Masquerade

Fluttershy hummed a tuneless melody lightly as she stepped over the three rotten, kaput stairs which lead to the front porch of house number 31. Of course, house number 31 was not its actual name; it was simply the thirty-first house out of the hundred and fifty houses she had to visit on the first of every month.

House 31 was just… well, a house — nothing too special about it, nothing too complicated. House 31 was the house owned by First Star and River Pebble, and was a broken down old thing, slumping on its rotting walls, as if the roof was too heavy.

Fluttershy had been to this house a few times — today was her fourth, actually. Four times, for four months.

It had been four months since His Royal Majesty King Radicchio IV issued the royal decree that required a month’s rations to be given from the Royal Military Food Bank to 150 houses in desperate need. Four months, and yet every single first of the month when she went out to deliver the rations, Fluttershy could hardly believe it.

Fluttershy knocked on the thin wooden door — wooden slab of wood, really — and then turned and grabbed the small but heavy crate from her back when she heard movement from inside. She never had to wait long after her initial knock. Somepony was always waiting for her, or, rather, she guessed, for the rations.

Technically, she was supposed to leave the crate in front of the door if it was not answered immediately — she was, after all on a strict schedule — but if she were to do that, the package would be gone seconds after she turned her back. ‘Snatchers’, they were called: nothing but small, quick foals who could snatch the packages from the porches of others and bring them to their own families. Her military honed instincts told her that the snatchers followed her, diving behind trees and into bushes.

Needless to say, Fluttershy made sure to never leave any packages on the porches — even if she had to bang on the door with all her might, standing out in the negative winter weather for twenty minutes, and then literally gallop at speeds she hadn’t had to gallop since her training for the military all those years back, in order to get back on schedule. Her resolve was in kindness and fairness, and it was no small resolve.

The wooden slab of a door was opened and the eldest son of First Star and River Pebble smiled down at Fluttershy.

“Commander,” he greeted, and Fluttershy smiled around the string in her mouth. First Star and River Pebble’s son — she never did know his name — took it from her gently. She blushed brightly and swallowed a squeak when he brushed against her.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, but didn’t sound very sorry. She nodded her head — it was more a downward jerk than an actual nod — and quickly turned her back on him, stepping off the porch.

He brushed against her every single time. She really needed to remember to put down the package on the floor before knocking.

Not that there was anything wrong with it! Of course not! H-he was probably a nice stallion, and indeed very handsome.

Just… not for her.

Yes. Not for her at all.

Oh, my.

Fluttershy shook her head to clear it and took a big gulp of frigid air to dissolve her illuminating blush, a shy smile coming to her lips as she hitched herself back to the wagon and started pulling it down the uneven dirt… path — it couldn’t even be called an actual road.

Behind her she heard little shuffling sounds — breaking twigs and the shifting of leaves as the snatchers continued to follow her.

She was a mare of no small patience, but, this was… kind of annoying.

At least it was… distracting. And safer to think about than other distracting things which were… hum, distracting.

No, but seriously, this was just… really[ distracting.

The, the snatcher thing, not the…

She was a soldier, for His Majesty’s sake, she didn’t like being trailed — it made her tense and rigid and ready to face the enemy in direct hoof-to-hoof. Not very comfortable at all, when one’s senses were on high alert expecting to engage an enemy, but never getting to face one.

She couldn’t help it, really. Bad soldier or not, there were just certain things one didn’t get away with not learning from the military. Especially when under the close instructor of the supposed ‘greatest military commander in history’ since one was a small foal.

Fluttershy swallowed thickly, the pain of holding her tears making the action difficult.

That was six months ago. Seven, almost.

Things were… t-they were getting better. It was hard, but for six months Pinkie and her had done nothing but make absolute certain that nothing like… that ever happened again.

Oh, she couldn’t even say it in her mind! And what would she call it, even? ‘That’ was really all she could call it. The conflict itself had earned many-a names in six months — a hundred per month it seemed. Mostly, it was called ‘The Red Day’, or ‘The Clash’. Cheesy, but with just the slightest hint of underlying grief.

And why shouldn’t there be grief? It was, in her opinion, a massacre.

And not even in the ‘one side completely butchered the other’ massacre. There was not a winner — only blood, and death, and more blood, and more death.

Faintly she heard her sobs ring out into the dark morning, and the part of her mind that wasn’t being crippled with intense bereavement wondered how she had any tears left — she’d cried just about every single day in the past six months.

Almost seven.

She’d cried until she couldn’t breathe, until her entire body convulsed and bucked with every sob, until the skin under her eyes and on her cheeks became so irritated and chapped from the constant wiping that it hurt to touch. She cried about that, too.

Pinkie was content to cry with her — she never could talk Fluttershy down. She’d start to try and calm her, but would end up contributing to the river of tears and the melody of sobs within minutes.

After everything that had happened lately, it was almost a surreal experience for her to get up and do the duties her job demanded of her — almost a surreal experience to see her routine return to normal, after everything that had transpired, after everything she had lost. Sometimes she found herself observing herself from afar as she went about her day, as if she was not in her own body. But slowly sounds and colors where coming back to her through the thick, muffling haze of sorrow. It was like little by little, she was starting to wake up. To move on.

But such was life — the sun rose and set against the never changing, ever present backdrop of the sky, Mother Winter set in her first shards of piercing cold like a rebellion to the sun, all but disappearing an hour so after the sun glorified the skyline, like a coward. Summer was ending. Fall was setting in. Nature went on with her duties, and the ponies that had been affected by the recent circumstances rebuilt the city, and mended their hearts.

Life moved on.

The dead would never be forgotten, neither by their families, nor by the republic — countless songs and tales from the mouths of jongleurs were already spreading across the nation, not to mention the solemn address His Majesty gave at his first court, which in itself was a miracle that the peasantry could hardly believe; King Radicchio IV was already three times the King that his father had been before him.

That day the court opened it’s doors to anypony who was affected, and the crowd had spilt out the door, all eager and earning to hear the words of the new ruler of the land, hoping it to sait some of pain which seared on their hearts like an infected fleshwound as the blood of the fallen still stained the places they had taken their last breaths.

The young king’s face had been composed; a mask of tortured restraint with heavy eyes and a grim mouth as he gave his address and promise of brighter days to come.

No, no, nopony would forget. That was what mattered. Maybe, even, in twenty year's time, Pinkie and her would be sitting on the porch of their home, and laughing about the entire thing as they read a novella based on the by-then legendary tale. Maybe, pointing out the dramatization of the entire conflict, as one does, or the romanticized areas, as one does.

Oh, how she desperately wished for those day dreams to come true, for those promised brighter days to arrive already.

She was about half done with her parcel deliveries, now, a small part of her mind mused. Pinkie would be arriving in His Majesty’s court right about now, to vocalize the needs of the peasantry, and generally charm His Majesty into passing her suggested decrees, as she did.

A new chapter was turning. Brighter days would come, through hard work and steady resilience Pinkie and her would lay down the brickwork for the path to those promised brighter days to come.

And all the while, they would never forget where the path originally began.