I Met a Traveler
The silence of the desert was broken, abruptly, by the pained screeching of metal meeting metal. A great black wyrm, spouting fire and sparks, had come to a halt in the silent wastes. The train huffed out a cloud of steam, as if angry at the delay, and a hatch opened and a pair of figures climbed down to the hot sands. Ahead and behind, two gleaming strips of metal stretched to the horizons, fenced in by tall wooden poles standing like sentries. One of the figures called back to the body of the beast, and more figures appeared, shuffling to the front.
Around halfway down the train, another hatch opened and a mare’s head appeared. Far larger than the others, with a great spike jutting forward from its brow, her fur a shade of black darker still than the metal she was silhouetted against, seeming to sap the light from her surroundings. A mane like the midnight sky followed her, flowing gently even before it was picked up by the desert winds.
“What have we stopped for?” She called, in a voice that carried across the dunes, and was answered by one of the small group.
“Bones, your highness! Look like ponies. We can see horns.”
They’d found unicorns, laying along the track a dozen miles from town. Picked clean by heat, sun, and the desert winds. Only the tatters of a bright silk headscarf gave any evidence of how recent the deaths were.
From inside her armored train car, Princess Luna watched as her guards and the train crew gathered and moved the remains. A dozen emotions swirled in her head. Ponies had not yet discovered the reasons for the catatonic state that unicorns lapsed into after Harmony wiped away their corruption over a month ago. Theories ranged from collective grief, to magical burnout, to a failed failsafe - the mad King Bullion trying to take his army down with him in the end.
Luna didn’t know what to think. Probably a combination of all three, plus some other factors that nopony had come across yet. She sighed, the noise whistling through her still-sharp teeth, as centuries-old memories resurfaced. Bullion had been long-dead by the time she and Celestia had entered the stage but his influence had been felt even then. It had taken decades of work, and countless assassination attempts, to sniff out every unicorn separatist group in those early years. Even then, she was sure they had missed something, despite her sister’s words of optimism.
How right she was.
“Bring them!” The guards had finished clearing the track when she opened the window of the car, popped her head out, and called to them: “We shall try to identify them and give them a proper burial when We reach the town.”
The group of ponies conferred amongst themselves, voices raising at points though not loud enough for Luna to hear. Eventually one, an older Earth Pony in an engineer’s cap, was pushed forward. He visibly swallowed before speaking up.
“S-sorry, Princess. But the guards say they’re not going to do it. They don’t want to spend the rest of the journey bunking next to a bunch of corpses, and the crew…” He stopped, looking for the right words. He gave up after a few seconds, lapsing into silence.
“The crew what?” Luna probed, already sure of the answer, “Go on, say it.”
“The crew-” The engineer gulped: “-don’t want to carry any more unicorns than they have to. They - we - still haven’t…”
“Say no more,” she sighed, “We have heard it countless times before.”
Luna stepped off the train at that moment. Her magic, still fluctuating in power since the Event, nearly ripped the heavy steel door from its hinges as she opened it. Though the guards had been chosen both for their discretion and their tolerance of unicorns, she could see the train crew blanch in fear as she rose to her full height in the desert sun. Even in her diminished form, her shadow bore down on the gathered ponies like a great inky smudge.
Immediately she had to bring up a wing to shield her eyes from the sun. Down here, closer to the planet’s Equator, the month of sun had been far harsher to the environment. In Equestria proper she would have at least seen the remains of what came before, but here…
Nothing.
Flat sand spread in every direction, blown into shallow undulating dunes. Alongside the track stood a line of telegraph poles, wood warped and metal bent and corroded. They were still spooling out the wire from Dodge Junction when It happened, the work forgotten as Equestria barely hung on. On the horizon, barely legible, was her goal. The small, blocky smudge of the town beckoned her onwards.
“The guards won’t have to, We will store the remains in Our quarters.” She held a hoof up as the group began to raise objections, to the unicorns being stowed on the train and to their Princess sharing her carriage with them. “That is final.”
The guards got to work almost immediately, the unicorns in the group making sure that nothing was left behind, while the engineers returned to their stations and got ready to move again. The engineer who had spoken up gave Luna one last glance before hopping up into the cab, wordlessly asking if she knew what she was doing.
Luna hoped she did.
The engine let out a great puff of steam, like a dragon disturbed from its nap. Even in the chaos, some communities had tried to help each other. The ponies of the Baltimare rail yards had been building the ‘Helping Hoof’ as a way to establish supply lines with surrounding cities. The engine was heavily armored, it's boilerplate twice as thick as normal, with long skirts covering the drive wheels from potential attack and a spade-like scoop at the front, to clear debris from the track ahead. The cabin walls were thicker still, thick shutters placed to cover what windows remained. Even the train's funnel was modified, rerouted under the body to reduce smoke, such that it would be harder to see by passing unicorns.
The theory had not been tested due to the Event being over by the time the train was finished, and likely wouldn’t have worked. The train was just as loud if not louder than its unarmored counterparts. It had been commandeered by the royal sisters in the wake of growing unrest, being the method by which Cadence and Flurry were returned to the Crystal Empire.
Now it was here, far off the map on a mission that few among even the crew knew the full purpose of.
The cars were equally armored, able to carry pony and produce alike. Luna’s was a more recent addition, the personal car of the railroad’s owner, who had turned and been swiftly and enthusiastically dealt with by his employees. A little too enthusiastically, to hear some recount it.
“Princess,” A unicorn guard walked across to Luna, clumsy on the soft sand with his elongated legs, “All respect, we should turn back. For the unicorns to be here, and not in town, there must be nopony left.”
She sat in thought for a moment, tongue running along her fangs.
“We carry on.” The guard made to object, but Luna cut him off; “My mind is set on this, Bulwark. If there are any holdouts, anywhere, we must find them. We need Equestria united now more than any other time since maybe my banishment.”
The guard stood to attention.
“Understood, your highness.” He turned and began his unsteady trek back to the cars.
Luna gave one last look to the town before following, her gaze steeled with resolve. If anypony in Somnambula had survived, Luna would find them.
She owed her friend that much.
As she approached the train, her hoof ran against something. Investigating further, she found a small cactus, barely a sapling, buried in the sand. She smiled a little at that.
*******
The train’s brakes squealed as it pulled into the station. Luna was the first off, walking along the platform to the cab. Nodding to the engineer, she grasped a small lever in her magic and pulled it down.
A great pneumatic low, like a rampaging beast, broke the silence and shook the ground. Luna had been told the whistle was based on her and her sister’s roars that had carried on the wind for miles as they laid waste to Cloudsdale. She believed it. The sound bounced between walls and caused the guards to clamp their ears to their skulls, wincing in pain. Once, twice, three times it called, hoping for an answer.
Three times it was met with silence.
Turning to the gathered expedition, she noticed the group giving space to one of its own. Pale as a sheet and shaking like a leaf was a pegasus, eyes locked forward and wings clamped at his side. Luna immediately realized her mistake. Fire Streak had narrowly escaped from Canterlot as it fell, finding refuge in Cloudsdale for the few weeks before she and her sister laid waste to it. Luna sidled up to him, trying as hard as she could to look small.
“You can stay in Our cabin, should you desire. It has been soundproofed considerably.”
He turned to look at her, terror the only emotion visible in his eyes.
“Th-thank you, Princess,” He managed to sputter out, “I think I will. Sorry.” He pushed past the other guards, disappearing into the dark of the cabin and slamming the door behind him.
“I’m sorry.” The words were barely audible as they left Luna’s lips.
Heading back to the cab, Luna instructed the guards to blow the whistle every few minutes and joined the group of guards making probing expeditions into town after that, making conversation with the one other pegasus of the bunch, dressed in a dirty Wonderbolt jacket. Vapor Trail had been living in Appleloosa, her supply group being out of Cloudsdale when the alicorns attacked. One of her wing had pressed further south still, that being the reason Vapor had joined Luna’s mission in the first place.
“I’m sorry, Princess, but I don’t think there’s anypony left out here. This place looks hit hard.”
Luna looked at the silent streets. The town had shrunk considerably since the days its namesake wandered them, the remaining buildings modernized. All around were signs of struggle: toppled market stalls, shattered doors, and chunks blown out of walls. Silk banners and curtains, once vibrant, had been bleached white by the unrelenting sun. Even the central well seemed to have been deliberately collapsed in on itself.
“Search everywhere. Leave no stone unturned.” Luna instructed the guards, who broke off into groups, leaving her alone in the square with the statue of Somnambula. She stared into its eyes, at once full of joy and completely emotionless.
Hope. That was what Somnambula had always held to, even when things were at their darkest. Hope had saved this land from the Sphinx, had smoothed the transition from Pharaoh to Princess. If anything could keep ponies alive through a time like this, in a place like this, it was hope.
But there was nothing. The only sounds were the blowing of the wind, the hoofsteps of her guards, and the slow hissing of the train. Tears formed in Luna’s eyes the longer she stood there.
“I miss you.” She spoke softly. “You would have known what to do. You always preached hope but I fear that we have passed that point. What we, what I, have done, I am not sure how long it will take for Equestria to recover from it.” Luna sighed, “I miss the old days, where the monsters were just that, monsters that we could fight and defeat and move on with our lives. When you and your friends were here.. You were always my favorite, you know. Where the others were good friends, and Starswirl a beloved teacher, I always felt there may be something more between us.”
A memory resurfaced, and Luna’s cheeks flushed red. She chuckled, maybe the first time she had since the Event.
“Of course, the kiss made things a lot clearer.”
She bent over to wipe some dust out of her eyes when she noticed something. Out in the desert, far past the town limit, was a shape. As she focused on it, trying to make it out among the heat haze, it moved. She shot up immediately.
“Guards!”
*********
They had been scouring the desert for hours when Bulwark called out.
“Princess!”
Luna stopped, turning to him.
“Did you find something?”
“No, it’s just,” he pulled out a small watch, “It’s time.”
“Very well.” She sighed, before calling up her magic.
Above, the sun shifted. Luna grunted, the magical strain pushing against her. Slowly, smoothly, it disappeared below the horizon, to be replaced by her moon. This was a lot quicker, and Luna sighed in satisfaction. She turned to address the guards but saw them all looking past her, shocked.
“Princess Luna?”
She wheeled around, finding a khaki-brown pegasus in a tattered and faded shirt, with a scorched and marred pith helmet on her head and a ratty-looking piece of cloth around her neck like a scarf. It took the princess a second to find a name.
“Daring Do?”
Daring gave a quick, casual bow, before rising, a smirk on her face.
“I’m glad to see you guys. I take it Equestria’s looking better?”
“You’re real?!”