North and West. Until its grip on our nation is broken, the promise of our Founding Fathers remains unfulfilled. We must labor with the sad knowledge that liberty rests not in American democracy, but in the absolute monarchy of a foreign people.”
-Senator William Seward (later secretary of state under President Abraham Lincoln) to his peers, 1855.
Soarin was not the only pony in America when it endured the great crisis later generations would call the Civil War. Other pastel hooves wobbled seasick from boats, adding their number to the million immigrants thronging for the New World. But while humans were chased there by war or famine, ponies only came in ones and twos, well-fed and possessing a trait very peculiar among their kind: Ambition. Restless cloud-pushers and self-styled wizards made very good livings in America, though despite all this they were ponies still. Even the most jaded of these exceptions sought love and contentment above all, embracing warm homes and peaceful hearths.
Except for Soarin. While he was not the only pony in America, he was the only one to join its army when the slaveholding states launched their revolt.
What followed was a spectacle which reminded him uncomfortably of his time in the Wonderbolts: Photographs, parties, applause, nonsense. Even that was better than what came next. Two years of tireless, lonely effort to track every movement of the Southern army, delivering precious information to Union generals, and watching helplessly as they bungled their way from one defeat to the next.
Another doomed campaign. Another incompetent general. Soarin flew over roads and fields, sketching the gray-clad snake of men marching by a small town called Gettysburg. Lee’s soldiers. Rebels, fresh from their endless victories. Too far below to shoot him down.
Yet as he sketched with pencil in mouth, one hoof cupping the precious notebook, three very strange things happened.
The first was a voice from above. “Long time no see!”
Then, the sight – slow and easy into his vision flew a white pegasus with a sheared tail and crisp brown mane. The face made a neat match in Soarin’s mind, though the blue Wonderbolt uniform had been traded for a sharp, embroidered gray.
And after the shout and wave, the newcomer flew closer with a cheerful smile. Could have struck from on high and broken a wing. A pegasus could land with a broken wing, but he couldn’t do much to stop you from breaking his other.
“Fast Clip.” The name fled Soarin’s mouth before his mind fully understood. His eyes moved between the smiling face and gray outfit, fully aware of his own blue. Ironically, a close match for Clip’s old uniform.
Fast Clip halted well short of hoof reach, perhaps sensing the tension. But his grin remained, and he gave a dismissive wave. “No one but ponies up here. How are you? How’ve you been? I haven’t seen you since...”
Rainbow Falls.
“...That whole business, with you and Fleetfoot.” Clip shrugged, his face moving to a companionable frown. “Second in command, and thrown out for a new favorite. Us in the barracks got steamed about it, too.”
Not a day Soarin cared to revisit. “I got by.”
Clip nodded. “That’s why you left, I suppose. Kind of the same for me, and I never looked back. Us pegasi have it good over here. I know darn near everyone worth knowing in the state of Georgia, and got myself a nice big house next to the governor’s. And hay, with all that money they got up North, I bet you’re doing alright yourself.”
Soarin had joined forces with seven other New York pegasi, shuffling clouds or running stock orders for the highest bidders. No risk, and obscene profits. A mansion in the upstate. Even a unicorn majordomo, hired as a favor to her wealthy mother. Ambitious ponies did well in America.
He remembered his last evening there. Cards with his business partners. He brought up the war, and was quickly shushed. Brought up slavery and the South’s efforts to force it northwards, and was shushed again. Ponies didn’t talk about those things. Those were human things.
“I got by,” Soarin said again. His eyes shuffled back to the gray uniform. “But how… I thought all the ponies...”
“Lived up North?” Clip finished. “Most do. It’s...”
He paused. Scratched the back of his head.
Soarin came south once before the war to move clouds for a wealthy new client. City of Jackson, Mississippi. A wrong turn brought him to a slave market instead of a manor.
Humans chained together, like pictures from Sombra’s reign. Babies ripped from screaming mothers. Fat men shouting prices, and whips cracking across backs and naked breasts. Soarin told the client when he found him, and the man smiled like he would to a sulking child. “Oh,” he said, “If only you lived with Africans, you would understand.”
“Well. They have more money in Yankeeland.” Clip shrugged again. “I’m sure I make less than you, but that’s alright. I like the people. Tea and cookies wherever I go, heh.”
Soain gave a thin frown. “They pay well in Yankeeland. They even pay their workers.”
A groan leaked out through Clip’s mouth, though the cheer fought to remain. “It’s been ten years, Soarin. Do you really want to talk about that?”
“You don’t?”
“That’s a human thing.” Clip gave another dismissive wave, this time with a bit more force. “I don’t ask about it, I don’t talk about, and truth be told, I don’t care about it. Humans do those kinds of things. I’d rather jaw with an old pal than get political.”
“It’s why I’m here,” Soarin said. “Free the slaves. Maybe the last chance to do it.”
“Then you’ve been played,” Clip replied. He gestured to the gray column beneath them. “Me, I’ve got friends down there. My daughter goes to school with some of their kids. And I’m friends with Marse Lee and all that, and I don’t want to let any of them down. Best of all is I’m doing it the pony way, same as you. No fighting, just do what we do and leave the humans to their thing.”
Soarin had no friends among the humans. After he stormed out of his mansion that last evening, he wondered if he had any among ponies.
He stared, face blank as Clip went on. “Now, you don’t have to listen to me. Honestly, it’d be pretty nice to keep seeing you way up high like this. You know how it is, some of these dang humans treat me like a little colt. Good to see another pony. But I’d get back to the cloud-shoving if I were you, and take them rich boys for all you can. Seems a lot smarter than working for people you never met or talked to, thinking you’re doing them a favor.”
Clip moved closer as he spoke. He gestured, hooves open, before settling a gentle grasp on Soarin’s shoulder. Soarin’s own hooves were pointed downwards when the motion began.
He swung the moment they touched, bringing his right leg around in a half-circle honed from years of academy practice. His hoof impacted Fast Clip’s wing and continued downwards, bending it aside and bringing a hollow-bone crunch where the fragile limb met the body.
Clip screamed. He tried to shout something through a mouth rigid with pain, but Soarin’s left hoof robbed him the chance with a hefty punch. The impact forced them apart and Clip spiraled downwards, desperately flapping his one good wing to slow the descent.
No sense in prolonging things. Soarin waited, gauging altitude, and at the right moment he folded his wings and dropped. All four hooves connected with Clip’s back, smashing both wings. Soarin bounced and flapped, reclaiming his wind.
He looked down, though by then it was too late. Clip was a white and gray blur, then a dot.
Then nothing. Too high to hear the impact.
Well.
The rebels had a pegasus of their own this whole time. All their brilliant maneuvers and ability to outfox even Soarin’s eyes made a little more sense now. He watched every move from on high, but Fast Clip had done the same.
No more. Lee – Bobby Lee, Invincible Lee, Shining Star of the Rebellion Lee – a few flyovers, and Soarin could see it all. Invincible Lee, strung out, spread out. The Federals were the same, but now they had the only eyes. And they were close. Fly fast, bring the word, form ‘em up between Lee and home, and cook his goose before he knows there’s a fight.
“Cook his goose,” Soarin said out loud. One of many human terms ponies found disturbing. It fit well here, though.
He’d have to try goose sometime and see how it tasted.
Now, though, there was work to do. Soarin flew from Gettysburg with notes in his saddlebag and a plan in mind. Softly, distractedly, he gave voice to a human song, letting his face harden into a cold smile.
“Oh soldiers of freedom,
Strike, while strike you may
The deathblow of Oppression
For a better time and way…”