I'll Meet You in Stalliongrad

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