I'll Meet You in Stalliongrad

Chapters

Chapter 1: The Birth of Soviet Equestria
Chapter 2: Such Was Life on Collective 23
Chapter 3: The Trains Always Run On-Time
Chapter 4: I'll See You in My Sunrise

Chapter 1: The Birth of Soviet Equestria

At the time, you couldn’t find Soviet Equestria on any map. In diplomatic truth, it didn’t actually exist. It was but one territory among the many that fell under jurisdiction of the vast, expansive Crystal Empire. But it was there, a crucible in the frozen plains, slowly warming, steadily growing more and more unstable until it hit its inevitable flashpoint. This crucible, Equusia, had no lines of its own on the map of Equestria. It was simply another stretch of land, dotted with cities and villages, within the dividing lines of the Crystal Empire.

But the ponies of this region were markedly different from the denizens of the Crystal Empire. Any foreigner could have made that judgment. You could see it in the cities – in the architecture, the conduct of life, the daily rituals, and the mentality of every last pony walking the streets. And the differences were not purely aesthetic - you could hear it. Their spoken language was similar to that of the imperials and the rest of Equestria, but there were enough idiosyncratic rules (and four different written characters) that brought linguists to consider it a unique tongue. The air about all of Equusia was something unique, often described as brutal and bizarre by outsiders – “it was like their weather, cold and unforgiving,” as it was put by a crystal royal. The ponies there were rougher and more stolid by nature, and they looked nothing like the imperials – they weren’t even crystal ponies. And they did nothing to hide their detestation for the Crystal Empire.

Perhaps if these pangs of individuality had been ignored, the whole situation never would have boiled over from bad to worse. But to the royalty of the Crystal Empire, Equusia was a festering pool of separatism that required near-immediate action. Over time, the imperials became steadily more unsettled with the widening gap between the Empire and the territory that would later identify as a Soviet republic. Mandates to the local nobility, the Breiyars, went ignored, as did mandatory audiences with the crystal crown. After a series of debates and deliberations, the Crystal Empire revised domestic policy. The imperial movement to stifle the disparity was known as the Crystallization, and it consisted of three distinct components.

The first move was known as the Re-Coronation, which rendered the Breiyars conditionally powerless. Saphirov III, a long-time elite of the Crystal Empire, was declared duke-regent of Equusia, making the territory a de-facto dukedom. The second prong of the operation was the Crystal Script, a manifesto that, among a number of other regulations, declared the tongue of the Crystal Empire the official language in Equusia, and required fluency of the mother tongue among all of the territory’s subjects. The final act of Crystallization was essentially occupation – the territory was to be under constant control by battalions of crystal soldiers. Saphirov III was tasked with the wrapping of Equusia in the cloak of total assimilation.

To the dismay of the Crystal Empire, total assimilation never came to be. The fiasco was largely the fault of Saphirov III, who rushed Crystallization with the ferocity and brutality of a tyrant. Ponies were jailed or executed for anything and everything that fell under “heinous nationalism,” a vague expression that decorated Saphirov’s law codes (and later the third and seventh additions to the Crystal Script). “Beautification” plans were adopted to reconstruct parts of the Equusian cities to make them appear more crystalline. Schools and institutions were censored mercilessly. The Breiyars were afraid to do anything other than what Saphirov wanted. And the Equusians… they were all afraid of Saphirov. They were afraid of everything.

But somewhere down the line, fear had turned into anger. Staggering stories began to seep out from the alleyways and side streets of Stalliongrad, the largest city in the region. Ponies spoke of a new item on Saphirov’s agenda. They claimed he had met with mages from all across Equestria to discuss a new initiative – to permanently convert the ponies of Tondranka into crystal ponies by means of spellcraft. To this day, it is unknown whether such an idea was actually presented by Saphirov or the story was a malicious lie, fabricated by the Stalliongrad intelligentsia to agitate the masses. But the story spread. No longer was it confined to the few “safe places” in Stalliongrad. Soon, word had made its way to all the great cities – Maremansk, Foalgograd, and Saddlestopol, among the others. And eventually it reached the countryside, and even the isolated villages caught wind of the heinous plot to once and for all wipe the very identity of Equusia from the face of Equestria. The local intelligentsia, working underground and in the dark of night, did what they could to rally the masses. A new, great fear erupted. That fear became fury, and fury then became revolt.

Then came the time when the plans of the Equusia intelligentsia finally became reality. Marches and demonstrations were arranged to protest the food shortages stemming from the poor autumn harvest that had angered the city and country alike. Mass protest action was coordinated by academics in opposition to new additions to the Crystal Script. General protests were assembled against the arrests and occupation in the workers’ districts. And the intelligents had planned these public uprisings such that they all came together at the same place, at the same time, on the same day.

One frigid morning, on the square before the newly-constructed Sapphire Palace, residence of Duke Saphirov III, the masses converged. The intelligents rallied their followers, who seethed and raged, filling the crisp morning air with shouts and cheers of insurrection. There, at the heart of Stalliongrad, the crystal soldiers found themselves defending the palace from the Equusian commoners, outnumbered nearly thirty to one. Crystal halberdiers were plowed aside. Gates were kicked down by hundreds of pairs of hooves as windows and ornaments shattered in the square. But mere words cannot properly convey the power and emotion that lived on the square that day. Had you been there that morning, at the heart of Stalliongrad, to see the doors of the palace get smashed into tiny crystalline shards, and had you heard the roars and whinnies of victory that erupted from the mass of ponies that raced to flood the vestibule, your heart would too have pounded in your chest as the thrill of revolution filled every nerve and vein.

The palace was stormed. The doors of every last room were either thrown open or battered down, but Saphirov was nowhere to be found. Though, for the moment, it didn’t matter. The city was free. And the doors to the balcony of the Sapphire Palace swung open as one young revolutionary stepped to the balustrade and tore down the purple flag “of many hues,” replacing it with the crimson flag he had been holding in his teeth. The ponies of Stalliongrad cheered as the new flag waved above the crowded street below. And then the young revolutionary propped himself on top of the balustrade with his forelimbs and called to every last pony in the square:

“Comrades! Today is a day that will be remembered until the end of time itself. Today is the day that a tyrant has fallen, that the masses have awakened, and that we again have sampled the sweet taste of freedom. But today is not the day for celebration and revelry, for there is much work to be done. We must work to solidify the gains of our glorious revolution. But as it solidifies, it must too spread! To Foalgograd! To Maremansk! To Saddlestopol! To every farm and dacha in the corners of our Motherland! And even then our struggle will not end, for the Crystalline Menace will come again to steal from us our new-found freedom. Comrades! We must not let the Crystal Dogs take what we so rightfully deserve. Let them cower in the face of our new republic! Let them tremble before our people, united and free! Our submission to the monarchy ends today, comrades, under the bright sunshine of freedom!”

The roars and cheers that rang out from the square filled the chilly winter air, rattling the windows of every building. Stalliongrad was a liberated city, the epicenter of the revolution. And in the coming days, word of the abdication spread. In mere weeks, the occupation forces of the crystal empire found themselves suddenly outnumbered in every city by armies that somehow materialized from nothing. Street by street, the land of the new Republic was taken back from the Crystalline Menace. In the meantime, the intelligentsia was working day and night in the newly-nationalized Saphire Palace, constructing the framework of the new Council of Deputies – a soviet, as it was called – that would become the new governmental assembly of the Republic. They took special care to remove the old hierarchy of Breiyars from the ranks, arguing that the Breiyars did nothing to help the people during the worst of the Crystallization and that they essentially were a vestige of the old system, nearly the same as crystal royalty. Now, the new Republic was to be led by representatives elected to the new Party, which sought to safeguard the progress of the revolution.

With the meeting of the first official Party Congress one week later, Soviet Equestria finally declared itself a new, independent republic. But independence also ushered in a strange, new era for the territory. It was an era of suspicion and uncertainty. According to the Party, you could never be too trusting. There were, after all, spies from the Empire afoot, seeing to undo the progress of the glorious revolution from the inside out. The Party extolled the virtues of selfless labour, explaining that the new SSR could only make it through the difficult times ahead if workers met their quotas. The Party’s commissars began to appear, at first only here and there, but later at every train station, outpost, and district checkpoint. They were looking for suspicious activity, for spies, and for anything that might contradict the will of the people and the ideals of the new state. There were new mandatory training drills for all citizens and mass conscription to prepare for the day that the Crystal Empire would attack in an effort to reclaim its lost territory. Two months after the revolution, the preparations were put to the test.

When the Crystal Empire made its move, they launched a two-pronged offensive. The first prong, marching on Maremansk, was fought off again and again by the legendary Bashkirskiy Legionnaires. Never once did a crystal hoof enter Maremansk, and the Bashkir ponies intended to force them back as many times as necessary. But the second prong of the offensive blasted Foalgograd with relentless force. On this front, the Yakutian ponies and the Kalmuks faltered, and the city was retaken by the imperials in three weeks. It was a staging ground from which all new offensives by the Empire would be launched in the massive effort to bring the new republic to its knees. At the same time, Foalgograd became the new symbol of unity and perseverance. It was a new national focal point around which the ponies of Equusia rallied in the long, hard fight to preserve the ever-endangered revolution and to free their comrades. And the Party never let anypony forget that all hope for the SSR rested on the liberation of Foalgograd.

For over a year, the battles raged. The Crystal Empire tried repeatedly to break the line at Maremansk. Meanwhile, the Kalmuks, Yakutian ponies, and volunteer militias fought to enter Foalgograd. The fronts stood still. Supplies began to dwindle. Quotas were raised. Spirits plummeted. The Party beseeched the ponies of Equusia to never lose hope and maintain the loyalty they demonstrated during the early revolutionary days. Of course, that was easier said than done. The masses were accustomed to rough life, as that was simply the way in Equusia. But now, tough times in the Republic proved to be more abrasive than anything through which they had ever before lived.

But our story doesn’t begin in the midst of the war. It doesn’t even begin in Stalliongrad, the cradle of the revolution. No, our story will take us far outside of Stalliongrad, to a collective farm nestled among the tundra and the plains in the countryside. Our story begins on the day when important news reached the ponies of Collective 23, a day when, for the first time in what seemed like an eternity, the future began to look bright and fortuitous.

It was the day when the commissar arrived, bearing news of the liberation of Foalgograd.

Chapter 2: Such Was Life on Collective 23

In the very beginning, the requisitions were moderate. In fact, they started solely with grains – barely, oats, and wheat. And when the collection troops made their rounds to the farms in the countryside, they took forty percent of the yields. Of course, there were never any objections. After all, it was one’s civic duty to work for the benefit of his fellow pony, and for the greater good of all. And those who objected were dealt with in a variety of ways by the commissars and the soldiers of the collection teams.

But as the war raged on and supplies were needed in larger quantities, they began to take more than just the grains. Soon, the soldiers came for the potatoes and cabbage. Then they began to take a cut of the turnips. Then the meats. By the lakes and streams (when enough ice had melted to permit fishing), they eventually began to include demands for fish. The forty percent seizures grew to sixty percent seizures. And then seventy. And still they grew, leaving the ponies of the collective farms with less and less over the course of the war, as time moved along at a monotonous pace. The farmers had a name for the months of appropriations – ekvestrazvyorstka, “the time of the quotas.” What was taken from the farms was either brought to the cities for distribution to the urban population or sent directly to the warzone, where the brave frontliners clashed with the armies of the Crystal Empire and the allied kingdoms. And as the Party never ceased to remind its people, these sacrifices all had to be made for the greater good of the Equestria Soviet Socialist Republic.

In Stalliongrad, Foalgograd, or any of the larger cities, there was ubiquitous respect for the ponies living out in the countryside. It was an extremely difficult life. In some cases, ponies lived miles and miles from their neighboring collective farm or village. The formal schooling and intellectual academies that were extolled in the great cities were just a fantasy to the collective farmers. When something critical happened in the cities, it would takes months, sometimes, for the news to reach the farthest corners of Soviet Equestria. In some areas, the citizens didn’t know of Saphirov’s abdication until a month after it occurred. The ponies of the farms and villages lived lives without. But most of them were happy that way. It was a peculiarity of Equusia's rural culture.

The countryside was depressing, but at the same time, it was mysteriously beautiful. One could look about him and see nothing, but if he trained himself to concentrate, to look deeper into the vastness of the SSR, he could find strange, rustic beauty in the tiny streams, wooden fences, lone-standing trees and, given the proper time of year, the drifting snow. The dirt roads seemed to stretch on endlessly, without a single traveler in sight. Occasionally, the jingling of bells could be heard in the distance, growing louder and more festive as the troikas drew nearer. But then as the ponies galloped on, the ringing of troika bells would begin to fade, and soon they would disappear altogether, swallowed by the mysterious tundra air. And it would again be silent, save for the wind and the occasional chirping of a songbird.

But on the day on which our story begins, there were no troikas to be seen. Rather, there were two fillies racing down the long, unpaved road to Collective 23, each one laughing and panting as they raced to be the first to rush past the gate of the farm. Their names were Vika and Ella, and they were the youngest fillies on the collective farm. An inseparable pair of identical twins since birth, they turned everything into a competition – who could race home first, who could bring more water from the stream to the farm, or who could harvest more grain. And that autumn afternoon was no different. The two fillies ran along the familiar road home, each girl’s golden sarafan flapping in the breeze behind the glow of their bright red manes. When they could see the gate in the distance, they picked up speed. Vika had won last time, and now Ella intended not to lose again. The gate drew closer and closer, and the girls made the final push, jumping through the open doors and then collapsing at the feet of a large blue pony that jumped back in surprise.

“Who won, Vasya? Who crossed the gate first?” Vika asked, looking up at the startled pony.

“It doesn’t matter who crossed the gate first,” Ella protested, wrestling on the ground with her sister, “All that matters is who touched the ground first, and that was me!”

“Who was it, Vasya?”

“I already said it was me!”

“Oh, would you both calm down?” Vasya snorted, adjusting his shapka. “I wasn’t paying attention to who got here first. You girls should have been back an hour ago to help us move the grain up front. Who knows when the commissar will show up today?”

“The commissar is already almost here, Vasya,” Vika informed, shoving her sister aside. “We saw him when we were talking to comrade Sherstablev!”

“You were with Sherstablev?” Vasya asked, trotting through the gate and looking down the road. “They’re already this far out? We need to get moving; we’re only halfway done.” He stepped back through the gate. “Alright girls, head out to the fields. Start bringing out the rest of the grain and the cabbage.”

In the blink of an eye, Vika an Ella were off again, dodging the workers as they went, running past the old barns, the granary, and the houses by the central yard. They cut through the yard, darting around the rickety tables at the center.

“Hello, comrade Trotova!” the girls called together as they raced off to the fields.

They had addressed the mare with the violet coat seated alone at one of the tables. She waved back to the girls and watched them run out into the fields. But then her gaze drifted back to the barn on the far side of the yard as she again looked at the red banner that was draped across its facade. “Foalgograd relies on your labour!” read the lettering on the banner that stared back at Nastenka Trotova. At both ends of the banner was a refulgent emblem that shone in the midday sun: the hammer crossed with the sickle, the iconic symbol of Soviet Euqestria. There were a number of such banners hanging about the farm. They were a staple of every collective farm in the new Republic. But they too were in the cities and along the country roads. Everywhere anypony looked, they were reminded of their comrades in Foalgograd – reminded of the ever-present threat of the Crystalline Menace.

Nastenka Trotova sighed and shifted her gaze again, this time letting her eyes rest on the planks of the tabletop, crooked and weathered. Though, of course, that was what everything looked like on Collective 23, save for the new silos and a few of the houses. Nastenka always did the very same thing when she sat down at the old tables – she tried to trace the grain and the cracks in the wood from one end of the table to another, but they would always come to dead ends or veer off to the sides. And every time, she thought that in a way she was tracing life itself. A pony starts at one side. The desired end is on the other side. But she can never travel in a straight line, and she might inevitably stray from that desired end, or find herself at a premature conclusion. But did she already trace her path? Was hers one of the ones that never made it to the other side? Or had she not discovered her lifeline yet? Perhaps another of the many paths on the tabletop was destined to be hers.

“They never separate, those two. Not even for five minutes.”

The voice startled Nastenka, who turned around in surprise. There, behind her, was a white unicorn in large, felt valenki and a kosovorotka of the same color as his coat. He was watching the two fillies drag the sacks of grain in the field. Floating by his side were two small bowls of soup.

“Are you feeling any better, comrade?” he inquired, turning to Nastenka. She laughed and looked out to the fields.

“Was I feeling any better ten minutes ago?” she asked, returning his question with one of her own. She did not talk in a condescending manner, but she was stern. Of course, that was simply her way.

The white unicorn sat on the opposite end of the table and slowly brought the bowls down to the tabletop.

“There was a little salyanka left over from before. I figured you might like to have some. Especially since you missed lunch altogether.”

“Thank you, Sergei.” There was silence for a few minutes as they ate from the bowls.

“You finished everything from this morning, Nastenka? You know, they just said the commissar is coming along for the collection.”

“Of course I finished everything,” she said, staring into the grain and grooves of the table again. “Would I be sitting here if I didn’t finish everything?” She lifted her violet eyes to meet his.

Sergei shivered as Nastenka’s stabbing gaze tore through him. Her words always seemed so harsh, though at the same time they came out almost helplessly. The two ponies looked at each other in silence. Sergei studied her delicate features – the tiny nose, her flowing mane that blew in the light wind, and her eyes, those piercing violet eyes. Nastenka Trotova was beautiful. But such beauty was a double-edged sword. On one hand, her splendor could captivate onlookers and ensnare them, making the act of looking away so uncomfortably difficult. But at the same time, she could instill such jealousy in others that they could not stand to look at her, for the very sight enraged them as they saw before themselves the beauty that they did not possess.

“Excuse me, comrade. I was only curious.” He took another sip from the bowl and then looked out into the fields, where Vika and Ella were dragging in the grain sacks. “You wonder how much we’ll get to keep.” He paused and looked at Nastenka again. “How much do you suppose they’ll want this time? It’s been a long while since the last telegram with the new stipulations. And fortunately for us, Stirrupskiy always takes less than he’s supposed to take. Imagine if he wanted the full quota! I still can’t figure out how he gets away with it. Must pay someone off.” He waved his horn and let the bowl rest on the table. “Sometimes, you know, you wonder whether or not they’ll eventually start taking everything,” Sergei mumbled, looking out at the fillies in the field again. It was supposed to be a joke. But given the times, the air of uncertainty, the nature of the whole situation, it at the same time was an unspoken, legitimate concern.

“Did you get any sleep last night, Nastenka? Any at all?” Sergei asked.

“Maybe an hour. Which is more than usual.”

“Have the dreams started again?”

“Do you think for one second that they ever stopped?”

“Mmh.”

“They never relent, Sergei. I’m afraid to sleep anymore. I see him every night.”

It was a kind heart alone that prompted Sergei to ask Nastenka about the dreams. But at the same time, he was acting like a fool. To speak of the dreams made Nastenka feel worse. She didn’t tell anypony else about them initially. But after a few months, she told Sergei, though she didn’t know why. Sergei knew why; such a matter could only be turned over in the mind for so long, after all. At some point, one feels that she must talk to another. To make sense of the matter. To know that someone else understood. And Sergei did understand. But he could do nothing to help.

The whole situation – the dreams that plagued her night after night – had slowly reduced Nastenka to a stolid shell of her former self. These dreams grew from seeds that were sowed over a year ago, on a sunny day just before the onset of spring, It was the day when every Kalmuk in the region was to report to a designated blockhouse after being called upon for service in the defense of Foalgograd. In the bright sunshine of winter’s end, the seasoned veterans found themselves standing side-by-side with ponies newly conscripted to the Kalmuk corps at the Saddel’naya railway station, a small one-platform complex that served the barren, sparsely populated region southeast of Stalliongrad. On that same day, under that same sunshine, stood Nastenka, just before the platform, beside her husband Leonid Trotov, whom she had married just fourteen months prior. A lieutenant among the Kalmuks, Leonid was of course called into Foalgograd with the others as the threat of invasion loomed ever nearer. But there was a particular fervor on the platform that day. There was excitement, especially among the new recruits, over the fact that the Kalmuks were to defend Foalgograd. They were following in the steps of the revolutionaries, they said. They were the defenders of the SSR itself, ready to set out to the front and return as heroes. Leonid was somewhat guilty of this enthusiasm himself.

But Nastenka had nothing to do with the revelry. She kept thinking that when she bid her Leonid farewell on the platform, it would be the last she ever saw of him. And when she heard the train chugging along toward the railway station, tears began to form in her eyes as she nuzzled with him. She tried to bid him farewell, but every time Nastenka spoke, she choked on her words. And when she finally burst into tears, she told Leonid that she didn’t know what she’d do if he never came back.

So Leonid pulled her aside, away from the rest of the crowd on the platform, and she cried into his uniform, soaking the red-striped collar with her tears. He laughed a little, and told her that she won’t need to worry about any of it, because he would come back. He said that he’d come back home to the farm, and life would march on. He said they’d have the foal about which Nastenka always dreamed, and that she’d finally know the joy of being a mother. But Nastenka told him that there was no conceivable way he knew for sure that he’d ever come home. She said he was living on the dreams of the Party – in the midst of a high from which he needed to come back down.

“Nastenka,” he whispered into her ear, “What I’m going to tell you right now… Don’t ever forget it. I might not know what will happen when we get to Foalgograd, and I might not know what the Crystal Dogs are going to throw our way. But the one thing I do know is that someday, whenever that is, I’ll come back. And right now, I’m going to make a promise to you. I promise that we’ll see each other again. And when that day comes, the first thing we’ll do is dance, like we did on all those summer evenings on the farm.” She picked her head up from his shoulder and stared at the dark spots her tears had made on his uniform’s collar, gasping and heaving as her eyes watered.

“And what am I supposed to do while you’re gone?” she asked him. He thought for a moment, and smiled.

“Well. When you wake up in the morning and look through the windows as the sun rises… Remember that, though I’m far away in Foalgograd, I’ll be watching the very same sun. And if you concentrate long and hard, you’ll see me in your sunrise.”

Nastenka laughed through her tears. Leonid had twisted around the words of an old folk tune, “I’ll See You in My Sunrise,” that was old as the tundra itself.

“You expect that to work, Leonid? You trust the words of an old song?”

“My mother always told me that there was magic behind the old songs,” Leonid said, brushing a few strands of violet mane out of Nastenka’s eyes. “She said that generation after generation of ponies wouldn’t have kept the old songs alive if they weren’t true.”

The train rolled past and slowed to a halt at the platform, the doors were pulled open and the Kalmuks said their farewells and garrisoned inside. Nastenka kissed her husband goodbye and watched him walk off to the train, but stopped and turned to her at the door. And for the moment, time froze for Nastenka as she saw him for what she feared would be the last time. There he was, the love of her life, the red stallion by the train door, wearing those refulgent leather boots and that long, crimson-trimmed brown uniform, wet with tears at the top. His saber hung at his side, below the knapsack on his back. He was just so striking… It could have been a portrait fit for any museum’s wall, that scene on the platform.

“Don’t forget what I said about the sunrise!” he called to her over the chatter and excitement of the other Kalmuks and their relatives.

“Don’t forget that you have a promise to keep!” she shouted back.

Leonid blew her a kiss, and she returned it. Then he disappeared through the train door, followed by a line of other Kalmuks in identical uniforms with fewer decorations, and finally the commissar. After ten minutes, the train departed. Nastenka had been there waiting, and she continued to wait, watching the train as it gradually picked up speed, chugging off into the distance, leaving a trail of black smoke behind it. And only when it finally disappeared on the horizon did Nastenka step off the now nearly empty Saddel’naya platform.

Nastenka pulled the purple platok that was hanging around her neck back over her head as she walked from the train station, passing the telegraph exchange and the small store at the crossroads, to the troika that had been waiting for her since they arrived at Saddel’naya. Shivering from the last remnants of the winter cold, she climbed in, and the three ponies in front took off, bringing Nastenka along the bleak dirt road back to Collective 23, where she would begin the long wait for Leonid’s return.

A month later, the Crystal Empire attacked, and Soviet Euqestria saw the beginning of its struggle to solidify independence. In the evenings, Nastenka would gather with the other residents of the farm and sit by the one radio on the property and listen for news from the front. They were lucky – most of the collective farms were not privileged enough to own their own radio and relied on delayed messages from the commissars or the telegraph exchange (if one was close enough). Nastenka would listen as the news came in, and at first all seemed well. During the initial week, the message barely varied from day to day – that the young stalwarts of the SSR valorously defended the two great cities, Maremansk and Foalgograd. But after that first week, the announcer said nothing about Foalgograd, other than that the Yakutian ponies were coming in to aid the Kalmuks in the defense. Then, after the third week, the announcer only talked about the glorious victories outside of Maremansk and never said anything about Foalgograd. It was not until well into the second month of the war that the news of the fall of Foalgograd was finally publicized. It was never explicitly stated, but when the ponies of the SSR were informed of the movements to free their comrades in an occupied Foalgograd, they all pieced together what had happened.

That was when the dreams began – when Nastenka learned of the occupation of Foalgograd. Every night, she would see in her nightmares the scene at the Saddel’naya railway station as it happened the day Leonid left. She would leave the troika, walk to the platform, receive Leonid’s promise, and bid him farewell as he boarded the train. But rather than walk back to the troika after the train was out of sight, she would watch the train leave and turn around to find herself in the middle of Foalgograd as it burned in a sea of fire and smoke. And all around her, she stared helplessly as the Kalmuks were skewered and stabbed with crystal spears.

She would wake up crying every time. In one dream, she swore she saw Leonid among the dead and screamed so loud when she woke that half of the other residents on the farm jumped out of bed and ran over to see what was wrong. And after she woke up, she usually could not sleep again for the remainder of the night. So she would wait for the sunrise and peer out the window into the golden rays of the morning light, looking for Leonid in the sunshine as he said she could. But Nastenka never saw him.

Eventually, the radio broke, and then the farm was without the news reports. To Nastenka, it didn’t matter. After all, the ponies of the SSR never really knew the truth. The Party controlled the broadcasting stations, and everypony heard only what the Party saw fit for them to hear. So she didn’t need that. She knew that life would not be the same until her beloved Leonid came back to Collective 23.

And on the day that saw the beginning of our story, that was all that Nastenka could do. Wait, as she had for so many days, for Leonid to return. And her old friend Sergei Reinov could do little to nothing to help her, no matter how sincerely he tried.

“The most important thing is to remain hopeful,” Sergei stated, breaking the long silence. “So long as a pony doesn’t lose hope… You know, it’s the one thing that can’t be taken away. That’s something you don’t understand, devushka.” He pointed right at Nastenka with the tip of his hoof. “As long as you have hope, you still have something for which to live. If you have hope, there is a reason to wake in the morning and a reason to dream of a better tomorrow when you sleep at night.”

“I had hope when I could still receive his letters and telegrams,” Nastenka sighed, resting her head in her hooves on the table’s rough surface. “But of course that went by the wayside once they found the spies in Maremansk, and then communication with the military was completely forbidden. I haven’t heard anything from him in six months.”

“You know the way things are. Everyone needs to be sure that information doesn’t leak out, and that nothing falls in the wrong hands.”

“Fine. But then you can’t also expect me to have hope,” Nastenka spat. She opened her mouth to say more, but was interrupted by Vika and Ella, who popped their heads up on either side of the table.

“Comrade Trotova! Comrade Reinov! The commissar is here!” shouted Ella with a grin. Nastenka and Sergei laughed and stood up.

“Alright, girls,” Nastenka said, “Let’s go to the gates. We’ll help them load the grains and the vegetables.”

“We don’t need to do that today!” Vika chirped. “Commissar Stirrupskiy said that he doesn’t need to take anything. But he wanted us to help bring everyone to the gates because he has really important news!”

“I wanted to tell them that part!” Ella shrieked, jumping on her sister and tugging at her sarafan.

Sergei and Nastenka were beside themselves. They stared at Vika and Ella as they tussled on the ground, and then at one another.

“Stirrupskiy doesn’t want anything?” Sergei stuttered, turning and looking toward the farm gates, where the ponies of Collective 23 were starting to gather. “That could mean…”

Nastenka and Sergei bolted for the front of the farm with the two young fillies in close pursuit. They knew that there could be only one good reason why the commissar and his team did not come to fill the quotas, unless it was some kind of joke. They charged past the barns and the little houses, their hearts pounding in their chests. Other ponies were coming in behind them, all bound for the group that had amassed at the humble gates of Collective 23. Unsurprisingly, the farmers were not loading the wagons and troikas with the sacks and crates of grain and vegetables, as would have normally happened. And when Sergei, Nastenka, and the two fillies got close enough, they saw the familiar face that appeared at the gates every couple of weeks.

There was the commissar, Andrei Stirrupskiy, sporting his signature grey overcoat, matching visor, and those tall black boots that reflected the afternoon sunlight. Two young soldiers - pegasi dressed in green Yakutian parade coats - stood at his sides as he waited for the farmers to gather around him, surveying the crowd with his ever-vigilant stare. Everyone in the region knew him. He was everypony’s friend, but at the same time he was someone everypony feared. Though anypony on Collective 23 could tell you that Stirrpuskiy was better than the others.

“My comrades,” Stirrupskiy announced as Nastenka and Sergei joined the crowd, which grew silent before the voice of authority, “Today I come to you not with empty wagons, but with a momentous report that will not soon be forgotten.” Stirrupskiy paused and looked about him, at each and every pony at the farm gates, at the barns, the banners, and the serene country scenes of field and plains in the distance. He was beaming; he lived for these moments where he held the very emotions of the people in his hooves. He could fill them with joy, or he could reduce them to tears, and in the infant SSR, such an ability was power. It was unnervingly quiet. It seemed that even the birds and the wind were holding their breath so as not to miss the commissar’s message.

“As I’ve said,” he continued, “nothing will be taken from the farm today. Instead, for you, I bear glorious news. The maps are being redrawn as we speak. Every cartographer from the cities of our motherland to the halls of Canterlot castle has been put to work, for every map in Equestria has been rendered inaccurate.” The farmers began to whisper amongst themselves. Stirrupskiy began to pace, adjusting his visor as he went. “And why, comrades? There are new lines to be drawn. There is a new republic of which to speak, one that struggled for so long under tyranny to manifest itself on the face of Equestria. Comrades – our combined work and sacrifice have finally reaped their reward. We’ve won. The war is over, and the Motherland has broken free of the Crystalline Menace!”

The ponies reared and exploded in cheers and whinnies. This was the news for which everypony had waited for over a year. This was the end that the Party promised, the happy ending that everypony thought nearly impossible. But finally, the ends had justified the means, the threat from the crystal dogs seemed to have vanished into thin air, and the time of the quotas had finally passed.

Nastenka’s eyes grew wide as she stood there, barely breathing as the ponies around her cavorted and laughed. Sergei had just finished his jaded discourse on hope as he had done on so many countless occasions, and Nastenka had again discounted everything. But today it seemed like he had been right all along. Stirrupskiy, through his words alone, had taken her misery and beat it into submission.

The commissar went on to tell the ponies of Collective 23 that they were learning the news rather late. The victory had actually been declared nearly a week earlier. But the rounds had finally brought him to Collective 23, where he was able to spread the news, announce that the soldiers would soon be coming back home, and deliver the official documentation from the komitet that ended the wartime quotas and re-instituted production regulation from the previous year. Everyone was ecstatic. It seemed that in a mere instant, from the breath of a single messenger, the fear and doubt that had plagued the collective farmers suddenly became blissful celebration. The ponies of the farm were already beginning to talk of the festivities that were to be planned to celebrate the war’s end. Nopony could believe that the day had come, but there it was – they were living it.

Once the documentation was delivered, the excited farmers all gathered together to read the new stipulations. It was the first time that all the ponies on the farm were enthusiastic about receiving mandates from the city. Stirrupskiy got their attention one last time and bid them farewell, again commending them for their labour over the course of the year. Adjusting the red lapels of his coat, Stirrupsky turned and walked to the supply wagon and troika that had dropped him off, the two soldiers at his flanks. The commissar had one hoof on the step of the troika when he heard from behind,

“Excuse me. Comrade Stirrupskiy.” The commissar turned to find a violet mare with an animated gaze looking back at him.

“Let me think for a moment here.” Stirrupskiy looked thoughtfully at Nastenka and closed his eyes. The two soldiers at his sides stood and watch her. “Trotova. You’re Nastenka Trotova, yes?”

“That’s right.” She smiled.

“See there, I didn’t forget. People tell me I’m rather good at remembering faces. But it comes with this line of work. Do you need something, comrade?” Stirrupskiy said.

Nastenka thought for a few seconds, staring at the troika, and then at the ground by her hooves. “Do you have a few minutes? To talk? You said the soldiers from the region would be coming home soon. I have a few questions for you, if you wouldn’t mind.”

Stirrupskiy closed his eyes and thought for a moment, looked at the two soldiers, shrugged, and said, “We’ve got time. I’ll spend a few moments with comrade Trotova.” The two pegasi nodded and climbed into the troika. The commissar motioned for Nastenka to follow as he began walking down the unpaved road. She joined him.

“It is an amazing time in which we live, comrade Trotova,” Stirrupskiy commented as they moved onward. “We’re lucky to have lived to see such momentous days. We’ve brought a new society to the face of Equestria. We’ve squashed the Crystalline Menace. We can return to our lives as we knew them. But all the same, we’re for the very first time arriving to new lives that come from the new society.” Stirrupskiy stopped in the road, staring off into the distance where the few trees in the distance clawed into the blue sky above. Nastenka stopped a few steps in front. “But you know this already, comrade. It is an axiomatic truth. What are your questions?”

“My husband had been fighting in Foalgograd, Comrade Stirrupskiy,” Nastenka began. She turned to face the commissar.

“And the Motherland is eternally indebted to him and his compatriots who liberated the great city,” Stirrupskiy stated.

“So today we learned that the war has ended. But it ended days ago. Do you know when the soldiers will come back?” Nastenka asked. Stirrupskiy was silent for a moment. He was still staring intently at the trees in the distance as his lips twisted into a small half-smile.

“I might. It depends. With what district was he fighting?”

“The Kalmuk Military District. 2nd Brigade.” Stirrpuskiy’s brown eyes went wide as he slowly turned to Nastenka.

“The 2nd? With the Kalmuks? They were the ones defending from the very beginning. Right behind the 3rd and 4th when the Imperials struck Foalgograd. From what I heard, the defense was ferocious. You know, comrade, the Council of Ministers has already named the first five battalions heroes of our republic. You should be extremely proud.” For a moment, the commissar was lost in thought. He said nothing more.

“When are they coming back?” Nastenka asked again. Stirrupskiy turned back to the horizon.

“All soldiers will first be making their way to Stalliongrad. There, they will receive their decorations at the victory celebration.”

“And after that?”

“They will be stationed in Stalliongrad, either at the barracks or the Academy. They’ll remain there until preparations and schedules have been completed and approved for their return home.”

“And how long will that take?” Stirrupskiy dropped his head, brought his right front hoof up, and planted it again.

“I don’t know.”

Nastenka wasn’t sure if that was the honest truth or if Stirrupskiy simply wouldn’t release the information. Either way, it didn’t answer the question. She scraped at the dirt road with her hoof as she wondered how long she might still have to wait. Just when it seemed that all the uncertainty had ended, it showed itself again from the mouth of the pony that had just made it disappear minutes ago.

It couldn’t be more than a couple of weeks, Nastenka thought. It can’t be any lengthy amount of time. If the war ended days ago, then they’re probably already on their way to Stalliongrad.

Her ears perked up as a new idea popped into her head.

“If the war ended days ago, then they’re probably already on their way to Stalliongrad!” she gasped and turned to Stirrpuskiy. “Right? Am I right? Have they already set off for Stalliongrad?”

“They have,” Stirrupskiy answered. “In fact, I’d wager that those soldiers coming from Maremansk have already arrived. They were so much closer than their comrades up north in Foalgograd, and the railroad system in Maremansk was also in far better condition.”

“Then my Leonid must already be with the rest of the Kalmuks on one of their trains!” Nastenka chirped, getting steadily more excited.

“They must certainly be on board the trains now, because the victory celebrations are being held the day after tomorrow,” Stirrupskiy continued. “The schedules were coordinated such that the soldiers wouldn’t miss the speech in the square and the ensuing ceremony and festivities. After all, they deserve such a welcome more than anyone else.” Stirrupskiy’s half-smile returned as Nastenka’s face beamed with delight.

“Do you know that for a fact? That sometime between tomorrow and the morning after, they’ll all arrive in Stalliongrad?” Nastenka asked.

“Of course I do. I’ve seen the timetables. Our group will be heading to Saddel’naya once these rounds are finished. We’ll be taking a train to Stalliongrad as well. As you can guess, we have business to tend to before the formalities begin.”

Stirrupskiy could tell that although Nastenka had fallen quiet, she was struggling to say something. Something was there, on the tip of her tongue, and she was bursting at the seams, but at the same time she just couldn’t bring herself to say anything more.

“You have another question, comrade?” he asked, his eyes locked with her own. Stirrupskiy’s stare was intimidating. It was the same stare he gave to the accused spies, the deserters, and the dissidents. He didn’t purposefully subject her to the stare, most probably; he was unaware of how intimidating he sometimes could be. Nastenka took a few deep breaths. She swallowed, and she asked,

“Could you take me to Saddel’naya? Can I come with you to Stalliongrad?”

Stirrupskiy hadn’t expected that question. He blinked once, then twice, and then turned to the troika and the wagon of supplies away from which they had walked.

“You… want to ride along with us?” Stirrupskiy questioned.

“Please. I need to see my Leonid and I can’t wait any longer. And right now I don’t have any other way to get to Saddel’naya quickly enough to catch whatever train you’re going to take,” Nastenka begged, pacing back and forth before the commissar. “Comrade. You don’t understand how miserable the past year has been. I see him in my dreams every night. And please, do not accuse me of being blind to the misfortune of other ponies, because I know that there are others that have been waiting as I have. And there are others that are worse off, like the ponies in Foalgograd that were starved and tormented for over a year. I understand that. But comrade, I don’t know how much longer I can continue to wait. I want to see him with my own eyes to know that he’s alive and well. I can’t just live on hope and wishes.”

Stirrupskiy stared intently at the troika, pawing at the ground with his front right.

“I don’t know what the regional commission would do if they found out that we took someone along with us. We’re never to stray from expected protocol,” Stirrupskiy mumbled with a grave expression. Nastenka’s ears drooped and the sparkle in her eye began to fade.

“Then again,” Stirrupskiy continued with a smile, causing Nastenka’s ears to perk back up, “if we manage to keep a little secret, we won’t run into any problems.” The commissar turned to face the violet pony again, whose eyes had grown wide and bright. “Here’s what I can do, comrade. After we finish our rounds, we’ll make a very short stop back here to pick you up. You can ride with us in the troika until we’re within range of Saddel’naya, and then you’ll have to get out and walk so you’re not seen riding with our cavalcade, just in case any of the higher-ups are watching. You’ll not be able to ride in our cars, but this train won’t be crowded, so you’ll more than likely be able to purchase a spot among the regular cars or the sleeper cars.”

Nastenka was just inches away from shedding tears of unbridled joy. She threw her forelimbs around Stirrupskiy’s neck, thanking him again and again.

“Think nothing of it, comrade,” Stirrupskiy laughed as Nastenka dropped back to all fours. “I’m sure it’ll all work out just fine. Unfortunately, we’ve got to go and finish the rounds. There are a few other farms in the region that still haven’t learned that wartime is over.”

“Then don’t let me delay their news further. I feel like I’ve already been talking for too long,” Nastenka told the commissar as they turned and walked toward the troika. “But when should I meet you at the gates?”

“By the time we’re finished, I’ll say… in two hours. In two hours we’ll be back at your farm.”

“Two hours. Right. And I won’t be a minute late.” Nastenka started to trot off, then stopped and turned in the middle of the road. “And thank you again. For your leniency since the beginning of the war, for today… for everything.” Then she ran across the road and through the gates of Collective 23.

“So what happened?” one of the Yakutian ponies asked the commissar when he climbed into the troika. Stirrupskiy turned and watched Nastenka as she disappeared behind the front barns.

“Well, comrades, it looks like we’ll have an extra passenger for the ride to Saddel’naya.” The Yakut eyed Stirrupskiy suspiciously.

“We’re… taking her to ‘court,’ you mean?”

“Ahah, of course not!” Stirrupskiy laughed, “She just wants to catch our train to Stalliongrad.”

“For what?” asked the other Yakut.

“Well, let’s just say that she’s going to Stalliongrad in search of something very dear to her.” He paused, leaning back in his seat. Under his breath, he added, “And I sincerely hope she finds what she’s looking for.” The two Yakuts looked at one another in silence.

“Alright, comrades,” Stirrupskiy called to the three ponies at the front of the troika. “Let’s get going. But when we’re done, we need to stop back here before we leave for Saddel’naya. And remember… she was never with us in this troika. Understood?” With that, the troika was pulled down the long, empty road as the supply wagon rolled along behind them.

Meanwhile, the farmers had already started preparing for the night’s festivities. Smoke rose from the chimneys of each little house by the barns as food was prepared plentifully for the first time in over a year. The tables in the center yard were already covered by the old, stained tablecloths that had been dragged out of the drawers and cupboards. The samovars, some polished brilliantly, the others brown with age, were being brought out into the yard as Nastenka raced past the ponies that were carrying them. It was as if the whole farm had been brought back to life, and the crimson banners that blew in the afternoon breeze acted as the blood that flowed through its very veins.

Nastenka approached the small, wooden building that she had called home for so many years of her life. She bolted through the door to her humble house and with her teeth pulled open the drawer to the cabinet in her sitting room. From this drawer she took an old rucksack that hadn’t seen the light of day in a very long time.

“I’ll be on my way soon, Leonid,” Nastenka said to the empty room.

She then charged into her bedroom, the second of the three rooms in her tiny home, and threw the rucksack on the ottoman by the door. The floorboards creaked beneath her as she walked about, taking her passport, some money, two changes of clothes, and a few spare platoki. Nastenka then threw these provisions in the bag. She grabbed a fourth platok and draped it over her head. Then she took the rucksack in her teeth and charged into the kitchen.

She dropped the sack on her small table. “Perhaps Sergei was right,” she mumbled, grabbing the two apples she had hidden under a floorboard, “Perhaps if I’d have just been more hopeful, this day would have come much faster. But it doesn’t matter now, Leonid. I’m coming to Stalliongrad.” She threw the apples into the bag and threw it over her back as she pulled the drawstring with her teeth. She hurried out into the sitting room again and threw the rucksack on the old blue divan, and then turned to face the front door to find that she had left it wide open. But on the other side of the frame she saw a white unicorn in his kosovorotka of the same color.

“How long have you been standing there?”

“Since I saw you running through the yard.” Sergei stated. “Can I come in?” Nastenka nodded and the unicorn stepped through the weathered door frame. “You were out there talking to Stirrupskiy for a long while, devushka. Is everything alright?”

“For once, Sergei, everything is alright.” Nastenka said with satisfaction. The white unicorn was eying the rucksack on the divan.

“What’s that for?” he asked.

“I’m going to Stalliongrad,” Nastenka said with a smile. “The commissar agreed to take me to the train station. I’m going to see my Leonid.” Sergei wasn’t sure how he felt when he heard that. He raised an eyebrow and didn’t know whether to stare at the violet earth pony before him or at the rucksack. From the doorway, festive discussion from the central yard began leaking into Nastenka’s home.

“You’re just going to make the trip to Stalliongrad?” Sergei questioned. “But why? Stirrupskiy said that everyone would be back home soon enough.”

“Because soon enough isn’t soon enough for me.” Nastenka said with a scowl. “I don’t care what you think, Sergei. Whether you think I’m wasting stipend money on a train ticket or wasting my time... I don't care what you think I’m doing.” Nastenka plopped on the divan next to the rucksack. She looked at the faded, stained rug on the floor, the glass lamps on the small tables, and the boards that made up the walls and ceiling, some crooked, some rough, some smooth. “You’ll never understand how I feel.”

“And why is that?” Sergei inquired, taking the last empty space on the cushion of the old divan.

“Look at this house, Sergei.” She gestured to the rug and the lamps and the ceiling boards. “What do I have other than my Leonid? This house is tiny, but without Leonid… It is too large for one pony.”

The commotion outside was louder now. More ponies had gathered in the central yard. Sergei and Nastenka could hear all the fillies and colts laughing now, and somewhere in the midst of all the noise was the distinct plucking of balalaika strings.

“You’ve seen the great cities,” she told Sergei, getting up off the divan and leaving Sergei sitting by himself. “You chose to come out here of your own accord in the midst of the Crystallization. A trip to Stalliongrad is like a chore for you. But I’ve lived a different life, comrade. Collective 23 has been my home since the day I was born.” Nastenka was at the window now, looking at the crowd in the yard through the dirty, weathered glass. It was starting to get dark now. “My father took me to Stalliongrad once, when I was just a filly.” She put a hoof up to the glass and turned to Sergei, who was watching her with a downtrodden expression. “It was so beautiful. I didn’t ever want to leave. You know why. When you’re there, in the squares and the gardens, in the courtyards, and before the old monuments, you feel as if you're at the very center of everything.”

“It’s true,” Sergei mumbled, looking at the patterns in the old rug.

“But now my everything is there, Sergei. Because Leonid is on a train bound for Stalliongrad as we speak, and soon he’ll be there. And Leonid is my everything.”

Sergei lifted his head to find Nastenka’s bright eyes right before him. The violet mare in the red platok seemed so happy, but at the same time she seemed as miserable as she had been over the course of the last five or six months.

“If ever I had a reason to return to the city, this is that reason, even if I’ll only be there for a day or two,” Nastenka said. “Perhaps if you had married, Sergei, you’d understand how I feel.” The white unicorn stared at her and smirked.

“Perhaps I would,” he laughed, rising from the divan. “I’m not going to say anything one way or the other, devushka. What authority do I have here?” Music began to float in from the yard, and Sergei turned and looked out through the open door. “When are they coming to get you?”

“When I left Stirrupskiy at the gates, he said he’d be back in two hours.”

“You’ve still got some time, Nastenka,” Sergei said. “You should join everyone outside for a little while before you leave.” He looked back at Nastenka. “After all, comrade, it is a day of celebration.”

“I’ll meet you in the yard in five minutes,” Nastenka said after a brief pause. The unicorn nodded and stepped through the door frame. “But Sergei,” she called, making him stop and turn. “Just know that, had you not taken the time to sit and talk with me over these last few months… I’m not sure I’d have made it until now.” Sergei Reinov smiled. “Thank you.”

“A pony does what he can, comrade,” he responded, then adding with a snicker, “Shame that I’ll be useless once Leonid comes back.”

So Sergei trotted off toward the voices and music as Nastenka sat back down on the divan, watching the revelry through the old windows that blurred the view of the other side. There it was, the air of gaiety that filled every inch of the farm, a hallmark of the day that marked the war’s end – a day that seemed to never draw any closer. But Nastenka, Sergei, Vika, Ella, Vasya, and each and every other pony on Collective 23 were living it, along with their comrades on the other farms, in the tiny villages, and in the great cities of Equusia, the new republic that emerged from the ashes of an oppressed territory.

And though she was alone in her tiny home, far away from the trains bound for the city that saw the revolution, and though Leonid had no conceivable way of hearing her, Nastenka took a long, deep breath, and said to her husband,

“It won’t be much longer now. I’ll meet you in Stalliongrad.”

Chapter 3: The Trains Always Run On-Time

There were four major roads that led to the Saddel’naya Railway Station and telegraph exchange. The one that stretched to the west was probably the most populated of all four, as it passed through some sizeable villages and towns and eventually joined to the major thoroughfare that stretched from Stalliongrad to the port at Saddlestopol on the coastline. The second most traveled road ran to the northeast, where it joined two main concourses that then became the long, monotonous path to the regions of the Crystal Empire. Of course, a border crossing existed now, and throughout the course of the war, nothing entered or left. Two other smaller paths could be followed to the southeast and southwest, through the plains dotted with small villages and the collective farms. It was seldom to find travelers along these two roads, especially in the nighttime, when the rural regions of the republic were silent as the grave, save for chirping crickets and rustling reeds by the tiny ponds and streams. And when the moon was hidden on a cloudy night, one could see nothing.

In a tiny village along the southeast road, a lone villager took his nightly walk out to the fence that ran along the road. He held a small bag in his teeth, which he let drop as he leaned against the fencepost. The elderly unicorn in the torn hunting hat and furry valenki waived his horn to draw from the bag an aged flask from which he took a long drink. It wasn’t completely dark, for there was still a tiny hint of sunshine peeking out over the horizon. But in another hour, there would be no light save for that of the moon and the stars. The unicorn straightened up and slowly walked along the rickety fence, singing an airy tune into the cold evening:

Think of how the springtime turns to summer –

And wake me from my ever-verdant dream.

In the stream I see but two reflections –

So, I’m not alone here it would seem…

I feel the sun’s embrace,

I see your kindly face,

And I could swear I never knew a brighter day!

We’ll touch so tenderly,

And you can sing with me:

“How could we live in any other way?”

The old villager stopped after only one refrain. The stallion raised an eyebrow as the smile disappeared from his face. He heard something in the distance, from the south. Down the road he could see a faint light, swaying, growing ever so slowly brighter. He realized now that those were hoof beats, and they grew louder and louder as the lights drew closer. The villager waited and watched, taking another drink from his old flask, and wiping his mouth with his hoof.

A troika, with a single lantern hanging from its rear, and its accompanying wagon raced by the villager, who didn’t so much as flinch as the ponies charged along. On one of the troika’s benches sat Commissar Andrei Stirrupskiy, with a Yakut pegasus at his left. Across from him was Nastenka Trotova, with a Yakut pegasus at her right. The four ponies were constantly shifting their weight and grabbing the walls of the troika as it made its way roughly down the unpaved country road. A ride in the troika was uncomfortable enough when it was being used during any non-winter season, but with the fading of the last rays of sunlight, the three ponies in the harnesses continually failed to observe divots and stones in the road and occasionally moved too close to the sides. Worse, one of the troika’s wheeled runners was built slightly bigger than the other, so the whole thing was ever-so-slightly lopsided, helping to make the whole body of the vehicle lean whenever it veered to the right. But it certainly wasn’t to be taken out of commission. At the end of the day, it could still be used to get from point A to point B, and in Soviet Equestria, that was all that mattered.

The breezes had grown stronger as the night slowly took hold, blowing the supply wagon’s tarps that snapped loudly in the wind. Nastenka had long ago stopped trying to fix her platok and instead just let it hang around her neck. Stirrupskiy had his visor tucked under one arm, as did the Yakut pegasi.

“Just another few minutes,” Stirrupshiy shouted over all the noise, his voice barely audible in the wind. “Saddel’naya isn’t much farther up the road.

“I know,” she shouted back, “I know that I’m close when I pass that village full of gopniki.” Stirrupskiy and the pegasi laughed at Nastenka’s remark, but only for a few seconds, as the troika again lurched to the right, causing the four passengers to again scramble to maintain their positions.

“That’s a regular riot coming from someone out here, devushka,” yelled the Yakut to Stirrupskiy’s left. “I’ve only ever heard that in the city proper!”

“It’s my friend Sergei’s fault,” Nastenka explained, still shouting over the flapping of the tarps, the wind, and the creaking of the troika’s base and balance. “When he came out to our farm from the city a few years ago, he threw that word around enough. So I use it now and again. But that little village really is full of gopniki. All they ever do is sit on their samovars and play their balalaikas and drink. And then after they drink, they sit on their balalaikas and try to play their samovars.” The pegasi and Stirrupskiy burst out laughing again. No one on the farm would have believed that Nastenka Trotova was in a joking mood, given the way she’d been over the last six or seven months. But over the course of a mere afternoon, she had become an entirely different pony. Suddenly, she was acting like she always used to be. And it seemed to stem solely from the fact that she was on her way to Stalliongrad to surprise Leonid when he arrived.

“You know Corral’naya Street in Stalliongrad?” asked the other Yakut. Nastenka shook her head. “Well if you want to see the true gopniki, you’ll take a walk around there.”

“Idiot, don’t go telling her that!” the other Yakut yelled. “It’s not safe over there!”

“I only remember so much about the city, comrades,” Nastenka bellowed as the wind blew right in her face.

“What?” the three ponies shouted in unison.

“I said I can only remember so much about Stalliongrad. Last time I was there, I was a filly.”

“I think you’ll find it to be a bit different now, comrade Trotova. Don’t get me wrong; it will be as you remember it. But at the same time, it’s been given a new face, a new life.”

The troika and wagon thundered up the empty road. The sun had set, bathing the land in darkness, save for a glow of purple and red on the horizon. The winds worsened the feel of the night air that wrapped itself around the riders and drivers alike, especially Nastenka, who had the thinnest coat of them all.

Stirrupskiy turned and looked ahead, up the path. He could see the lights of the railway station much more clearly now. Turning to Nastenka, he yelled,

“Nearly there, comrade. I’m sorry, but… very soon we’ll need you to step off. We can’t risk you being seen in here. Four our sake and yours.”

Nastenka was reminded again just how lucky she and her friends at Collective 23 were to have a stallion like Stirrupskiy be responsible for their little region. Stirrupskiy had a big heart, even if he didn’t wear it on his sleeve. She knew that she might never have gotten the opportunity to make this journey if she had been dealing with another official. Nastenka thought it strange that the commissar, like Sergei, had never married.

The troika moved along for another minutes before Stirrupskiy gave the order to stop. The troika and the wagon slowed to a halt, and the ponies pulling them could finally stop and catch their breath. Saddel’naya was just a stone’s throw away now, and the train was already there, waiting at the platform. Nastenka grabbed the rucksack that been sitting on the floor of the compartment.

“I can’t thank you enough for taking me all the way out here,” Nastenka told the commissar and the Yakuts. “I had no other way to make the long trek.”

“We’re happy to help, comrade,” Stirrupsky said. “And remember, like I said earlier, if you somehow can’t get a ticket for this train, come and find me, and I’ll set things straight. I’ll wait around on the platform for as long as I can.” With a smile, he added, “But remember, devushka, you were never on this troika.”

Nastenka thanked the commissar again and took a good, long look at him and the two Yakuts. The flame in the lantern cast strange lights and shadows across their faces as it danced in its little chamber. The gold buttons of the Yakutian parade coats shined even in that dim light, but half of each pony’s face was completely cast in the shadow of the night. Some ponies might have thought the sight of their commissar alone was unnerving enough, let alone that image half-shrouded in darkness. Of course Nastenka didn’t think that way. She knew very well that not every uniformed pony had to be feared. And even if they did, it was a different kind of fear than what had been known before the revolution. And that made all the difference.

The violet earth pony hopped off the troika, landing squarely on the dirt road. Stirrupskiy gave the order, and the crew in the harnesses started galloping off to Saddel’naya again. Nastenka sighed and began the walk to the train station. She pulled the platok over her head as the wind picked up once more. Autumn had just begun a couple of weeks ago, and the nights were already starting to become too cold to bear. Nastenka could only imagine how cold it would get later in the year when Mother Winter returned. This would be Mother Winter’s first time draping her mantle of ice over the Soviet republic; the previous winter, after all, belonged to an entirely different place.

As Nastenka approached Saddel’naya, she saw the familiar sights, illuminated by the electric lamps that hung around the station. There, at the left, was a little wooden building of three stories with a flat roof. It was the telegraph exchange. The only thing new about it was the poster that had been fixed to the façade between the third and second stories. It showed a surprised-looking pony working a telegraph being accosted by a second pony in a cadet’s uniform. The caption on the bottom read, “The new policy on communication is making our Republic secure.” And there to the right of the telegraph exchange was the ticket office, connected to the platform itself, at which the old locomotive had stopped. On the far side, by a little storehouse, the troika and wagon had been parked. Stirrupskiy and the Yakutian ponies had climbed out and were already speaking with a few officers. The crews that pulled the vehicles had left their harnesses and were talking and laughing amongst themselves. Several other ponies were walking along the platform, looking at the numbers on the cars in search of their wagon for the ride. On either end of the station, officers and cadets were standing and surveying the situation.

Nastenka plodded to the ticket office and walked through the open door. It looked just as she remembered; there was that same, plain room with white walls and tiny lamps that hung over three small rows of benches at the center. On the far side of the room were the ticket windows, and save for the unicorn behind the one window that was open, there was nopony else inside, save for an elderly stallion sitting on one of the seats.

Nastenka approached the little window behind which the mare in the blue uniform was sitting. “Good evening,” she said. The mare nodded. “The train outside will be leaving for Stalliongrad?”

“Yes. F37 to Stalliongrad.”

“Are there any seats left?” Nastenka inquired.

“Regular seating room is pretty empty. If you want a sleeper… I’ll have to check." The mare waved her horn and flipped through two or three pages of a large binder at her right. “Three open seats. In each case, you’re with three others.”

“I’ll take a sleeper.” Nastenka quickly said, pulling her pouch of stipend money out from the rucksack. The unicorn waved her horn again and tore a stub out of a different book, scribbled something on it, and stamped it.

“Wagon 6. Your bed is number 12. And make sure you have your passport ready before departure.”

Nastenka put the ticket in her rucksack and walked out the little door on the right side of the room. She took the three steps up at the end of the tiny hallway and emerged on the platform. The four officers at the doorway continued talking amongst themselves, but they were watching Nastenka as she made her way down the platform. The electric lights hanging from the posts were bright, and out in the distance one could see nothing but the black of night. The violet earth pony walked along, watching the wagon numbers decrease. Fourteen, thirteen, twelve, eleven…

Nastenka gasped and jumped back as the door to wagon ten was kicked open. A young cadet stormed out as the tails of his brown overcoat flapped in the breeze. He stomped over to the edge off the platform, looking over at where the commissar and his men were talking to the other officers.

“Pyotor!” the angry pony shouted into the night. Everypony on the ground turned to him. “That idiot won’t shut up. Can we just lock him up in a different car?”

“No, you can’t just lock him up in a different car!” shouted one of the stallions, presumably Pyotor. “Leave him unsupervised for five minutes and he’ll break out through the window or something.”

“You have a prisoner?” Stirrupskiy asked with surprise. He looked at the other officials with whom he had been conversing. “Why didn’t you say anything before?”

A second cadet, dressed like the one who had exited the train only moments prior, emerged slowly from wagon 10, dragging behind her a crystal pegasus whose wings and legs were sloppily but securely tied together with ropes. She pulled him across the rough, uneven boards of the platform to where the angry pony in the brown overcoat stood. Nastenka was frozen, waiting quietly by the wagon, watching the scene.

“He’s the most annoying one I’ve had the pleasure of meeting in a long while,” the second cadet spat, letting the rope drop from her mouth.

“What did he do?” Stirrupskiy asked.

“We caught this one stealing timetables and telegrams from the dockyard in Saddlestopol,” the female cadet explained. “We’re taking him to the Academy, where they’ll make him talk.”

“They won’t make me do ANYTHING!” the crystal pegasus shouted.

“Enough, filthy dog!” screamed the mare, giving the crystal pony a good, hard kick in the flank. She turned back to Stirrupskiy and the others on the ground. “We had to watch him all last night. If we can’t isolate him, what should we do instead?”

“Take him back in there and shut him up the hard way,” Pyotor called from the ground. “And if he’s still a problem, he can spend the night in my car, and I’ll give him the what-for.”

“Fine,” the mare said, grinning. She turned to the stallion. “Alright, Dima. Let’s set him straight.” Then she looked at the crystal pony, struggling on the platform and seething with rage. “Just you wait, comrade. This is just the rehearsal. The real show starts once you see what they’ll do to you at the Academy.”

The two brown-uniformed cadets dragged the crystal pegasus back across the platform and through the door of their wagon.

Nastenka was barely breathing. She hadn’t expected that at all. But then again, if Stirrupskiy and his compatriots were on this train, a good five or six wagons were probably devoted to state business, and all sorts of things were going on inside them. She shook off the whole episode as she continued down to wagon seven and climbed inside.

The violet pony found herself in the tiny, dimly lit hallway of the sleeper car, a standard feature of that staple of transportation between the great cities of Equusia. Like all the others, it was hot and stuffy and the hallway was wide enough so that two ponies could just barely fit past each other while they were walking. She followed the numbers on the wall until she saw the tiny card that read “9-12” and peeked inside the open doorway. The little room had four beds – a bottom bunk and a top bunk on either side of the door. On the left bottom bunk, a yellow mare was seated beside a small yellow colt that was presumably her son, and across from them on the right sat a stallion with odd features and an even stranger set of clothes.

“Good evening,” Nastenka said to the three ponies, who returned her greeting. “I have bed twelve.”

“It’s that one, above his bed,” the yellow mare told her. Nastenka grabbed her rucksack with her teeth. She was ready to chuck it up into the luggage compartment over the door, but after stepping into the room she saw it was packed full. She turned and placed it under the tiny table under the window in between the bunks, took off her coat, and then climbed into the top bunk on the right, using the hoofholds at the foot of the beds.

“You see?” said the stallion with the strange features as Nastenka stepped in the hoofholds, “There’s another one! I’ve seen her cutie mark before as well! How is it that so many ponies have the same cutie marks without even being related?”

“What? You’re talking about mine?” Nastenka asked, laying down on the firm cushion.

“Yes!” came the voice from the lower bunk. “It’s another grain sickle! It’s just like all the other ones I saw! How can that possibly be?”

It seemed that Nastenka’s hunch was right; he was a foreigner, and by the look on the yellow mare’s face, she could tell that he obviously hadn’t a single clue about life in the SSR.

“I already told you, comrade,” the yellow mare laughed. “It’s perfectly normal. It comes with what you do. Just like everyone else that lives and works on a collective farm, she’ll have a grain sickle on her flank. If a pony is a tailor, he’ll have one that looks like rolls of fabric. If you work in a zavod in the city, you’ll have an anvil or a wrench or a hammer or something else, all depending on what you do. My father flew with the Bashkirs’ Pegasus District, and his flank bore a red wing like all the other pegasi.”

“That’s amazing!” the stallion exclaimed. He had a strange-sounding accent that Nastenka found amusing. “You share identical cutie marks with those who work as you do!”

“No, comrade, I already told you, they’re NOT identical,” the mare corrected him. “They look similar, because they’re all showing the same thing, but they’re all still slightly different in some way. If you looked closely at that devushka’s cutie mark, and then you looked at the cutie mark of someone else from her farm, you’d see that they’re both grain sickles, but they’re just a tiny bit different.”

“That’s remarkable. Absolutely remarkable,” the stallion mumbled. “But let’s say a pony gives up his life in the country and decides to work in a factory in the city. Or perhaps he begins working as an officer, or for the Party? What will he do with the grain sickle cutie mark he gained from the farm?”

“Well, the cutie mark would change,” replied the yellow mare.

“It CHANGES?” the stallion gasped. The yellow mare chuckled and looked up at Nastenka. Her little colt looked rather amused as well.

“Our friend isn’t quite familiar with how things work around here,” the yellow mare laughed. “Just in case you didn’t figure that out.” She returned her gaze back down below Nastenka’s bunk. “So I said that my father had the red wing. Well, when he later finished his service and began working on a ship in Saddlestopol, the red wing became an anchor, just like the mark of all the other sailors.”

“Incredible! Just… incredible!” the stallion exclaimed in his strange accent. “Do you mind if I write some of this down? I can’t let myself forget these stories!” Nastenka heard him flipping through the pages of a pad or book.

“Where are you from, comrade?” Nastenka said to the stallion in the bunk below her. There was no response, just the soft sound of a pencil scribbling on paper.

“He’s traveled all this way from Canterlot,” the mare said, laughing. “My son and I had asked him all about it when we met him on the ride up from Saddlestopol.”

“Yes, I’m from Canterlot,” the stallion chimed in. “Sorry about that. I wasn’t ignoring you up there, my friend, I just needed to get my thoughts down.” The scribbling stopped. “I say, that’s absolutely remarkable. It changes based on profession!”

Nastenka heard the bed below her squeak and shift. The stallion stood up in the center of the little room and turned to see over the edge of Nastenka’s bunk.

“You’ll forgive me for not properly introducing myself,” the stallion said. “Everett Wordsworth. And you are… Miss…?”

“Nastenka,” she answered.

“Nastenka…” Everett repeated, waiting for her to give her full name.

“Nastenka Dmitrievna Trotova. But ‘Nastenka’ is just fine.”

“Charmed.” The stallion again took his seat on the bunk below Nastenka, who now was looking right at the yellow mare on the other side of the room.

“Unlike our new friend here,” the mare laughed, “I don’t have such an exotic name. Maria Feodorovna Lusitanova. And this is my boy, Misha.”

“It is a pleasure,” Nastenka replied. She brought her head to the edge of the bunk and asked, “So, comrade Wordsworth. Tell me, what brings you so far from home?”

“My dear, the Canterlot academic community has come to find itself extremely interested in Soviet Equestria. It’s the ‘hot topic,’ if you will. It began when the news had reached Canterlot of Saphirov III’s abdication,” Everett pontificated. “The library is abuzz with the new theses that the faculty and students alike are preparing, but as we’ve been looking at our source material, we’re finding that it’s woefully limited. As a professor and a journalist, I’m doing my part for our departments at the University by spending sabbatical in your SSR to learn all I can about all the events that had transpired over the last year and a half, as well as your new soviet-structured society.”

“You got him started again, Nastenka Dmitrievna,” Maria sighed. “Misha and I heard this all back in Saddlestopol, almost word for word.”

“You’ll forgive me, Maria,” Everett said nervously, “but it’s a fault of mine, these ramblings and such.”

“All the way from Canterlot. Wow,” Nastenka mused. “I imagine it must be very beautiful. Have you ever seen the princesses?”

“Their Majesties Princess Celestia and Luna?” Everett said. “Of course! I’ve received an award from Princess Celestia herself for some of my work.”

It was strange for both Nastenka and Maria to hear someone speak so highly of royalty. There he was, a professor from Canterlot, talking with such pride about his audience with the princesses and the award with which they presented him. Royalty of the Crystal Empire had been the sworn enemy of the republic from the very day it was born in Stalliongrad. A royal was an oppressor, a villain, and a puppet master. The Party denounced the principle of monarchy again and again in the addresses of various members of the Council of Soviets; the monarchy was the old, obsolete system that strangled and oppressed the masses. Somepony like young Misha most probably did not even remember very much about life before the Party proclaimed the new Republic, and he was raised with the notion that monarchist society was the bane of every mare and stallion.

Of course, there was not much said about the Equestria-wide reign of Celestia and Luna, as the Crystal Empire was the true enemy. Before the revolution, it was a generally held belief among the Equusians that Princess Celestia was a benevolent and just leader. It was only the Crystal Empire that treated its subjects so cruelly. But then, after the rise of the Party, the new rhetoric began to spread, and by this logic of the Party and its intelligentsia, the crystal hierarchy and the entire system by which Equestria was governed were one and the same – a vestige of a dead era, and a threat to the people.

“And for how long were you in Saddlestopol?” Nastenka asked the professor.

“Four days while my transit papers were processed. I was fortunate that I came when I did. I entered the checkpoint in Saddlestopol to find that the war had ended a few days prior. En route to the SSR, I thought I was going to find myself in the middle of a warzone. Nopony in Canterlot had anticipated that the war was about to reach its end.”

“And you wanted to come all the way out here, despite the raging battles in the north?” Nastenka asked. “You weren’t afraid?”

“Of course not, my dear,” Everett said proudly. “I am a scholar. I must take such risks. I am not afraid of these dangers, for I have the most powerful weapon of all – knowledge!”

A series of loud bangs on the wall suddenly erupted from the hallway, making an unsuspecting Everett Wordsworth jump with a shriek and land on the floor. The train attendant for the car poked her head through the open door.

“The officers are ready and will board shortly. Get your passports out. Don’t make them wait,” the attendant bellowed as she passed the doorway to bang on the wall outside of the next room. Nastenka and Maria looked at Everett curled up in a little ball on the floor, quivering, and burst out laughing.

“Did you hear him? He’s not afraid of danger, just the railroad workers!” Maria snickered.

“She caught me off guard!” Everett rebutted, scrambling back into his bunk.

The ponies reached into their bags for their passports while Maria tried to stop laughing at Everett Wordsworth over his little episode.

Two black-uniformed unicorns sporting badges and epaulettes arrived at the door, blocking entry or exit. The one on the left was a stallion of tinier build with a very thin face. The mare by his side towered over him, and her hat made her appear taller still. Suddenly, the uncomfortably hot train compartment felt all the more uncomfortable as the officers stared down the ponies as they sat on their beds. The silence was unnerving – especially so for Everett. It was but one of the variety of instances in the Motherland in which ponies found themselves afraid of consequence despite the fact that they hadn’t done anything wrong – they merely boarded a train.

“Documents,” the female officer stated. Maria was the first to hand over her red passport. The officer’s horn glowed as the passport floated over to her and opened. The two officials looked at the stamps, dates, name, and validation scribbled inside. It was a tense moment. If the slightest thing was wrong with your documentation, it could have meant trouble.

“Lean into the light, please,” the short stallion ordered. “I can’t see you well enough.” Maria complied, leaning out from under the shadow of the empty bunk above her. The two unicorns looked at Maria, glanced at the photo, and then at Maria again.

“Show your cutie mark, please.” The female officer stated. Maria again followed orders, standing up and showing the red cross and syringe on her flank. It showed that she was a nurse working under the new national healthcare system. “Thank you.” The passport was returned to the yellow mare, who sat down.

“Is that your son?” the shorter unicorn asked. Maria nodded. “Where is his passport?”

“He’s too young to have one. Still a blank-flank.”

“Stand in the light, boy.” Misha stood where his mother had just before showed her cutie mark to the officers. There was no cutie mark to be seen, and he was told to sit back down.

“Returning home?” the male unicorn asked Maria, who nodded.

Nastenka’s passport was taken right out of her teeth by the female officer who began looking through the information inside. Since Nastenka was in the light on the top bunk and her cutie mark was clearly visible, she was not asked to move.

“Why are you going to Stalliongrad?” the female officer asked.

“My husband is returning from Foalgograd,” Nastenka answered. “He’s arriving with the Kalmuks and I’m meeting him in the city.”

“Remove your platok, please.” Nastenka did as she was told and her photograph in the passport was scrutinized again.

“A Kalmuk, you said?”

“Yes.”

“I’m sure he’ll be happy to be back home.” The red passport was returned to Nastenka, who put it in her rucksack. The officers looked at Everett Wordsworth.

“Documents.”

“Of course, officers, right there on the table,” Everett said, trying to remain calm as his voice quivered. The two unicorns looked at the little black booklet on the table. It wasn’t a passport; it was a transit visa. The officers groaned.

“Figures. It can never be simple. There’s always one,” the short unicorn grumbled. He waved his horn and drew from the small pack on his back a book, stamp, and a pencil. His counterpart waved her horn and took the visa. Everett was sweating like a pig.

“Well, well, look at this! Canterlot! Aren’t we special,” she mocked. “You’ve come quite a long way, comrade. Hmm. Entry ticket… the dates look okay… Says the foreign sponsor is the Canterlot Academy of Political Science.”

“That’s right,” Everett replied.

“But who is the domestic sponsor?” the female officer questioned, eyes narrowing.

“The… State Institute of Stalliongrad,” Everett stuttered.

“Well why isn’t that written here!?” she roared. “Why is the field blank?”

“I um…” Everett mumbled. “I guess I must have… accidentally missed that part.” She waved her horn and chucked the visa back on the table.

“Fill that in. Now. It has to be in your handwriting,” the officer snapped. Everett quickly did as she was told and the unicorn took the visa again, holding it where both officers could read it. The shorter unicorn opened the book that was floating by his side and began to take down the information into the tiny fields on the page.

“What’s this… Wordsworth?” the officer asked, rolling his eyes. “The names get stranger every time.” He continued to pen down the information. “Six… four… three… zero… zero… Why do these numbers have to be so obnoxiously long?” Another few moments passed in silence. “Statement of intent… sabbatical… okay. Staying for two months?”

“Yes, officer.”

“Right. Okay, lean out into the light.” Everett did as he was told. “Show your cutie mark.” Everett stood and lifted the tail of his jacket, showing an image of a stack of yellowed books on his flank. All four of his legs were shaking ever so slightly. “Alright.” The officer stamped the visa, tore out a tiny part of the entry ticket.

“Listen, comrade, don’t lose the other half of this entry ticket,” the short unicorn warned. “They’re going to take this from you when you leave Stalliongrad. If you don’t have this when you board the train, the police will assume that you entered the Republic illegally. And believe me, nothing good will come of that.” He penciled something else into the book. “I take it you still have the one from Saddlestopol?” Everett nodded meekly. “Good. Don’t lose that one, either.” The officer wrote in the book again.

“I have to say, you speak the language rather well,” the female officer admitted. “You’ve studied it for a while, then?”

“Why, yes!” Everett’s ears perked up as he suddenly became less nervous. “I’ve devoted the last few months to learning your language. The differences between our tongue and yours aren’t all that difficult to wrap your head around, you know. In fact, it’s actually strikingly coincidental that-”

“Shut up,” the officers grunted in unison as Everett’s ears drooped again. He plopped back down on his bunk. Maria and Misha started giggling quietly.

“I didn’t ask for a dissertation, professor,” the female officer scorned.

The shorter unicorn finished with the book and returned it to the pack on his back with the stamp and the pencil. The taller unicorn returned the visa to the table.

“Last question,” the unicorn asked as both officers leaned further into the room. “What baggage have you taken along with you?” Nastenka pointed to her rucksack. Maria and Misha said that they had the one brown suitcase up in the compartment above the door.

The shorter unicorn groaned, slapping his forehead with his hoof as he looked at the rest of the suitcases in the compartment. “So that means that comrade Canterlot over here brought the rest of this junk? There are at least four more bags up there!”

“Well it’s nothing out of the ordinary, officer, just my notes, texts, translations, some clothes-” Everett began but was cut short again as the male unicorn raised his hoof.

“I don’t care. There’s too much there to let it go unquestioned.” His horn glowed again as the journal was pulled back out of the pack and a note was made inside it. A red tag was then pulled from the side pouch of the pack and was pinned on one of the suitcases. “This baggage is subject to search at the railway station in Stalliongrad. Alert any officer once you’re there and they’ll go through the process with you inside one of the processing rooms. And don’t even think about trying to slip by without surrendering the items for a search. We’ll send a telegraph ahead to the station and let them know to expect you and all of your junk.”

“But I already got searched in Saddlestopol!” Everett cried. “I even have the stub from their baggage inspection to prove it!”

“Well you’re getting searched again, comrade,” the female unicorn snapped. “Who knows what you could have put in these suitcases between the initial check and now.”

The male officer returned the journal to his pack. “Well, comrades,” he announced, “it seems as if everything is squared away. And as for you, comrade Wordsworth,” he said, pointing to the professor with a stern look on his face, “I’d like to remind you that you are more fortunate than you could ever know. You understand, you’ve arrived in our country during what are probably the most pivotal days of not only our history, but the history of Equestria. The Crystal Dogs have been sent away, and our Republic is celebrating the solidification of our new society. For that, we have ponies like Comrade Trotova to thank for providing us with nourishment in a time of shortages. And of course there are ponies like her husband and the rest of the Kalmuks to thank for fighting back the Empire in Foalgograd. This selfless service for the good of one’s fellow ponies is something you foreigners don’t understand or appreciate. There are only a few outsiders that are lucky enough to be here during these glorious days as you are, to witness what you shall witness.” The officer paused, staring straight into the professor’s wide eyes. “And these beautiful days… they are only the beginning. For you see, comrade, the revolution is still young.” The officers backed out of the little room, looked at the professor for one last time, and moved on to the next set of passengers.

Maria Lusitanova attempted to mollify the quivering professor as young Misha was already climbing up into his top bunk. Nastenka wasn’t really paying attention to what the three other ponies were doing. When the short unicorn mentioned Leonid and the Kalmuks, Nastenka’s thoughts started to drift again. She again remembered the reason why she asked Stirrupskiy to take her along with him on their bumpy troika ride in the middle of the night to Saddel’naya, where she bought a ticket to board a hot, stuffy train bound for Stalliongrad.

There she was, less than a day away from seeing her Leonid. Though he left on the train for Foalgograd more than a year ago, she remembered it like it was yesterday. And despite the fact that the long, miserable months between that pivotal afternoon and the evening she was living on the train were filled with loneliness, listlessness, depression, and darkness, she suddenly thought that it didn’t seem like it had been such a long time. For it was all behind her now, and when she tried to think back, she couldn’t believe how much of a blur the previous year now was in her mind. Such is the peculiar nature of retrospective thinking.

She found herself saying once more that her friend Sergei might have been right all along. He might have been spot-on when he said that all a pony needed was hope, for hope was the one thing she couldn’t be stripped of. But who could have blamed Nastenka for being without hope for so many days, especially after all communications with the military had been forbidden due to fear of espionage? Who could have blamed her for her decision to just carry on, day by day, refusing to waste energy on hope when it all could have come crashing down in the end, had the war been lost and the troops all been slaughtered by merciless crystal blades? And if she was hopeful, would that have helped her through those trying days, tracing the grain on the old tables as she imagined each one may have been her own lifeline? At the same time, she found herself saying that it didn’t matter anymore, because the dawn for which she had been waiting was hours away.

Nastenka thought of that old song, “I’ll See You in My Sunrise,” a tune that was nearly meaningless to her until Leonid spoke of it that day on the platform. She never managed to see her husband in the morning light as he claimed she could, but she couldn’t help but think that somehow it was that song alone that enabled her to continue on day after day, working with the grain sickle in the fields and loading up the collection wagons. Perhaps as she sang the lyrics to herself as she labored on the farm and walked along the stretches of fields, that song became the hope that enabled her to push forward, through the uncertainty and fear. But that issue also didn’t matter anymore. After one last night alone, she’d not need to search for Leonid in the sunrise, for she’d be looking right into his eyes.

“It’s almost time, Leonid,” she whispered aloud. “Soon, I’ll meet you in Stalliongrad.”

* * *

Nastenka blinked. When was she finally going to go to sleep? She looked around her as she adjusted the covers and changed her position on the firm cushion. Something suddenly seemed strange about her little compartment on the sixth wagon of train F37 from Saddel’naya to Stalliongrad. The room just didn’t look quite right. But what was it?

Misha wasn’t in his bunk, but he probably had crawled into bed with his mother. All the luggage was still up in the compartment, and the rucksack Nastenka brought was still situated on the far end of the bed. The train swayed slightly from left to right as it rolled along, bumping and clicking as it hit different segments of track. Nastenka kept wondering what looked so different about her room. The violet pony sat up to fluff her tiny pillow, and froze when she knew what looked so strange.

It was the window. Or, rather, it was the morning light shining in through the window. Nastenka hadn’t blinked… she had fallen asleep. And for the first time in months, she hadn’t been haunted by the recurring nightmare.

“Mama!” she heard from the floor beneath her. She looked down to find little Misha bolt into the room from the hallway and start shaking his mother awake. “Mama, look! We’re home!” Maria stirred in her bunk, yawning and stretching. Misha turned, looked through the door and ran back out into the hallway. Nastenka jumped off her bunk and landed on the hard floor of the tiny room and followed the young colt through the door, leaving the two other ponies stirring in their beds.

The hallway was tightly packed with the passengers from the other compartments that were already awake and stretching their legs. Most of them were huddled around the windows, trying to squeeze around each other for a better view. And there was little Misha, standing up on his hind legs, hooves pressed up against the window he had all to himself in the middle of the hallway. Nastenka walked up behind him and peered through the glass.

Moving by were the beautiful facades of the old buildings of Stalliongrad, with the figures carved into the stones and the arches and patterns above and around the windows. In the distance rose the towering chimneys of the factories and plants from which smoke was already pouring. There were the bustling streets, filled with pedestrians and troikas going this way and that in the never-ending metropolitan rush. Among them were the factory workers, the shopkeepers, the young children playing, and the officers and soldiers, marching about in their pristine uniforms. It was all just as Nastenka remembered, except for something that hadn’t been there when she was a filly.

It was the undulating sea of red. From the balconies, the rooftops, the lampposts, and the shop fronts hung magnificent red flags and banners that blew softly in the morning wind, bearing messages of victory and brilliant golden emblems of the hammer crossed with the grain sickle.

“Glory to the defenders of the SSR!” read one.

“For our free Motherland!” read another.

“Our city on the Foalga lives!” read another still.

And above the banners and flags that covered the lively city, the sun had already risen past the rooftops of the buildings, basking all of Stalliongrad in a glorious sea of light.

And young Misha looked up at Nastenka with a toothy smile on his face.

“Isn’t the sunrise so pretty?”

Nastenka, wiping away the tears that were falling from the corners of her eyes, laughed and said,

“It is, Misha. It’s the most beautiful sunrise I’ve seen in a very long time.”

Chapter 4: I'll See You in My Sunrise

Saddlestopol’skaya Railway Station (colloquially referred to as Stopol’skaya) was the destination for all Stalliongrad-bound trains heading east or north from Saddlestopol, the neighboring coastal towns, and the rural areas to the south. Usually, it was not possible to ride a train through the stop at the station and continue on to one of the northern or eastern cities. If somepony wanted to travel farther, he’d have to make his way through Stalliongrad’s center, usually by troika if he had too much luggage to carry, to one of the other three stations – Foalgogradskaya, Maremanskaya, or Kristallskaya. For whatever reason, Kristallskaya (“Crystal”) Station had not been renamed in the wake of the revolution, and nopony was sure when or if it was going to get a new name. It was one of the few crystalline structures in Stalliongrad that had been constructed before Saphirov’s “beautification” and it was undeniably one of the city’s most iconic buildings. Formerly, it received trains that came from deep within the Crystal Empire. Now, departures would go to a number of endpoints on the eastern border, but not beyond.

The four railway stations were situated at different points along what was considered the edge of the city center, the oldest and most densely populated district at the very heart of Stalliongrad. It was here where the metropolis saw its humble beginnings many years ago, when it was nothing more than a collection of small structures and its kreml’, the fort that still stood among the newer buildings. The city center was divided into halves by Stallions’ Prospekt, the wide, main street, along which stood the municipal complexes, the Stalliongrad Military Academy, the former palaces of the Breiyars, the old library, and some state-controlled enterprises, among countless other things. The midpoint of Stallions’ Prospekt was a magnificent plaza that was formerly known as Sapphire Square. It was the square before the Sapphire Palace, the very same square that saw the protests that ousted Saphirov III and the proclamation of the new society. The palace had since been nationalized, and the plaza was renamed Victors’ Square in honor of those ponies that fought back the imperial soldiers during the revolutionary weeks.

Nastenka Trotova stood silently in the square on that beautiful morning, in awe of how much it had changed since she had seen it in her younger days. The palace was adorned with those ever-present red flags, and where the seal of the Crystal Empire once rested at the center of the highest story, a refulgent golden sculpture of the hammer and grain sickle sparkled in the morning light. The archway over the doors to the main vestibule now bore lettering that read: “The Great Hall of the Council of Ministers of Soviet Equestria.” The statue that formerly stood at the square’s center – the massive sculpture of a wise-looking king seated atop a throne made of precious gems – was now gone, and in its place was a new monument, a more humble-looking set of three stone ponies on a short pedestal. The tallest of the three ponies, the one at the center, was a soldier. At the soldier’s left was a metalworker with a hood-mask costume, and at the soldier’s right was a farmer in traditional country clothes with a wheat bushel by her hooves. Rows and rows of soldiers stood in the square, beneath the red flags and streamers that hung from every lamp post. Among the soldiers was the band of the Bashkir Military District and their brass instruments, playing a mix of famous marching tunes that had been composed decades ago and newer compositions that had only been written in the last year and a half. The whole square simply seemed to be more alive than ever before as the citizens passed this way and that under the watchful eyes of the officers, chattering about anything and everything from the victory celebrations to what the young fillies and colts were to be studying under the new educational guidelines of the national schooling system.

There she was, the young, violet mare with the platok from the rural regions of the south, standing before the tightly-packed buildings that surrounded Victors' Square, as the urbanites hurried past. There was Nastenka Trotova, eyes bright and wide as she found herself at the center of it all, on the grounds that saw the demonstrations that took place almost a year and a half prior that would forever change the course of history. And while it would seem to a resident of Manehattan or Canterlot that Nastenka was confused and alone – a country pony from the farms standing silently among the crowds of an unfamiliar city – this simply wasn’t the case. For Stalliongrad was not like Manehattan or Canterlot, where the outsider was just a pony that didn’t fit the paradigm. Stalliongrad was different, characterized by ageless sentiments that existed during the imperial days. But since the revolution, these attitudes increased tenfold. In Stalliongrad, whether you came from the coastline, the bitter, glacial north, or the simpler life of the farms and villages, you could enter the city alone and suddenly find yourself among your counterparts, your colleagues, your friends – your comrades, with whom you worked together for the future and glory of the republic, and for the good of all.

After taking one last look at the activity before the palace, Nastenka turned and started making her way back to Stallions’ Prospekt with a smile on her face and spring in her step, keeping time with the lively march being played by the Bashkir ponies. She walked along, passing the crowds walking back toward the square, the young colts in the Party’s youth organization that were giving out the state newspapers, the ever-vigilant police, and the ponies that were just standing and talking, taking in the fine day. She stopped to ask an old stallion seated on a bench for directions to Foalgogradskaya Railway Station. He said that it wasn’t much more than a fifteen minute walk from where she was, continuing along Stallions’ Prospekt and then cutting northeast at the intersection with Coltirev Boulevard.

It was shortly after she finished talking to the elderly pony that Nastenka realized she didn’t quite know what her next move would be after finding the train station. She could only laugh at herself. Making the choice to come to Stalliongrad was far more emotional than it had been rational, and she hadn’t really given any thought to the logistics of the journey beyond arriving in the city. It finally struck her that looking for Leonid was going to be more difficult than she had anticipated. How could it have been as simple as waltzing into Stalliongrad and finding him? She didn’t know the layout of Foalgogradskaya Railway Station. She didn’t know the precise time at which her husband’s train was going to arrive. And remembering what Stirrupskiy said, she had no way of knowing if Leonid’s train was arriving on that day, the morning of the following day, or if it had already arrived the night before.

Things will work out, Nastenka told herself. They have to. I’ve had such luck getting this far. I can’t just throw my hooves up now, after I’ve come all this way. I’ll wait at that train station all day if I must. I’ll wait for every last train that comes through. And if I somehow miss Leonid, or if he has already arrived, or if he won’t be in the city until tomorrow morning, then I’ll find him during the victory celebrations. Somehow. I said I’d meet him in Stalliongrad, and that’s just what I’m going to do.

Nastenka turned the corner at the intersection with Coltirev Boulevard and walked on. The buildings around her looked far more humble than those on Stallions’ Prospekt. They were the communal apartments that characterized the new standard in the cities. They weren’t in the best condition, but they were certainly livable. It was the way that housing was provided to everypony in the cities under the Soviet system, without taxes to drain monthly stipends. Canterlot ponies would shudder at the thought of living in such places. To them, Stalliongrad was not beautiful, but pitiful. But it did have beauty – just not in the classical sense. It was beauty for which one needed to search thoroughly, that one needed to see not just in the facades of the communal apartments, but in the life that existed behind their walls.

Down the streets of the workers’ quarter Nastenka strode along, occasionally letting her eyes rest on the sets of posters that had been hung by the doors and windows. There was the one that showed the new conscripts training in the Academy. Across the way was another, showing muscular stallions and mares working tirelessly in the factory. There was one that she had seen before at Saddel’naya and on some of the other collective farms – the image of three fillies looking out over a balustrade on the water in Saddlestopol, with the caption that read “With every passing day, the future looks even brighter.” But none of them were as striking as the one picture she saw as she drew nearer to Foalgogradskaya.

A massive mural had been painted on the brick face of a building showing the backside of a crystal legionnaire, covered in armor, bearing a blood-soaked sword in his teeth. Across from him, backed into the corner of a tiny room, was a mare clutching her screaming baby foal. The look in her eyes was ghastly – it was the hopeless, confused gaze of a pony that knew she had seconds to live. Across the bottom of the mural, in bright red lettering, was a question: “Should anypony know such a fate?” Nastenka shuddered, but couldn’t look away. It was the way the eyes were painted. The mare was looking at the swordsman, but at the same time, she was watching the observer, begging for help. Nastenka only broke free of the mural’s gaze when it was too far behind her to properly see.

Off to the right, standing by a tall, gated archway that led through to the apartments off the street, two earth ponies clad in soot-stained smocks and trousers were watching the passers-by on the sidewalk. Beginning to question the elderly stallion’s directions from before, she figured she’d ask them if she was actually heading toward Foalgogradskaya.

“Excuse me, comrades,” Nastenka began, as the two stallions turned and looked at her with interested expressions. “Could I bother the two of you with a question?”

The orange stallion, chin covered in stubble, studied Nastenka all over, from face to legs to tail. “Of course. For you, devushka, it’s no bother at all,” he said, as the other stallion smiled.

“I’m looking for Foalgogradskaya Station,” Nastenka went on. “Somepony gave me directions before but I’m not really sure where I’m going. How close am I?”

“You’re heading the right way, but it’s still a good walk,” the yellow stallion said. His eyes were fixed on Nastenka’s platok. “Long way from home, comrade?”

“I am. This is my first time in the city in years. I live in the south. On the collectives by Saddel’naya. Well, not right by Saddel’naya, but in the region.” The two stallions looked at each other.

“Saddel’naya,” one of them said, shaking his head. “What a hike. I mean, you could be even further out, sure, but… what a hike.” He turned to Nastenka. “And you came alone?”

“Yes, but I had some help from friends along the way,” she said with a thoughtful smile. “Unfortunately, comrades, I need to hurry along. If I follow this street, will it take me right to Foalgogradskaya?”

“It will. But you have quite a few more blocks to walk,” said the yellow stallion, looking down the road to the northeast. “It’ll be on the left.”

“Perfect. Thank you so much. Best of luck,” Nastenka said, proceeding up the street with a joyful gait. The two stallions watched her as she went, passing building after building as she made her way to the station.

“She’s absolutely gorgeous,” the orange stallion mumbled to his friend.

“She’s an angel,” the other agreed.

“What do you think she’s doing at Folgogradskaya?”

“Beats me. But I wish I could follow her and find out.”

So Nastenka pressed onward, heading northeast on Coltirev Boulevard, traveling deeper into the workers' district. She wondered what it would be like to call such a place home. Life in the communal apartments would give a pony even less space than Nastenka had in her tiny country house. But at the same time, Nastenka thought she’d have found it interesting to be living with so many others. Everypony had his or her own unique story, after all. Now, if there were a group of ponies in every apartment, and however many apartments on each floor, and however many floors in each building… and then if that setup were put into every building on Coltirev Boulevard alone… There could not conceivably be a library in existence that was large enough to hold all the stories of the denizens of Stalliongrad, each one with its own idiosyncrasies and hallmarks. And that was something that fascinated Nastenka. Though, at the same time, it was something she found herself almost completely unable to comprehend.

But as quickly as Nastenka began pondering this characteristic of life in Stalliongrad, she let those thoughts disappear into the back of her mind. She found herself before the tall columns and windows of the entrance hall to the old Foalgogradskaya Railway Station, a structure that stood majestically before the tiny plaza off Coltirev Boulevard, yet at the same time looked horribly unremarkable. It was the train station that connected Stalliongrad with the cold northern regions. It had seen countless sets of hooves on its steps, through its vestibules, and across its platforms. In the most recent year, it saw the majority of the troop movements to the north during wartime. The train tracks from Foalgogradskaya were the lifelines that provided the Red Army with supplies, information, and reinforcements. Most importantly of all, it provided the citizens of Foalgograd with that one indispensable resource – hope. To the ponies in the occupied city, it was the gateway through which the liberators were marching to save them from the clutches of the Crystalline Menace. At the same time, to the northbound reinforcements that came to aid the Kalmuks and the Yakuts, Foalgogradskaya was the gaping mouth to the dark caverns of uncertainty. Most of the ponies that were being mobilized to the front lines knew little more than just how dire the situation in Foalgograd had become. They were afraid of what they might step off the train to see. They were afraid that they might leave for the north and never return.

Nastenka climbed the steps that saw those countless sets of hooves and marched past the massive columns that supported the projections from the roof. She approached the guards standing by the big, windowless doors and asked them where she could wait for those ponies that were leaving from the incoming trains. One officer told her that she could head through the vestibule, go through a routine search, and proceed to the platforms out back, or she could wait in the plaza, as anypony entering or leaving the station would have to use the plaza doors as their entrance or exit. Worrying that she might miss Leonid if she had to weave her way through the crowds in the station, Nastenka decided it would be best to wait in the plaza and watch the doors. She thanked the officers, climbed back down the stairs, and took a seat on one of the little stone benches that faced the train station, placing her rucksack by her side.

For the violet mare in the matching platok and coat, the hard work was finally over. She had made her way to Stalliongrad, found the railway station, and positioned herself before the stairs down which Leonid would have to walk to leave Foalgogradskaya. The miserable stretch of separation was finally about to come to a close right there, in the plaza, under the bright sunshine of a beautiful day in Stalliongrad, the heart of Soviet Equestria. Now all she had to do was wait for her husband to leave the train station. And when she saw him, she’d call to him, and when he saw her, they would embrace, as they had waited to do since the cold morning at Saddel’naya.

Nastenka grabbed an apple from the rucksack and bit into it, watching the doors of Foalgogradskaya, occasionally letting her gaze drift to pigeons, the clouds, and the other ponies that were sitting in the tiny plaza before the train station. At that point, it was a waiting game, and she was prepared to wait. The surprise was worth the wait, after all.

Twenty uneventful minutes passed, and then she saw them – the Kalmuks, in their signature brown overcoats with the crimson trim and gold buttons – leaving through the station’s doors. They all looked ecstatic to return from battle, but at the same time they were tired and forlorn. The uniforms weren’t pristine like they had been at Saddel’naya those many months ago. But that was to be expected. Nastenka’s heart began to pound as she sat straight up, looking at the faces of the soldiers, trying to find her Leonid among them. Leonid was a red stallion, so she could ignore the ponies with hair and manes of any other color. All she had to do was find the red stallion with a lieutenant’s visor and an appreciable amount of decorations on his overcoat. Fortunately, it looked as if only one of the sets of doors to the station were unlocked, so the mass of soldiers couldn’t all rush out at once, and that made it considerably easier for Nastenka to survey the crowd.

A single train could hold several hundred ponies, so it was no surprise that so many kept emerging from the doorway. Every time Nastenka saw a red stallion, her ears perked up and she held her breath, only to sigh as she realized it wasn’t Leonid. And when the last two Kalmuks walked through the doorway and hurried down the stairs to catch up with their group, Nastenka slumped in her seat and looked at the ground. But seconds later she straightened up.

“I can’t lose heart now. Figures he wouldn’t be among the first group I saw,” Nastenka mumbled aloud. “That would have been far too simple. How could I have let myself believe it was that easy? What would the chances have been? There are probably so many trains coming in today...” Nastenka turned and watched the Kalmuks from behind as they slowly disappeared one by one around the corner of the buildings on Coltirev Boulevard. She shook her head. “But I wonder how many trains I’ve already missed.”

Nastenka continued to sit and wait on the stone bench before the railway station, and before too long another cavalcade of Kalmuks left Foalgogradskaya, exiting through the central doors as the first group had done. The relieved but weary soldiers climbed down the steps as their backpacks bounced all the way down. The violet mare on the tiny bench was again watching, waiting, and holding her breath as she searched for her husband among them.

But Leonid was nowhere to be found.

So Nastenka waited. And waited. And waited. And waited still. She lost track of how many trains had arrived. The Kalmuks kept coming in, occasionally separated by lines of green-uniformed Yakutian ponies. Each crowd was simply another group without Leonid. The minutes ticked by, slowly turning into hours as the sun made its way across the clear sky. High noon had long since passed, and the train station’s shadow had grown closer and closer to Nastenka’s hooves until it met and went beyond her, eventually shrouding almost the entire plaza from the evening sun. The guards at the door had been observing her from afar since she spoke with them earlier in the day. Every time the officers finished talking or watching the soldiers as they filed past, they would look back into the plaza to see the violet pony, still on the same spot, as she intently examined the Kalmuks and dropped her head when they passed.

Hours later, after it had gotten very late, the foot traffic in the plaza had almost completely disappeared. But the gloomy violet pony remained, sitting alone, waiting.

“Hey, look,” said the one of the officers by the door. His counterpart followed his gaze. “It’s the girl. She’s still there.” The other shook his head.

“Wow. She’s been sitting there like that since the middle of the day. You think she’s alright?” asked the second officer.

“She doesn’t look alright.” They stood and watched her in silence for a few minutes.

“What did the girl say to you before, Yuriy?” asked the black pegasus, the shorter of the two officers.

“She asked me where she could wait for the passengers disembarking from the inbound trains,” answered the tan unicorn, staring intently at Nastenka.

“So she’s been expecting an arrival? This whole time?”

“That's what it looks like.” The tan unicorn turned to his counterpart. “I’m going to go see how she’s doing. Shift’s almost over, anyway.”

“Mmh. Okay, Yuriy. I’ve got the doors.”

Nastenka Trotova sighed and slouched in her seat as she stared into the paving stones, letting her front hooves rest in her lap. She wondered if there would be any more trains coming in from Foalgograd that day, or, rather, what little was left of it. The day’s events were not those for which she had hoped, and she could do nothing but scold herself again for thinking that finding Leonid would be so simple. She could have missed Leonid among the crowds. He could have arrived earlier in the day, or even the day before. He still could have been on a train that wouldn’t come in until the next day. She’d have to try to find him during the victory celebrations. But wouldn’t that too be near-impossible? How could she find him among the hundreds of thousands – if not millions – of ponies that would fill the streets for the speeches, the ceremonies, and the festivities? Her heart began to ache again as she realized she’d have to go without her husband for another night, if not longer. That, in turn, made Nastenka start worrying about where she’d end up spending the night. Perhaps a group in an apartment on Coltirev Boulevard could accommodate her. Then she wouldn’t need to buy a room at a hotel and spend any more of her stipend.

“Hello again.”

The voice surprised Nastenka, who jumped in her seat as she looked up to see the tan unicorn in the militsiya uniform with whom she had briefly talked earlier in the day.

“Excuse me, officer,” Nastenka breathed, “you startled me.”

“Then excuse me, devushka. I didn’t mean to.” The tan unicorn looked beyond Nastenka to Coltirev Boulevard, as the red and orange rays of the setting sun painted the building facades. “You’ve been sitting here for quite a while. Are you alright?”

“I am, officer, thank you,” Nastenka said softly, looking again at the paving stones.

“Somehow I’m getting the feeling that you’re not. May I sit down?” Nastenka’s head shot back up as she locked eyes with the unicorn. She hadn’t expected him to say that.

“Um. Certainly,” Nastenka told the officer, sliding closer to her rucksack to clear space on the bench.

The tan unicorn turned and sat beside her, looking up at the doorway of Foalgogradskaya at the other guard. He didn’t say or do anything for a few seconds. Then his horn began to glow as a pack of cigarettes and a matchbook floated out of his pocket. He offered one to Nastenka, who politely declined. So he shrugged, removing a cigarette from the box and lighting it with one of the matches. Returning the pack and matchbook to his pocket, he took a drag and slowly exhaled.

“It’s such a beautiful evening, isn’t it?” he asked, turning to face her. Nastenka was watching him with uncertainty in her eyes. She said nothing. The officer laughed. “Don’t look at me like that, devushka. I don’t bite. And I don’t want to have to keep calling you devushka. What’s your name?”

“Nastenka Dmitrievna Trotova.”

“Excellent. And I am Yuriy Ivanovich Canterskiy. There, isn’t it better once we’re formally introduced?”

Nastenka didn’t know what to say. She had no idea why this stallion was sitting beside her and talking. She could only nod and return Canterskiy’s gaze. The officer took another drag on his burning cigarette and blew a cloud of smoke into the evening air. It was growing even darker now, and the pallet of colors in the sky and on the buildings was changing again.

“Let me tell you something, Nastenka Dmitrievna,” the unicorn began, letting his eyes rest on Foalgogradskaya. “For the last seven years of duty, my post has remained principally within or around this train station. I’ve been hanging around here long before the revolutionary days, and I’ve seen how things have changed over the course of all that time.” He brought the cigarette to his mouth again and took a couple of quick puffs, bringing his hoof up to scratch his chin.

“But one thing hasn’t changed, Nastenka Dmitrievna,” he went on. “There are the ponies that sit and wait for the arrivals. Whether they’re on the platform, waiting in the vestibule, or sitting out here, there is always somepony waiting for somepony else. Today, that somepony ended up being you.” He paused to take another drag on the cigarette and flick the ash onto the ground. “I’ve seen many ponies like you over the years, some of them on the exact spot you’re sitting now. I always wonder to myself, every time I see them, who or what they’re waiting for. I asked you earlier if you were alright, you told me you were. But I know that’s a lie. Any idiot that watched you for as long as I have today would have known that it was a lie.”

The soldier threw his cigarette to the ground and stomped it out with his boot. He turned his whole body to face Nastenka such that he was hanging halfway off the bench. Yuriy Canterskiy put his hooves in his lap, and leaned toward the violet mare.

“Nastenka,” he said, “I know you’re not from around here. I can tell by the way you talk, I can tell by what you’re wearing, and I can tell by the way you act. You came a very long way to sit here before Foalgogradskaya and wait. And now, Nastenka Dmitrievna, I’d like to ask you what you’re waiting for.”

There was a brief hesitation during which she stared into Yuriy Canterskiy’s eyes as his kind but intimidating stare bore back into her own. It reminded her of when she first told Sergei about her nightmares. Sergei wanted to know why she could never sleep well at night. So she told him. Now, Yuriy Ivanovich Canterskiy was asking why she had taken the long journey to wait in the plaza before Foalgogradskaya Rainway Station.

So she told him. She told him everything. Nastenka told the officer about the day at Saddel’naya. She talked about the times that she sat by the radio and listened for the news and about how she would send and receive telegrams from the exchange. Yuriy Canterskiy heard the stories about the long days on Collective 23, about the long nights through which she would cry and wait for the sun to rise, about the emptiness of her tiny home, and about the communications ban that stripped her of her hope. Nastenka explained the events that occurred on the day the news of victory was brought to the farm, and how she caught a ride with the commissar and his men and made haste to Saddel’naya, where she took a sleeper train and arrived in Stalliongrad the next morning. She said that she made her way through the city to Foalgogradskaya, admitting that she really hadn’t given any thought to how she was going to find her husband once she had made it to Stalliongrad.

“And I sit before you now, Yuriy Ivanovich, telling this story,” she concluded, “and I’m not sure what I’m going to do next. I’m going to continue looking for my Leonid tomorrow, but I don’t know how I’ll do it in the midst of the celebrations. I don’t even know whether I missed his train or if it hasn’t come in yet.”

Officer Canterskiy took the last drag of the cigarette he had lit during the middle of her story, let it fall to the ground beside the first, and stomped it out. He understood everything now, and it made Nastenka appear all the more forlorn to him. The plaza was dark, for the sun had almost completely set. They had been sitting there for quite some time. He pondered in silence for a few moments, reviewing in his mind all that had been said. Suddenly, he stood up.

“Grab that bag you have there, and follow me,” he said.

“What? Why?” Nastenka asked in confusion.

“Because we’re going to see if we can’t find your husband.”

Nastenka couldn’t believe what she heard, and Officer Canterskiy started walking to the train station before she had a chance to say anything more. She stood up, grabbed the rucksack, and threw it on her back, running to catch up with the tan unicorn.

“You think you’ll be able to tell me where my Leonid is?” Nastenka asked hopefully as her ears perked up again and the glimmer returned to her violet eyes

“Me? No. But I know somepony who can,” Yuriy Canterskiy responded quickly, smiling as he and Nastenka climbed the stone steps.

The black pegasus watched in confusion as Yuriy and Nastenka walked through the doors of the train station, into the massive vestibule with the long row of tiny ticket windows, most of which were now closed, and the magnificent mural of halcyon pegasi among the clouds that covered every inch of the ceiling. There were very few ponies left inside, and it was the quietest that Nastenka ever heard the inside of such a large station. The officer walked straight across the vestibule, past the entrance to the waiting halls and the platforms, and approached a little door that bore a “No Admittance” sign. The unicorn opened the door and, took a quick look behind him, and quickly walked inside, motioning for Nastenka to follow. Yuriy Canterskiy closed the door and took Nastenka down the little hallway, past doorways to a series of little offices and one room that looked like a holding cell.

The last room at the end of the stuffy corridor was another office, much more sizable than the ones they had passed to get there. The whole place wasn’t exactly in disarray, but the piles of documents lying about here and there on the counters, central table, and the boards on the walls in no way spoke of any particular rhyme or reason. Fixed to the walls were protocol list after protocol list beside the posters Nastenka had seen around the city. There in the corner was the same image of two ponies around the telegraph that Nastenka had seen on the front of the Saddel’naya exchange. Behind one of the desks in the corner sat a green unicorn in a uniform identical to that of Yuriy Canterskiy, though the shoulders bore the insignia of a senior sergeant, a single gold band that cut across the width of the patch at the very center. This pony was reading a telegram as the radio behind him was relaying a broadcast from the city station, though he wasn’t really paying attention. He saw movement out of the corner of his eye and quickly turned in his chair to face the open doorway, where he saw Officer Canterskiy.

“Oh, Yuriy, I thought you already-” the senior sergeant began, stopping in mid-sentence as he saw the violet pony behind his comrade. His eyes narrowed as he let the telegram drop to the desk. In a mere instant, his disposition had entirely transformed, as he demanded, “Who’s this, and what is she doing back here?” Nastenka was unsure what to do, where to look, or where to stand.

“You’ll excuse me, Vladimir Alexandrovich,” Officer Canterskiy began. “I was wondering if you could offer some assistance to our friend here. This girl has been sitting in front of the station for most of the day, waiting to meet her husband when his train came in.”

“Alright, and?”

“He’s with the Kalmuks. She wanted to surprise him as he came back from Foalgograd.” The sergeant, Vladimir Alexandrovich, said nothing, all the while staring Nastenka down as she stood by Yuriy Canterskiy’s side. “She came a very long way, sir. She came from the collectives by Saddel’naya.”

“Well, I guess that’s a rather nice gesture. Surprising her husband and all. So what do you want me to do?” asked the green unicorn, reclining in his chair.

“She has no idea if he came to the city yesterday, if he’ll arrive tomorrow, or if his train already arrived today and she missed him. I thought that maybe you could help her and look at the arrangements and find out what train he took, and whether he’s already in Stalliongrad or not.”

The sergeant blinked, pushed his chair away from his desk with his forelimbs, and very slowly crossed the room, hooves clicking on the bare cement floor.

“Is that the story she told you, Yuriy?” the sergeant asked with a scowl. Officer Canterskiy stood his ground, staring up at the lamp on the ceiling. He was going through some very familiar motions. “You thought I could help her, huh?” The sergeant walked right up to Nastenka. “Did you ever think she could have been lying, Yuriy?”

“I have very good reason to believe she’s not lying, Vladimir Alexandrovich.”

“Think about what she might be here for. Think about those for whom she could be working.” The sergeant was inches from Nastenka’s face now.

“She didn’t ask me to do her this favor, sir. It was my idea to take her back here.” This made the sergeant turn to Yuriy Canterskiy.

“Oh did you, Yuriy?” the sergeant laughed.

“I did.”

“Eh. She could still be a spy.”

“She’s not.”

“How do you know?”

“What does looking in the schedules for the arrival train of one pony do for a spy?”

“You can never be sure,” the sergeant mused, turning and walking around the large central table of the room. “Besides. Flipping through pages of arrangements is a secretary’s job. And as you can see, Yuriy, the secretaries have gone home for the day.”

“Vladimir Alexandrovich. Sir. If you heard the story she told me outside – the story about which I asked, not one that she voluntarily told me – you’d want to help her too,” Officer Canterskiy said.

The sergeant began pacing, slowly and carefully, looking at the papers and posters on the walls, then at Nastenka, and then at the central table. The radio behind the desk was still broadcasting the city station. It was the only sound in the office.

“I’m not sure why my friend Yuriy here is so adamant about my helping you, devushka,” he said to Nastenka. “Something about what you told him must have really struck him the right way. All the same, Yuriy has a problem with always trying to be the hero.” The green unicorn smirked at Officer Canterskiy and was going to say more, but Nastenka spoke out first.

“Yuriy Ivanovich does not have a problem. He has a heart.”

Officer Canterskiy’s eyes went wide. The sergeant had stopped walking, mouth agape, and now he was staring Nastenka down again.

“Oh,” Vladimir Alexandrovich mumbled. “He has a heart. He has a heart, and I’m heartless. Is that it, devushka?” The sergeant’s eyelid twitched. He started pacing again. “Well excuse me, comrade. Excuse me for working in this office, a liaison to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and being cautious and following protocol.” The pacing came to an abrupt halt. “Excuse me for doing my job, and protecting the new Republic!” the sergeant screamed, kicking the side of the desk by which he was standing. The room fell deadly silent again, save for the voice of the announcer from the city station that continued to pour from the speaker of the radio.

Officer Canterskiy was done trying to change the sergeant’s mind. He whispered into Nastenka’s ear that they should go before they made him any angrier. He turned to move, but Nastenka didn’t. Nastenka stood her ground, steadily breathing the musty air of the office that reeked of old paper and cigarette smoke. That last line didn’t sit properly with the violet mare.

“My husband spent the last year defending the new Republic in Foalgograd, Vladimir Alexandrovich,” Nastenka stated. “My collective farm spent the last year defending the new Republic by growing and harvesting food that then got taken from us and brought to the cities so that the ponies there didn’t starve.”

Nastenka’s violet eyes raged with flame as her piercing gaze tore through the sergeant. Yuriy Canterskiy, still facing the corridor, slowly turned his head to Nastenka.

“Everypony, in their respective ways, did something to defend the new Republic, Vladimir Alexandrovich,” Nastenka shouted. “So excuse me for finding that reason of yours absolutely worthless.”

The silence that followed was unsettling. Canterskiy couldn’t believe what Nastenka had just done. No officer at the station had ever before dared to raise his voice against that of Vladimir Alexandrovich. But there before him was that young mare from Saddel’naya, who, in mere seconds, had knocked the sergeant from his pedestal and put him in his place. The sergeant was still looking at Nastenka, but he wasn’t staring her down anymore. Instead, the violet mare was staring him down, and at one point, he couldn’t continue to look at her.

“Fine,” the green unicorn mumbled. “Fine. We’ll look at the arrangements. I just hope, for my sake and yours, Yuriy, that nopony above me saw you take her in here.”

Nastenka smirked and turned to Officer Canterskiy, still standing in the doorway with his mouth agape. The sergeant had gone to the secretary’s desk and taken two brown record books with fresh binding and placed them on his own desk. He turned off the radio, and sat down.

“I need to see your documents regardless,” the sergeant told Nastenka, who placed her rucksack on the center table and drew from it her little red passport. Vladimir Alexandrovich’s horn glowed as the passport flew from her mouth and traveled to his desktop. He opened it, looked at it, nodded, and sent it back to the rucksack. “Your husband is a Kalmuk, you said?” he asked Nastenka.

“Yes. 2nd Brigade.”

“What’s his rank?”

“First Lieutenant.”

“Mmh. That makes things considerably easier if he’s an officer. Won’t have to sift through nearly as many entries. And his full name?”

“Leonid Antonovich Trotov.”

So the sergeant began his search, flipping through the pages of return arrangements that had been delivered from Foalgograd and Maremansk in the preceding weeks. Officer Canterskiy was standing by Nastenka now as the two ponies waited by the central table of the office. The sergeant nodded.

“Well it looks like he wasn’t scheduled to arrive on any of the trains from the previous day,” Vladimir Alexandrovich told them. “We’ll see about the ones that came in today.”

Minutes passed as the sergeant scanned the pages.

“Here, Trotov,” he said, as Nastenka’s eyes lit up. But before she could get too excited, he continued, “Wait. Vladimir Vladimirovich. That’s not him.” Nastenka could only sigh as the search went on. Canterskiy’s head fell with hers. He was waiting as she was, hoping that she would find the next piece of the puzzle that would take her one step closer to meeting her husband in the city.

More tense minutes passed, after which the sergeant nodded again.

“Good news, comrade Trotova,” the sergeant said. “He didn’t come in earlier today, and he’s not on any of the night trains, so you didn’t miss him yet. Looks like he’ll be arriving bright and early tomorrow morning.” Nastenka smiled and looked at Yuriy Canterskiy, who returned her gaze with a warm smile of his own.

“Now, we just need to see…” the sergeant began, briefly pausing, “…which one of these trains he’ll be on tomorrow, and where he’s reporting afterward.”

For a third time, Vladimir Alexandrovich scanned the pages of the arrangement books. Nastenk’s heart was pounding. She was getting closer to being reunited with Leonid with every second that passed. She could see it already – the two of them meeting on the day of the victory celebration and watching the speeches, singing the songs, and walking down the boulevards. And as she saw these wonderful images in her head, she got continually more delighted to the point where she was all but clinging to Officer Canterskiy.

Then the sergeant’s concentrated expression disappeared from his face as he stared at the book before him on the desk.

“He’s not listed,” the sergeant breathed, looking up at Nastenka, who felt her spirits fall to the floor and shatter into millions of tiny shards.

“What do you mean he’s not listed!?” Nastenka cried as she took a step toward the desk.

“His name isn’t here. In any of the train arrangements.”

“Are you sure? Couldn’t you have missed it? Can you look again?” Nastenka begged.

“I can… You can even come back here and follow along with me to make sure I didn’t miss it, if you really want to, but I’m rather sure I didn’t miss the name.”

That’s exactly what Nastenka did, placing herself right behind Vladimir Alexandrovich and following down the list of names as he scanned the pages again. Canterskiy waited by the central table, watching the pair as they scanned the books again. Natasha was getting continually more worried with the turn of every page. And the minutes ticked by again, more slowly than before, as the names were read even more carefully and more time was taken on every list of officers. There were entries for “Trotov,” but they all were either followed by the wrong name and patronymic or a rank other than First Lieutenant. They reached the end of the lists. Leonid Antonovich Trotov was not listed among any group of officers on any of the trains bound for Stalliongrad.

“How can it be?” Nastenka asked. “Why isn’t his name in the books?” Her eyes rested on Officer Canterskiy, who looked almost equally as upset as she did. The sergeant reclined in his chair and thought for a moment, staring at the telephone that sat on his cluttered desk.

“There’s the possibility that he was one of the ones that stayed behind to supervise the unofficial Fourth Military District,” the sergeant said thoughtfully to Nastenka. “You know. The irregulars and the foot soldiers that comprised the Foalgograd City Guard.”

“You think… Leonid is still in Foalgograd?” Nastenka asked dejectedly. “He won’t be coming to Stalliongrad? How long will he stay there?”

“I’m not sure. But I can make a phone call to somepony at the field station who would know. I just hope there’s somebody in the office. I mean, there’s no reason that there shouldn’t be. But being that it’s this late… you never know.”

The sergeant’s horn glowed as the receiver was lifted off its hook. The dial spun, and the sergeant waited walked out from behind the desk and began to pace as Canterskiy stood and watched her. How such a hopeful moment had disappeared in the blink of an eye was almost unfathomable.

“Arkady?” the sergeant said into the transmitter cup. “Good, I’m glad I reached you. Listen. There’s a bit of an… inconsistency… among the travel arrangements here. You have a minute to check a name?”

Nastenka was still pacing across the cold cement floor as Yuriy, barely breathing, stood by her rucksack on the table.

“Yeah. A Kalmuk. Trotov. Leonid Antonovich,” the sergeant said, then paused again. “Well, he’s unaccounted for in this office, comrade. I need to know if he was kept behind for the Fourth District.” He covered the transmitter cup with his hoof as he asked Nastenka, “What was his brigade, again?”

“Second.”

“Second,” Vladimir Alexandrovich repeated into the cup. He listened for a second, then nodded. “I know. Yeah, I can wait.” He covered the transmitter cup again.

“What did he say?” Nastenka asked.

“He’s checking. We just need to wait a few minutes.”

So Nastenka found herself waiting again, but this time she wasn’t feeling very hopeful. If Leonid had to stay in Foalgograd to work with the Fourth Military District, then the meeting in Stalliongrad for which she had been hoping was all for naught. She thought for a moment that she might try to go to Foalgograd if she could, for she already came this far. But she remembered that she barely had enough stipend money left for a train ticket, and that if Leonid was still on active duty, she might be denied the ability to see him. Returning to the farm to wait for Leonid again was not the end she had envisioned for her trip to the city.

“Yes, Arkady, I’m still here,” the sergeant said into the receiver, as Nastenka put her thoughts aside and listened. “Oh, he was?” the sergeant asked. “But why?” A few seconds passed, and Vladimir Alexandrovich’s eye twitched. “Oh. And um. When was that? Right. Okay. Thank you for clearing that up, Arkady. Good night.” The sergeant finished and let the receiver hang on its hook. He stared at the books on his desk with a bizarre expression on his face.

“Well?” Nastenka asked. “What did your friend say?” Vladimir Alexandrovich didn’t move. He just kept staring at the books.

“Your husband was among the group of Kalmuk and Yakut officers that were supposed to stay and work with the Fourth Military District after the Empire’s retreat,” the green unicorn said as Nastenka’s head dropped. “But he’s not with them.”

“What?” the violet mare faltered. Vladimir Alexandrovich waited, avoiding Nastenka’s eyes. Then he again spoke, choosing his words carefully.

“A month and a half ago, when the 2nd and 4th battalions were flanked… First Lieutenant Leonid Antonovich Trotov was killed in battle.”

Nastenka froze on the spot. She couldn’t seem to wrap her head around what she had just been told. Staring at the sergeant of militsiya behind the desk, she felt an odd sensation come over every inch of her body. She wasn’t angry. She wasn’t sad. Her skin didn’t crawl, and her stomach didn’t turn. She felt nothing at all. And she remained there, as a statue stands so perfectly motionless, trying to remember what she had just been told seconds ago. But she couldn’t remember. She thought that somepony told her that Leonid was dead. Was that what had really happened? No, it couldn’t be. She was going to meet Leonid in Stalliongrad. That’s why she had come all the way to the city. How was she supposed to see Leonid if he was dead? It just didn’t make any sense.

“Nastenka Dmitrievna. I’m so sorry,” the green unicorn stuttered, breaking the silence. Vladimir Alexandrovich finally managed to drag his eyes away from the books on the desk and look at Nastenka. He regretted everything he had said to her when she walked into the office. “But your husband… He helped save a city. Comrade, he died a hero.”

When Nastenka heard that line, the strange daze that overcame her was lifted. She realized that hadn’t misheard. She was told that Leonid was dead. It did make sense. She wasn’t going to find him in Stalliongrad. For Leonid Antonovich Trotov had met his end. The room seemed to spin for Nastenka. She saw but a blur of militsiya uniforms, police protocols, and posters. Suddenly, she began to feel again. Her skin was crawling. Her stomach heaved. She felt a lump in her throat. Feeling was spreading throughout her entire body as her breath quickened and her eyes narrowed. And when the numbness faded from every last bone and joint in her legs, she spun around, grabbed the rucksack and dashed through the open doorway, leaving two speechless officers behind.

The violet mare thundered down the hallway, threw open the door, and charged across the train station’s vestibule, turning the heads of the few ponies that were still waiting inside. Nastenka burst through the front entrance and jumped past the black pegasus, who called to her, asking why she was running, but she didn’t stop nor answer. She kept moving, turning onto Coltirev Boulevard and proceeding without destination or direction. She beat the sidewalk with her hooves, smashing into the ground the anger and frustration that coursed through every vein in her body. But for every hoofbeat of rage that hit the street, she could feel another paroxysm of indignation replace it from within her heart.

She turned a corner and ran on, down yet another empty street lined with glowing lamps, the only salvation from the dark of night. She saw another intersection and turned again. She hurtled along, panting and huffing, without any knowledge of where she was heading. She had to run from Foalgogradskaya. She had to pound her fury into the stones and pavement. Her hooves clacked across the empty streets of Stalliongrad, turning this way and that way without premeditation. She had come all this way for nothing. She would be returning to the farm with nothing, for Leonid was her everything. It didn’t matter where she went now, for every path lead only to solitude.

The buildings abruptly ended as Nastenka tore down a stone staircase flanked on either side by tall trees. It was an entrance to one of the city’s parks. There were fewer lights along the way now, and Nastenka’s pace slowed as she stumbled over the divots, twigs, and pebbles that littered the path through the trees. The violet pony was growing tired. She didn’t know for how long she had been running, but her fetlocks ached and she was breathing hard as she tried to run into the night. The dirt path again turned to paving stones, and it was getting easier to see through the trees. The violet pony climbed up another staircase, thinking she was leaving the park. But she had reached a dead end.

The road she took led to a terrace of red brick that looked out over a small lake at the center of the park. The stone balustrades were dotted with magnificent black lampposts that lit the terrace with their electric lights, giving shadows to the tables that stood at the center. The benches along the edge were arranged such that one could sit and look out over everything below. And there was a beautiful view of the water, the trees, the moon, and the moon’s flawless reflection in the still lake. But none of that mattered to Nastenka. She halted at the very center of the terrace when she realized she could go no further, stared blankly ahead, and allowed herself to collapse onto the red bricks, sobbing, screaming and beating at the ground with her hooves.

She thought with biter remorse about the grain of the wood on the tables at Collective 23, and about how she sat there, day after day, tracing the lines, trying to get from one end of the table to the other. She thought about how she could never actually manage to make it to the other side – how the lines she traced snaked off to the sides or came to an abrupt end. Now she knew that, at some point over the last year, she must have traced the line that was Leonid’s life without knowing it. For his path on the table was one of the ones that came to its end unexpectedly, somewhere in the middle.

Nastenka thought herself a fool for letting Sergei instill in her a false sense of hope. She lived her entire life being cautious and calculated. She never took for truth anything other than what she had seen with her own two eyes. Sergei must have slowly changed her, for the minute the word of victory spread to the farm, she jumped to the idea of meeting Leonid in Stalliongrad, irrationally assuming that he had emerged from battle unscathed. If this was the end result of the hope that Sergei preached, she wanted nothing more of it. Even if Leonid died a hero, what good was that to her? She could do nothing now but think back upon that day at Saddel’naya when Leonid left for the north. It was the day when she told him that he had no way of knowing he’d ever come back home. It was the last day she ever saw him. So Nastenka laid there on the terrace, weeping into her hooves, in that beautiful park at the middle of the city that had only hours ago seemed to hold the cure for her heartache. The young mare had been so excited about the victory celebrations that were to be held on the following day. But now there was nothing to celebrate.

“Hey, there she is!” came a voice from her left. Nastenka‘s head shot upward as she looked to see who had spoken. Through the blur of her tears, the violet pony saw two figures in uniforms. She thought it must have been Yuriy Canterskiy and the sergeant from the train station, and that they had followed her from Foalgogradskaya when she bolted off. But after she wiped her eyes and looked again at the figures before her, she was shocked to find two unicorns in brown overcoats of the Kalmuk Military District seated at one of the tables on the terrace. One had an accordion resting in his lap, and the other had a guitar standing by his chair. She could have sworn she was alone on the terrace when she ran up the steps. It would have been nearly impossible to miss the soldiers. But there they were, plain as day, reclining in their chairs with their instruments.

“Good, I was starting to think that we’d never find her,” one of the unicorns said with a strange sort of happy nonchalance to his voice. The situation was bizarre. It was as if the two soldiers were completely oblivious to the fact that Nastenka had just seconds ago been crying into the terrace floor.

“It’s about time,” the other Kalmuk told Nastenka with a little smile. “Your husband has been waiting for you.”

Nastenka hadn’t the slightest idea as to what was going on. She didn’t know where she was in the city, she didn’t know what she could, should, or would do next, she didn’t know how long she had been laying on the terrace, and now two Kalmuks were sitting before her with musical instruments, and she could have sworn that one of them just claimed that her husband was waiting for her.

“You… you said…” Nastenka mumbled hoarsely, trying to stand as her legs trembled. “But I… What?”

“You heard me, devushka,” the Kalmuk with the accordion said. “You husband has been waiting for you. Look, he’s right over there.” The soldier gestured to the front of the terrace, by the benches. The violet mare turned to look.

A third Kalmuk was among them, standing by the balustrade before the view of the trees, the lake, and the moon. The lamps illuminated the soldier from every angle, casting a number of weak shadows across the bricks of the terrace. Nastenka wiped her eyes, and her hazy vision became clear as she stared in disbelief. A red stallion in a brown overcoat and lieutenant’s visor looked back at her. Everything seemed so still around him. She thought it impossible that she was looking at the same pony that boarded the train at Saddel’naya over a year ago, but there he stood, waiting in the soft glow of the lights.

“You know, I almost couldn’t believe it when they told me that my Nastenka came all the way out to the city just to surprise me,” the red stallion laughed. “But here she is. I’m looking right at her.” Nastenka knew that voice. The red stallion was Leonid.

The violet pony put a hoof to her mouth as she shrieked with joy. Suddenly, the fatigue, fury, and sorrow that had taken hold but moments ago were fading away. Nastenka was gripped by the caressing arms of a happiness that she hadn’t known since the day her husband left, and it felt as warm and beautiful as she remembered. She let the rucksack fall and drop on the terrace as she jumped and raced toward Leonid. And while Nastenka hadn’t expected the scene to unfold beneath the glow of the moon and the lamps in that park – while Nastenka had thought she and Leonid would meet before the train station, under the morning sunshine – the embrace felt as passionate and right she knew it would feel. It only took a simple touch, and suddenly Nastenka was whole again as he held her. And Nastenka found herself crying once more, into the same spot on her husband’s uniform as she had cried over a year ago, though the tears that dampened Leonid’s collar now were tears of joy.

“Leonid… you don’t know how I’ve missed you,” Nastenka whispered, dropping back to all fours and staring into her husband’s scarlet eyes. “Every day that passed was harder than the one before it. And when we weren’t allowed to send or receive letters and telegrams… Leonid, I became so afraid. I was so worried that I’d never see you again.” Nastenka grabbed her husband again and held him tight. “I really thought I had lost you, Leonid. There was an officer at Foalgogradskaya... He said that you had been killed. And when he told me, I wished with all my might that he was wrong. But he was wrong. He was wrong. I just knew it.”

The smile disappeared from Leonid Trotov’s face as the violet mare spoke of what she had been told at Foalgogradskaya. Nastenka, still locked in an embrace, couldn’t see.

“But that doesn’t matter now,” Nastenka breathed, “because we’re together again, and things can return to the way they were.”

“I’m sorry, Nastenka, but they can’t,” Leonid sighed, closing his eyes he backed out of her grasp. Nastenka’s eyes went wide with shock as she asked,

“What? But why?”

The red stallion bit his lip as his ears dropped. He gazed at the confused little pony with the platok before him and sighed. Then, he slowly turned his head and looked at the side of his own uniform as he stepped to the right and revealed his flank to Nastenka. Leonid’s overcoat was slashed open, from just behind the shoulder to the point of the hip, and a massive stain of reds and blacks covered the brown fabric along his left side and across the entirety of his barrel underneath.

“Because,” Leonid answered, “what they told you at Foalgogradskaya is true.”

Nastenka stared in horror at the hideous spread of dried blood, unable to utter a single syllable as her throat tightened. It was impossible for a pony to survive with such a massive wound, but Leonid was standing before her as if he felt no pain. If what she heard at the train station was the truth, and if Vladimir Alexandrovich hadn’t been wrong, then Leonid had been killed in Foalgograd. But how could he have been killed in Foalgograd if he was standing before her on the terrace? She thought that perhaps she was walking in the midst of a nightmare, a dream like the ones that plagued her on the farm. But it couldn’t be a dream. She had touched him – she felt the delicate hairs of his mane and the weave of his coat.

Nastenka turned to the two Kalmuks seated at the table. Her tears had impaired her sight when she first looked at them, but she could see now, clear as day, that their uniforms were caked with the same dark stains. They returned her gaze with solemn faces of empathy. Slowly, she spun around to again face Leonid. And Nastenka again peered into the scarlet eyes that had watched her from the train at Saddel’naya – the loving, compassionate eyes that reminded her why she loved him so dearly. They were the eyes that could make the frosty nights of winter feel as warm as a summer afternoon.

She was looking at Leonid Antonovich Trotov, her loving husband, who had met his end in Foalgograd a month and a half earlier.

“But it can’t be,” Nastenka stuttered through new tears. “Leonid… you promised.”

“I know I did,” the red stallion said with tears of his own. “It was my dying thought, Nastenka. The promise I made to you. And the fear of breaking that promise… You know, it was more painful than the blade that...” Leonid choked up, closed his mouth, and turned to the balustrade, looking out over the lake and the magnificent reflection of the moon in the still water. The park was silent. Even the nightingales and crickets had stopped singing to watch the ponies on the terrace.

“Nastenka, I never promised that I’d come back alive,” Leonid went on, staring up at the moon. “But I did promise that we’d see each other again. And I said that when we did, we’d dance. Just like we used to do on those summer nights.” Leonid turned to face his wife. “And that’s why my comrades and I are here with you now.”

The red stallion approached the violet pony and stopped just inches from where she stood. He planted his hind hooves in the proper places and raised his right front. It was the starting position of an old folk dance that had endured through the ages – the dance that Nastenka and Leonid had performed again and again. Nastenka wiped her tears away, stepped forward and mimicked his stance. The terrace was quiet. It seemed as if the entire world was waiting for the couple to begin.

“Alright, comrades,” Leonid called to the other soldiers. “We’re ready now.”

The unicorns’ horns glowed as an aura surrounded the instruments. The soldiers looked at one another, gave the count, and began to play. Nastenka and Leonid took their steps, turning this way and that in a slow, rhythmic waltz. Before the soldiers had even finished the introductory measures, Nastenka knew the song to which they were dancing. It was that unchanging melody that survived since its conception in a time long gone: “I’ll See You in My Sunrise.” And when the two unicorns with the guitar and accordion finished their introduction, they sang in operatic voices that sounded so lively, even in death:

Gently, I can feel the darkness fading

as I sit among the golden fields of rye.

And I’m dreaming,

like the artists and the poets,

for dreams are all on which I could rely

ever since the day we said goodbye…

I’ll see you, in my sunrise…

I’ll see you, with my mind’s eyes!

And should I know sorrow,

I’ll wake up tomorrow

to find…

…golden sun.

Memories rushed to the front of Nastenka’s mind as she waltzed with her Leonid. She saw the little houses on the collective farm that she called her home. She could feel the wind as it made the ripe grain dance in the fields. She could smell the pine and oak as it was cut in the lumber yard. And she could see a young Leonid, bearing a sickle in his teeth, running through the fields with her during harvest time.

The positions had changed now, and instead of being across from one another, the two ponies were dancing at an angle, moving about the terrace beneath the lamplight. And when the second verse began, Leonid started singing with his two comrades, and his voice, too, was so lively, even in death:

The sparrows fly across the azure skyline.

The rays of light have brought to me the day!

And I’m dreaming,

like the writers and musicians,

for dreams have kept me strong along the way…

and let me know you’ll hear me when I say:

I’ll see you, in my sunrise…

I’ll see you, with my mind’s eyes!

And should I know sorrow,

I’ll wake up tomorrow

to find…

…golden sun.

The positions shifted again, and now Leonid was right up against Nastenka’s side in the third and most difficult part of the dance. But how expertly they moved despite more than a year without practice!

Nastenka’s sadness had melted away and the happy memories continued to present themselves, forcing the darker thoughts that characterized her most recent year into the back of her mind. She remembered the hearth fires around which the farmers gathered on winter evenings for warmth. She could hear the vows that were given on her wedding day. She could sense the excitement and fervor that had spread to the countryside when the revolution was young.

Nastenka gamboled across the terrace with Leonid at her side. And as the final verse of the song began, the violet mare found herself singing with her husband and the two soldiers:

I’ve started on my journey.

The length does not concern me.

Someday soon,

the roads will lead me to you.

I’ll see you, in my sunrise…

I’ll see you, as my soul flies!

And maybe, just maybe,

if fate won’t delay me,

I’ll find…

…you again.

Leonid and Nastenka proceeded with the ending steps of their dance and the two unicorns dragged the last measures of the conclusion from the hearts of their instruments. As Nastenka had done countless times before, she turned, striding sideways, in the final movement that returned the couple to the positions they had assumed at the beginning, such that they were again across from one another, with their right fronts raised. After the final notes had sounded from the instruments, the world was quiet again, though it wasn’t like the silence from before. It was the silence of fulfillment, which removed all other sound and encased the two ponies in a tiny sphere of their own. And they simply stood there, watching one another, unmindful of anything outside of that little terrace in the park.

Nastenka let her right front drop, and Leonid followed. Turning to the musicians, she said,

“Comrades, that was beautiful.”

But when she looked at the table where they had been sitting only seconds ago, she saw nothing but empty seats. The musicians and their instruments were gone.

“Leonid,” she asked, pivoting to face her husband, “where did your friends-”

The violet pony never finished her sentence, for as she spun back around, she saw nothing but a stone balustrade. Leonid had disappeared, too. Nastenka turned this way and that, looking at every table and bench. She was alone on the terrace now, painted by the orange light from the lampposts, somewhere in that park at the center of Stalliongrad.

But Nastenka wasn’t upset. She didn’t know what she felt. There was some kind of strange emotion that had taken over, but she didn’t know what it was. Her hooves clicked across the bricks as she approached one of the benches and sat down, looking out across the still lake. It was morning now, and the sky had gotten much lighter as the many nuances of blue began to replace the black of night. When Nastenka had arrived on the terrace, she didn’t know where she was going, and was unsure of what she should or would do next. But now, she knew exactly what she was going to do. She was going to wait in the park until the sun rose, and then try to make her way back to Stallions’ Prospekt. She was going to watch the ceremony and the parade through Victors’ Square. She was going to partake in that day of celebration that marked the beginning of an era, a time that would see the rise of the new society that ponies like Leonid had fought to safeguard.

And perhaps, comrade, you find yourself thinking that the final act of Nastenka’s story was unjust. Had you lived in old Equusia or the new republic, you wouldn’t see it that way. You’d have learned long ago to accept that life is without fairness. You’d already have come to terms with the fact that you could put your heart and soul into something and still have it crumble in the end, due to forces completely outside of your control. That’s why hope is so indispensable to the Equusians. They understand that it’s the one thing that can’t be taken from you, even as you’re slowly stripped of everything else. For hope is that strange sensation that comes from deep within the heart that enables you to carry on, day after day, despite how awful the previous days or weeks or months might have been. It solidifies a belief that, someday, somehow, the ends will justify the means.

All the same, nopony knows what tomorrow brings until it dawns and becomes today. And if you lived in Soviet Equestria, you’d have learned to expect hardship and sacrifice in the days ahead, regardless of how hopeful you might have been for your future. It is that acceptance of and willingness to endure hardship that allows the Soviet ponies to stand together when the days ahead look stormy and unforgiving. And every time the republic is threatened – be it by the Crystal Empire or another enemy of the people – its ponies will unite beneath the crimson banners, and they won’t stop fighting until they’ve stomped out the flames of doubt and fear. They’ll go with the Party, strengthening their motherland with the fruits of their labor. If you could be there to see the battle rage again, this mentality would find its way into your beating heart. And you’d understand how the revolution could still be so young, and that a new day of victory was just over the horizon.

One of the most celebrated authors of Soviet Equestria – a pony that was executed in a distressed Equusia just months before the revolution – concluded his final novel in a manner that isn’t easily understood by foreigners. There are few copies of this book that exist outside of the SSR. But should you be lucky enough to find one, you can flip to the end and read the concluding line that embodies the way in which the soviet ponies cling so dearly onto hope, despite their expectations of adversity:

“I wish you rainy days, but sunshine all your life.”

The light of dawn had finally arrived. Stalliongrad, the great city from which the glorious revolution erupted, was again coming to life. Soon, the bands would be playing as the parades marched through the streets. The victory speeches would be broadcast to every radio in the entire country. Everypony would be toasting to the days ahead, and singing the hymns of friendship, labor, and glory. But all was quiet on the brick terrace in the park where Nastenka sat, watching the new light in the sky.

No, life wouldn’t be the same. Nastenka would never see her Leonid again and would return to Collective 23 a young widow. She would never know the joy of being a mother, and the foal she always dreamed of having would not be given one of the lifelines in the grain of the tables back on the farm. But if Nastenka had managed to meet Leonid in Stalliongrad, and if Leonid had managed to keep the promise he made, even in death, then she knew that, somehow, life would march on.

The mare reclined in her seat, pulling her platok down and letting it rest around her neck. Nastenka found herself dreaming like the artists and the poets. She was hopeful again – hopeful for rainy days, but sunshine all her life. With the largest smile she ever wore, she looked into the sky and said,

“Thank you, Leonid. For your love, for our memories, and for the sunshine.”

The End