Fog of War
Ponies and other creatures huddled together in the warmest room of the best-insulated building in town.
A greenish stallion said, "I guess I always felt...comfortable, and safe. I knew protecting Equestria was the job of godlike beings like Princess Celestia. I didn't have to worry about it."
"Ha," a bright red stallion barked without mirth or joy. "There's STILL nothing we can do."
"Maybe there isn't," the greenish pony replied. "But the way things are going, the rest of the crops will die soon, and we'll freeze to death while we're starving. Without the sun, we can't live. If we're going to die anyway...if there's anything I could do that might help even a little..."
The red pony nodded. "Run up to Nightmare Moon with a hoe, and try to weed her to death. Get yourself killed doing something stupid. Leave a little more firewood and food for the rest of us."
"I didn't say to do that--"
The red pony sneered. "We all heard what you said. But I know how we can get some food, and some firewood. Luna has always been our princess. If it wasn't for traitors who hate her, she wouldn't have had to take such drastic measures to punish the traitors--"
"Making everypony starve to death is NOT the right thing to do!"
"Not everypony. I'm sure the ponies who show their loyalty will be taken care of. And that should be us." The ruddy pony looked around the room. "If we send somepony to tell the princess we've found a traitor, and we turn the traitor over to her highness--"
Ponies gasped. Somecreature hissed.
"Like I was saying, if she knows what side we're on, she'll take care of us." The red pony grinned in satisfaction. Then he half-fell, and his legs seemed to go into convulsions.
As he fell the rest of the way to the floor, ponies saw a small female donkey behind him. She held a long kitchen knife in her forehoof. "I should like to know," she said, "when the rest of the crops fail, what the 'most loyal' ponies are going to eat. Empty words and false promises, I should think."
The other creatures started at her in shock.
"If someday it seems wise to deliver a so-called 'traitor' to Princess Luna, I will provide my corpse, so you can try to buy another day of life from a faithless creature gone mad. But do you really think you could trust her?"
The green pony said, "Mistress Jeanette?"
She nodded. "And you're Leafy Tree. An experienced farmer...which means you already know how to protect your crops with better than a hoe, when pests would eat you out of house and home. Not a soldier, but not exactly defenseless, either."
"I can scare a rabbit away from my carrots by throwing rocks, or build a rabbit-proof fence to keep the rabbits out. But I can't throw enough rocks at Nightmare Moon to scare her into raising the sun. And I can't build a fence tall enough to protect us from the darkness."
Jeanette nodded. "You're right, of course. But every farmer in Equestria knows if we don't get our days back, we're doomed. What if every farmer in Equestria threw rocks at our Nightmare?"
Leafy laughed. "That would be a lot of rocks. But would it bring the sun back?"
A black unicorn said, "Unicorns used to raise the sun without Celestia's help. It's not easy, and even if you have a good team working together, you would still have to be very careful not to sprain your horn, or even break it. But it's not impossible."
Creatures murmured.
The unicorn continued, "The only problem is, the way things are now, if a team of unicorns raised the sun...even as Nightmare Moon, Luna still has enough of a magical connection with the sun, she could probably sense where the sun raisers were working. She would go to them, and she would strike them down. When they were dead, she would simply lower the sun again. So it's a very temporary solution."
Leafy said, "Even if it bought our crops another day of life...even just part of another day...it's still better than all of us dying as soon as possible. I would honor those unicorns. No, I would want to be one of the million farmers throwing rocks at the Nightmare, to try to buy the sun raisers a little more time."
Jeanette said, "We need a plan that buys us more than a few days of life, and doesn't make the Nightmare kill every pony in Equestria even sooner. But I think we're starting to think in the right direction. We've thought of a way to buy ourselves some more minutes, or some more hours...if we keep thinking, maybe we can find ways to buy ourselves extra months, or years. Or even longer."
The room's murmuring started to feel like hope.
"But one more thing: I think we should try not to directly attack our princess."
Nopony quite argued, but Leafy asked, "Why?"
"The one thing we know about her is, she feels unappreciated, and she's hurting us for it. If we make her feel that we hate her and want her to die, she might find a way to do something even worse."
A griffon asked, "Can you really compromise with somecreature who is already trying to kill us all?"
Jeanette replied, "Yes. In Eeyorus, the country of donkeys, we are indeed very gloomy. In our schools we read books about how things can go wrong, and do go wrong, and then go even wronger. In famous novels like "Boring & Pointless," we see how creatures can squabble among each other until everycreature is far worse off than if they hadn't wasted their efforts trying to make each other's situation worse, in the name of 'winning.' Feh."
The griffon said, "Feh, indeed. Your gloom seems useless."
Jeanette replied, "In a war, no side can entirely win. Every side loses something. Creatures lose their composure, and their good sense, then sometimes lose a leg or a wing, and finally their lives. But sometimes there's a chance to make the other side see that if they negotiate an honest peace, they can be left better off than if they fight to the most bloody finish."
The griffon asked, "But Nightmare Moon is mad. How can such a monster see reason?"
"I don't know if she ever will," Jeanette admitted. "But I don't think we can kill her. We might be able to make her even more angry, but that might hurt us as easily as help us. One thing we do know is, we need to find ways to survive without her cooperation. We need to do it without all of us dying, because the side that runs out of lives doesn't win. And if Luna ever regains her sanity...it won't be any easier for her to throw off her madness, if we give her the guilt of knowing she caused millions more of us to die."
The griffon snorted. "You're not a military officer. You're some kind of psychologist, I suppose."
"I'm a lot of things. I did read military history in upperschool, when I was an exchange student in Griffonia. It's a subject where some Griffonian schools excel. But yes, by profession I'm a clinical psychologist, and a conflict resolution specialist." She laughed bitterly. "I just never thought I'd be trying to prevent a mass genocide instead of a divorce."
The griffon chuckled. "Can't we try to get a famous general to lead us, instead of a glorified kindergarten playground supervisor?"
A mare in a postpony uniform shook her head. "We mailponies get to travel some, and hear things from each other, and we hear from ponies all over Equestria. The generals work for the government. They've always thought they were supposed to loyally obey the princesses. And with Nightmare Moon the only princess they have left...well, old habits can die hard. I hear some Guard officers have vanished...but I also hear a lot of those are in the dungeons, or dead. Also, one more thing, which I didn't realize until just now."
Leafy asked, "What's that?"
"One thing we DON'T have here, is the kind of fight the Equestrian Guard is designed and trained for. Trying to resist an alicorn princess? That's the exact opposite of their original purpose. All their habits, all their years of thinking, go the opposite direction. If they see regular ponies starting to stand up to Nightmare Moon with some success, maybe at least some of the Guard will throw in with us. But we can't afford to wait for them. It's our job to go first. Maybe when they see it can be done, they might follow. Maybe then they'll find ways to turn themselves around, and throw off old habits.
"But the next move is ours, not theirs."
The griffon worked his beak, so frustrated that his muscles tried to chew on nothingness. "It would be madness for us here to try to do it on our own. This entire town couldn't hold out against an alicorn for longer than a day or two, even if we were willing to die to the last creature. Griffonian history certainly bears that out. But creatures all over Equestria and beyond know what the stakes are in this fight, and what side we are forced to take. With the help of ponies and other creatures all over the world...it might be possible to win. Or at least negotiate a peace that's better than what we have now.
I don't know if I can get the Griffonian government to listen to me. But I will try."
***
(About two months later...)
The only really notable or interesting thing about the location was, it didn't seem notable or interesting. It wasn't very close to any towns of note. It wasn't mountainous, or even especially hilly, nor entirely flat. It wasn't especially sandy, and it wasn't muddy either.
It had a patchwork of forests and meadows, and a few overgrown fields. Years ago, somepony had let a pear orchard go neglected and feral. Some of the trees had become crowded and tangled.
It didn't even really have a name. It was partway between places that did.
But in its new role, some ponies knew the location as Alpha One One Five Eight. Those ponies were careful where they spoke of it, and to whom.
From far away, the location looked abandoned.
If somepony felt the ground, and put their ear to the soil, and listened very closely? They might detect some odd vibrations, deep underground.
If somepony searched the location long and thoroughly, checking exactly the right spots, they might find something more than odd sounds.
They might find a small dragonling, near a very long heap of cut brush, tree branches, logs, and miscellaneous burnable rubbish. Between rest breaks, the dragonling used a hatchet or a machete to cut more wood and lengthen the pile.
The heap was already hundreds of hoofwidths long. The dragonling must be very hard-working. Had the dragonling been chopping and piling up for days and days? Or had other creatures been here earlier and helped him?
***
Within a narrow vertical tunnel barely wider than a pony, ponies climbed a ladder one by one. At the top of the shaft, they clambered out onto the surface. Even in the darkness of night, their dark-adjusted eyes could see the ranks of trees which hid the moonlit sky from the ponies' eyes. Those same trees also hid the ponies from any watchers in the sky.
"Nutbriar! Melty! You're on dragonling guard duty!" The grizzled pony who the squad had been told was their new sergeant pointed at a long pile of heaped-up brush and wood about a thousand hoofwidths away. "This dragon's wings haven't grown in yet, so when it's time to run, he's going the same way we are, down the tunnel or by special evac, whichever you can get to first. Don't let him lollygag or dillydally! For helping the cause he's worth any ten of youse, and don't you forget it. Now HUSTLE!"
The brown adolescent stallion named Nutbriar stared at the pile of cut brush and branches, seeing no dragon. He joked, "That's some good camouflage."
"Come on!" said Melty. "We've got no time to lose." He grabbed Nutbriar's foreleg and half-dragged the adolescent towards the piled-up wood. He led Nutbriar through a pony-wide gap in the heap.
On the other side of the pile, the pair found a little dragon, about half as tall as a pony.
"Spyke!" Melty said. "Good to see you again."
The dragon thrust out a foreleg, claws extended. Nutbriar flinched backward from the claws, and blushed.
"Sorry," Briar and the dragonling said at the same time.
"I'm the one who should be sorry," Spyke insisted. "I keep forgetting that ponies don't shake claws. Which makes sense, when you don't even HAVE claws to shake with."
"I shouldn't have been scared," Briar said. "I mean, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you feel unwelcome. Melty keeps telling me dragons are an important part of the rebellion."
"They are," Melty insisted. "When we get the signal to light the fires, we can run along the strip with this little guy on our back, and he can light up the whole thing faster than a dozen ponies could. The smoke from these fires and others like them will help keep the enemy from getting a good view of today's sunraising."
"A good view? Why is the sunraising even above ground? Why don't the unicorns hide where Nightmare can't see them? Sometimes I feel like nopony in this rebellion has any idea what they're doing."
Melty laughed. "I think SOME of the ponies have SOME idea what we're doing. But in a way, you're almost right. How many sunraisings have you helped with so far, Briar?"
Briar blushed. "I only found out how to join the rebellion two days ago. So, this is my first sunraising."
Melty nodded. "Makes sense. So how many sunraisings do you think these other ponies have done?"
Briar calculated. "I guess there's at least two or three sunraisings a day, and it's been close to two months since the Sun Rebellion started. So I guess some ponies have done...maybe close to a hundred, by now?"
Melty snorted. "Not even close. You don't want Nightmare to show up to a sunraising right away, or you'll hardly even be able to get started. So every sunraising is in a different place. Hardly anypony knows where it will be in advance. Or maybe nopony knows in advance. Maybe we're just here for a practice exercise, and this isn't today's sunraising at all."
"You've got a twisty mind, Melty."
"But I'm still alive, so that's something. To keep Nightmare guessing, diffferent sunraisings must happen all over Equestria at least. Maybe even outside Equestria, if we can swing it. So do you think everypony in the Sun Rebellion just trots from one part of the country to the next, every day, so they can be at every sunraising?"
Briar frowned. "I didn't think."
Melty clapped Briar on the shoulder with a hoof. "Nocreature expects you to figure out everything all at once. But you know your own job, right?"
"I think I remember from my training yesterday, how dragonling guard duty works. Guard the dragon and don't let anycreature hurt him. When the alert whistle sounds, I put the dragonling on my back and give him a ride to anywhere he wants. And if he sets fire to things, even while he's on my back, just be calm and do what he says. When we hear the evac whistles or bells, I help the dragon to evac. Either the same way we arrived, or special evac if it's offered to us."
"Sounds like you've got it memorized."
"I just hope when each part really happens, I can get it all right."
Spyke smiled. "Don't worry, Briar. Melty here is a real veteran. He's been at three sunraisings so far, that I know of."
Briar said, "Melty? You said nopony could trot from one sunraising to the next, because they're so far apart."
"I've never done two in a row. That wouldn't even make any sense. But I've been at three in this part of the country. Mostly on account of I'm kind of used to dragons. I grew up in frontier country near the Griffon Empire, and there's more dragons out there than around here. When I was a little colt, we used to sneak into the lairs of giant dragons while they were asleep, and toast marshmallows over their noses."
Briar shook his head angrily. "You're pulling my leg."
Melty grinned. "Maybe. But when it comes to raising the sun, and protecting the sunraisers, I promise to tell you the truth. Because there might be no time for jokes, and no time for misunderstandings. Speaking of which, do you see what's in those bushes over there? Is it somepony watching us? I think you should use that sling of yours and hit them."
Briar turned to look where Melty was pointing. There WAS something in the bushes! Briar dropped his sling on the ground, rolled a small rock into it, picked up the sling with his mouth, spun around, and launched the rock at the target. It sounds complicated, but Briar was so good at it, he could have launched more than one rock in the time it took you to read this sentence.
A wooden-sounding 'tonk' told Briar he'd hit his target, or hit something at least.
"Hold shots!" Melty said. He grasped a spear in his mouth as he trotted towards the bushes. "All clear!" he said. "It's just an old post."
"Why did you tell me to hit it, when you didn't even know what it was?" Briar complained.
"I wondered if you were any good with that sling. I thought we might both need to know, pretty soon. How did you become such a good shot if you only joined up a few days ago?"
Briar snorted. "I've never been in a war, and nopony told me much of anything about this one until two days ago. What kind of army sends ponies to war without even telling us what's going on first? And the only reason I can hit the broad side of a barn with this sling is because I worked summmers guarding farm fields from pests. But I was better with paint balloons than with rocks. The trick was to embarrass a varmint so much that it wouldn't come back. Then you don't even have to hurt it. It might even tell all the other varmints to stay away."
Melty laughed. "Paint balloons."
"That's how we like to do it, in Purr-see."
Melty's eyes scanned all around the area. "We're on the very outskirts, here," Melty said. "We might be the first to get hit. So when the word comes to run, we evac right and proper and FAST. That's the way we do it here."
Briar joked, "First to get hit, huh? Glad to know even if I run like a coward and pee myself like a baby without a diaper, I'll have a good reason to."
Melty snorted. "Just don't let loose while you're on the ladder. It isn't nice to drench other ponies like that."
"Got it. Guess I should go let loose now."
"Good idea. Just keep your eyes open. You could load up your sling before you go relieve yourself, but if you panic this early you might hit one of ours by mistake."
"I'll be careful," Briar said. The adolescent went behind a bush. A minute later he returned.
"See anything interesting?"
"Nope. Which I guess is good."
"Yup. Probably is."
Suddenly, the air felt different. The ponies' hair stood up on end. "What the hay is this?" Briar asked.
Melty smiled. "Don't worry, it's something good. Look to the east."
Briar looked up at the stars to get his directions, and turned his face eastwards. The gloom lightened to a mess of brightening colors. The sun rapidly lifted above the horizon, and sped to the top of the sky.
"That's pretty fast," Briar remarked. "Not exactly a usual morning."
"We must have a pretty good sun raising team this morning," Melty said. "We have to make the most of every minute of sunlight, so why not go right to full noon?"
Spyke stretched his limbs and body. "It feels good." He did several different stretches, and spouted a burst of flame at nothing.
The dragon and ponies enjoyed the morning for a few hours. Birds chirped, little animals gamboled among the flowers, and everycreature could pretend for a little while, that the sky was working as it should.
"Look up," Melty said cheerfully. High in the sky, far above the little group, clouds were arranged in groups of different shapes. Pegasi brought more clouds, even as the ponies and dragon watched from below.
"Huh," Briar said. "We love both night and day. We need both to live."
"You can read that?" Melty asked. "So that's what it says."
"You didn't know?" Briar asked.
"You're lucky you got to have somecreature teach you. Does your town have a school?"
Briar nodded. "I got to go all seven years. I can even do that new Awl-Jabber stuff."
"Well, how about that. Maybe someday everypony will get to go to school."
Briar said, "You've taken some trouble to learn what's what, which must be at least as good as school in its way. And you schooled me some today."
"Thank you. But I wish I could read Ponish runes, too."
"I'd like to teach you...but I guess right now isn't a good time. Have to keep watch for other things. How about after the battle? I'm sure we'll be hiding and resting somewhere. Even if I don't know where yet."
"You don't need to know where yet. If somepony is captured, it's better if they can't blab."
"You think they would tell?"
"I don't think they would WANT to tell. But it's better that everycreature know that any of us who are captured don't know the answers to questions we don't want asked."
"What does that mean?"
"Do you really want to know the answer to that? Because the best answer is, don't get captured."
"Got it. When the signal comes for our group to evac, we evac."
"You got that right."
"So...I get that we're here to protect a dragon. And the dragon is here to make it harder for...the enemy, I guess, to hit whatever the enemy wants to hit. But what does the enemy want to hit?"
"Briar, have you ever seen the Summer Sun Celebration?"
"My town celebrates the festival, of course. Or we used to. Not sure what's going to happen this year. But I've never seen Princess Celestia on the stage herself, if that's what you mean."
"That's exactly what I mean. Princess Celestia goes up on that big stage, and looks at the sky. I reckon it must be easier to raise the sun if you can see the sky yourself. And for unicorns, it's harder than for Celestia. Maybe they HAVE to have a good view of the sky, or they can't do it at all."
"How many unicorns does it take, to raise the sun?"
"I don't rightly know. Even the Hearth's Warming stories don't seem to agree on how many it used to take. But if you don't want the unicorns to burn out their horns, it must take even more of them. And how do you get so many unicorns to work together perfectly, doing a spell no unicorn had ever practiced until just a couple months ago? It must be really hard."
"When unicorns raise the sun, how long does it take Nightmare Moon to find them?"
"I guess it doesn't always take the exact same amount of time, for Nightmare Moon to reach the area. But you know it must take a lot of unicorns putting out a lot of magical energy, to raise the sun. And every time Luna tries to nudge the sun downwards, the unicorns have to push back to keep it up. That's a lot of magic, and it's pushing right back against Nightmare. My guess is, Nightmare Moon can probably at least sense the general location where unicorns are doing that kind of magic, even from the other side of the continent."
A strange beam of darkness pulsed overhead. Briar felt a terrible chill. Was the air really suddenly colder, or was it just his own instincts telling him to hide?
"Spyke!" Melty said. "Why didn't we get our alert signal already?"
Spyke looked all around. "I don't know either."
"If Nightmare is close enough to be throwing beams, shouldn't we have already lit the fires?"
"I don't know!"
Melty sighed. "Spyke, please get on my back. I take full responsibility."
"I don't think that's how chain of command works. But I think you're right." Spyke climbed up onto Melty's back. "Hi ho, my valiant steed!"
Melty trotted slowly along the line of burnables, while Spyke spewed spurts of flame to get the fire going. Melty rounded the far end of the line, and trotted back as Spyke lit any places that didn't seem to have already gotten a good start.
"I hope we did the right thing, just now," Spyke said.
"It can't be helped. It's probably better to light the fires early than to risk not lighting them early enough."
"Yeah, it would be terrible if Nightmare got close and the sun raisers didn't have any smoke to help hide them. But if she gets here a long time from now, and the fires are already burned down by then--"
"The unicorns can see smoke as well as you or I can. When the fires start burning out, they'll know."
The sun started waggling in the sky above the little group. "What's the sun doing?" Briar asked. "Is Luna pulling the sun back down?"
"I don't know, and if I knew I wouldn't say. But since I DON'T know, I will say one thing. I think if it was your job to move the sun, and you wanted to send a signal to creatures all over your operational area, or even all over Equestria and beyond, you could wiggle the sun in some kind of code. But that even if that was true, I don't know what the code would be."
Another dark beam pulsed in the sky, this time somewhat lower.
Melty frowned. "Once could be chance, but twice makes me think Nightmare is getting closer. Shouldn't we have at least gotten an alert by now?"
Spyke commented, "Or maybe an evac signal."
Melty said, "We already lit our fires, and that was our one real job here. I think we should evac now."
Briar said, "But the whistles? The bells?"
"Everycreature, make sure you're packed up! Spyke? Briar?"
"Ready to move," they chorused as they had been trained, each raising a forelimb to make it clear who was speaking. Briar looked at the dragonling.
A third beam passed overhead, so close that a few treetops sizzled and shriveled.
Melty shouted, "Evac NOW! GO go go go GO!"
The three creatures ran towards the tunnel mouth by which Melty and Briar had arrived before sunrise. "Wait!" Spyke shouted. "This will only take a moment!"
The dragonling spurted a long jet of flame across the landscape, setting fire to bushes and trees. He spewed fire a second time, turning his head in a long arc. The smoke rose skywards.
A fourth beam of darkness passed by, somewhat north of the tiny team. Somewhere far away, somepony screamed in pain. No, someponies.
Melty said, "Let's go, fellows." The three creatures trotted towards the escape tunnel, as the official evac whistle finally sounded. After a moment, the whistle was joined by bells.
At the shaft entrance, at least twenty or twenty-five ponies crowded around, trying to hurry down the shaft. Melty pulled a spear out of his belt. "Everypony listen!" he shouted. "We're under orders to let this dragonling go first. Let him through!"
A fifth beam of chilling darkness passed close by. More than one pony let loose with a shower of urine, and not from childishness.
The dragonling scampered between the other creatures, to enter the shaft and rush down inside.
Above him, the crowd of ponies shrank one at a time. The evac seemed too slow and too late, Melty thought.
"Well, I guess he's safe," Briar said. "Too bad the rest of us might not be."
Melty sighed. "Somepony on distance watch really messed up. Or somepony in Signal Corps. Oh well, we can probably get out in time. But that dragon really is worth more than--"
The ground collapsed under Melty's hooves.
"Melty!" Briar screamed.
At the bottom of a wide hole, Melty said, "I'm fine!" A shower of dirt flew up sideways out of the hole and onto the ground.
A sixth beam of darkness and fear passed so close it seemed to almost skim the pony soldiers' manes. "Into the hole!" Melty shouted. "Down, down inside!"
Ponies leapt and skidded into the hole. A seventh beam of darkness passed so close that if the ponies still above ground hadn't been crawling and cowering, it would have hit them.
Briar slid down into the hole. He saw Spyke digging frantically.
"You ass!" Melty shouted at Spyke, "What are you doing this close to the surface?" Somewhere Melty had found a shovel, and was trying to help Spyke dig. But even through a hail of flying dirt, Briar could see dragon claws and arms seemed to dig much faster than a pony.
"Saving your slow-moving plots!" Spyke said. "I dug another escape tunnel. I just have to widen it."
"Our old tunnel was camouflaged. This thing will show up from the air like a bucking volcano mouth!"
"My tunnel goes to an old diamond dog warren. It's a separate route. It will probably work--"
An eighth chilling beam of darkness and despair shriveled the leaves of the trees on every side of the hole.
"Follow me!" Spyke shouted. He wriggled through a hole.
"Follow him!" Melty shouted. "Go go go go GO!" He shoved ponies through the hole one at a time, and listened to them land as they fell into the wider, more spacious diamond dog tunnel.
Melty shoved pony after pony through the narrow bottleneck. Other ponies dashed over to the original exit route and rushed down it.
This will probably do, Melty thought.
Melty shoved the last waiting pony down the bottleneck. Melty took off his jacket, wrapped some fallen, broken tree branches in it, and shoved the bundle into Spyke's new exit hole.
A ninth beam passed, about a thousand hoofwidths to the north of Melty. What did that mean? Melty wondered. Maybe the Nightmare's target had moved since last time? Or maybe she had new targeting information.
That was the trouble with war, Melty thought. You never really knew what was going on. But even as Melty wondered, he dug at the side of the hastily dug hole, covering the bundle with dirt.
The plug seemed to hold, hiding Spyke's exit tunnel.
Melty sniffed the air. Thank Celestia, more than one pony had been terrified enough to moisten the bottom of this hole with stench. Just for good measure, he dumped everything he could from his own bladder and bowels.
This hole was just a latrine, he imagined himself saying. Dug by ignorant insurgents who don't know a latrine should be narrow enough to easily straddle. She'll believe that, right?
As a wave of terror washed over Melty, he cringed in the hole's bottom, uncaring of the stench and mess.
Through burning grass and brush, through fire and flame and smoke, Melty saw a large pony stalk daintily past. Her mane and tail billowed like dark smoke, and twinkled like the night sky.
Melty noticed the setting sun gleaming red through the trees. To him in that moment, the entire world seemed on fire.
I know that's not true, Melty told himself. Another wave of terror moved through him, and he was too frightened to think.
After what might have been minutes, or might have been an hour, Melty felt he could move. He carefully peeked in every direction. Feeling that at any moment he might die, he climbed out of the hole. He grabbed a fallen tree branch tipped by fine twigs and tiny needle-like leaves, and used it to wipe out his own tracks as he moved to the camouflaged exit shaft.
Melty dropped his broom down the shaft. He entered the shaft's mouth, neatly closed the camouflaged trapdoor above him, and clambered down, rung by rung.
Another day, he told himself. We gave the world another day, or at least another morning. And many of us survived, I think.
I hope most of us lived. But we got our signals so late. What went wrong? Was it just our own little site, or did all the ponies everywhere around today's sunraising get their signals as late as we did?
How many more months can the rebellion keep doing this? Will we learn to keep our daily casualties down? Or will Nightmare and our own missteps doom us all?
I wonder how Spyke and Briar and the other boys are doing? I hope they're ok.
***
Every day, ponies and other creatures across much of the world risked their lives for each other, and for the new friendships forged in the fields and tunnels and clouds of war.
In the Castle of the Two Sisters, a pegasus maid pushed her cart through a hallway. She knocked on a door, opened it, and pushed her cart inside. With different bottles of cleaning fluids and different kinds of cleaning cloths, she carefully checked all the floors, all the walls, each piece of furniture, and even the ceilings.
She had to make sure nothing was dirty or smudged, after all. It was her job.
Also, it was an excellent excuse. If anypony found her carefully inspecting every part of the room, so what? It was only what her employers expected of her.
Hardly anycreature knew she had two sets of employers.
Feather Polish didn't know everything about the Elements of Harmony. She did know that Celestria herself had hidden the ancient artifacts somewhere in the castle, disguised as someting nondescript and boring. And she knew some Resistance mage had sensed, even from very far away, that the Elements were, for some unknown reason, slowly starting to awaken.
Feather smiled to herself as she cleaned. It pleased her to think, that with all the nobles and generals and famous fighters battling over the future of Equestria, the job of cleaning up the enormous, world-threatening mess might belong to a humble cleaning maid like herself.
It would serve that nasty Nightmare Moon right, Feather thought, if just once, a maid fired the princess from her job, instead of the other way round.
Nightmare Moon was hurting so many ponies who Feather cared about. Feather wanted so much to help her friends, while there was still a chance.
Behind Feather, several parts of a strange sculpture or armillary stirred and rattled.
Feather turned around to look. Oh, she said to herself.
She knew what she had to do next.
Author's Note
If "the maid did it" doesn't fit this year's contest theme of ordinary ponies living or dying among world-changing events, who or what does?
I
swipedborrrowed Eeyorus and "Boring and Pointless" from Estee's recent story "Release the Sparkle Cut." Because who doesn't love classic literature?