Of Flesh and Blood

by Darkswirl

Rating: everyone
Tags: Sad, Slice of Life, Anthro, Alternate Universe
Length: 651

Captain Fluttershy's guilt catches up to her in this tale regarding war.

It's hard to believe, after everything I've told myself. It's hard to believe that I've become the mare I am, today: Captain of an Amareican submarine because I was too stubborn to see past the propoganda; too angry, too weak.

But, now, I am strong. Now, I am a leader.

Now, I am guilty.

Published 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC
Last updated 2013-08-06 13:13:22 UTC

Captain's Log

My name is Fluttershy, and I am the Captain of the USS Friendship, a submarine deployed in the Pacific ocean and engaged in hostile exchanges with the stallions and mares of the Japanese Empire.

For three long years, now, I've had enemy ship after enemy ship sunk, lifeboat after life boat destroyed.

Life after life ended.

The Japanese have a name for my ship and it's Captain: Azuma no umi no kaibutsu; Monster of the Sea in the East.  I'm told that I'm what Japanese mares tell their fillies and colts each night to make them behave.

I'm not proud of the thing's I've done, the stallions I've ordered killed during my lifetime.  I was convinced that I was doing the right thing: signing up for the military.  I was told I was helping to stop oppression, evilness, and war by fighting in the war to end all wars.

Looking back on it, it should have been so obvious to me, but I was so angry.

My father, a Lieutenant in the Army during the campaign against Germaney, was killed in the line of duty when I was nineteen years old. News arrived home in the states a few weeks later, but I had no mother to comfort me; only a few of my father's friends from his unit who were as angry as I was.

They convinced me to join the war, and so I did; my weakened mind easily falling prey to the Allied propaganda, raving on about how the Japanese and Germanes were brutes and brainless apes bent on the destruction of every value the Amareican ponies built their lives.

I enlisted in the Navy as the war with Germaney came to a close, and I quickly rose through the ranks until I was promoted to Captain, where I stand today.

I've changed so much of myself to please a coward.  I've changed the very fabric of my being in order to fulfill a role he needed.

The soft, shy, nervous Fluttershy that existed while my Father was still alive now hides behind a tall, determined, heartless monster who won't stop until she fills that hole in her heart that, deep down, she knows can never be filled.

How many more innocent ponies have to die before she realizes that?

I joined the military because I had nothing left.

I'm leaving because I never will.

In the olden days of war, kings would fight alongside their knights in battle to show and give courage to their ponies, to prove that they were all the same, in the end.

Heh.

Alla fine del gioco, il re e il pedone entrambi vanno nella stessa scatola.

Now, war is different.  War is no longer fought by soldiers who sweat in their armor, charge into battle, and lose loved ones.

War, now, is fought by cowards sitting behind desks, signing papers and giving speeches. They do so in the belief that they are right and that the enemy is wrong...

But in the end, like the king and the pawn, we are all Equestrians.

We bleed the same blood, cry the same tears, and breathe the same air.

Amareica joined the war because of one single ship.

They stayed to prove they had the bigger penis, and under the guise of freeing the world from dictatorships, harsh rulers, and tyranny like Coltler.

I cannot tell you how many innocent stallions I've had to kill under this lie, while the "enemy" lives under their own.

I cannot tell you how many screams I hear in my sleep each and every night, or how many crying mares I've heard wail, who will never see their husbands, sons, or brothers again, because of me.

I cannot tell you how many families I've split up with my actions, but I can tell you how many I can save: Not enough to make up for what I've done.

Bang!