I'll Meet You in Stalliongrad

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.”