Etiamsi Omnes, Ego Non: Women of Brass and Steel

The town of Gaskinwich lived again, in some abstract sense. The dead no longer lingered above ground, picked clean by carrion hunters or sharing their dominion with apex predators who fed on their lesser carnivorous cousins. The rebellion had done their sweeps.

Guarded scavenger teams picked up usable materials and sent them off for processing. Gravediggers had performed their sad duty, building a cemetery for the known and unknown found strewn through the town, with rows of Princesses-marked stones behind walls of brick and mortar. Cleaners had tidied up what broad things they could, rubble and debris getting carried away. The divots and holes remained but they were at least clean, like a debrided wound.

With the fallow land turned, and the place rendered sufficiently clean, the town was turned over to homesteaders. A mix of Equestrian citizens, mostly ponies with a few donkeys, Changelings and Diamond Dogs, were given the homes and a starter set of furnishings, and told to make it work, with assistance.

The Equestrian government-in-exile had had its statisticians choose a complementary mix of inhabitants. They had the proper proportion of those with necessary social and manual skills to form a functional town. Farmers were paramount, with laborers of a general sort below that, followed by artisans, crafters, and even supportable entertainers. The old Equestrian bit was put into circulation, and as expected the population took to using it very naturally, as if nothing had changed.

Because of the efficiency of the selected population and the dedication of those who wanted a return to what they had known the town achieved stability and full repair in a matter of months. It genuinely resembled a pre-fall Equestrian town, with all the buildings back to their proper states of repair. The artisans had even recreated the destroyed statuary and decorative touches as they most likely had been.

The town got visitors now and again, from the main body of rebels, the active fighters who also followed up with projects such as resettlement. In Gaskinwich's case, the visitor on a particularly sunny day after their repair was the one who had cleared the town and nearby area, Quartzite the Diamond Dog.

She came into the town still clad in her suit of brass and steel plates, with the helmet covering her features. Her impressive robustness still spoke of a Dig Dog, and her polished gold and silver chest plate still spoke of her loyalty to Equestria and Harmony. The steel sickle and brass hammer still hung at her hips, even though she was walking into a peaceful place. She would not allow herself to forget she was in a war.

She clattered her way down the streets, casting glances around at the town and remembering how it had been that day. The day she came in, when she had met Verdant and...

It was all very different. Not just swept up and given a pretty facade. It felt really and truly alive. The lovely cleanliness rang with the understanding of an active hand maintaining it. Voices mumbled in the background, distant conversations from an active and vibrant community. She could distinctly smell baking bread and pastries, and hear the ring of metal being hammered, as well as the small shop owners crying their wares.

She turned into the main portion of the town and was greeted with a wall of sound. All the happy inhabitants called out to her, all of them knowing on sight that she was the one who had cleared the area and made the place safe for habitation. Ponies and others came up to her armored form, nodding and smiling and some almost weeping as they thanked her. The small kiosk owners offered her goods, which she humbly waved off. She didn't need that.

“Did you need an escort to the Mayor of this town?” A unicorn female asked, a plaster cast over her amputated horn showing her to be a freed slave.

“No. Not official visit,” Quartzite wurfed from behind her helmet. “Come to see how town doing.”

“We're growing and happy, all thanks to you,” the mare said with a bright smile.

“No, thanks to all who work. Thanks to you, to all who fix and clean. Only scout area, make safe. You make live again,” Quartzite stated, humbly.

“We all did it. We're all connected after all. Just like in old Equestria, we rise as others rise and fall if they fall,” the mare said with a nod.

“Yes, is true. Thank you for kind greeting, but want look around,” Quartzite said.

“Of course. Enjoy your time in Gaskinwich,” the mare said, waving to Quartzite.

Quartzite wended her way along the streets, finding things as she had when she entered. Happy folks and the active signs of a living town. It warmed her heart and made her tail wag as she made her was out of town to the more rural-ish section.

The farming area was just as active and alive. Plants thrived under the careful and loving hands of the ones brought in to tend the crops. Grains, fruits and vegetables stood in carefully-tended rows, hands walking the fields, waving to Quartzite when they happened to notice her.

“Hello there!” One of the farmer earth ponies called out to Quartzite as she passed, leaning over the wooden fence enclosing a small field of wheat.

“Hello! Field looks nice. Much food for all,” Quartzite said.

“There will be, once I get it all reaped and ready,” the farmer pony noted with a sigh. “But, it's just me and it's a big job. Not that I mind but I was hoping for some help, but no one's come around today. That sickle looks plenty sharp and it's made for this kind of work.”

Quartzite pulled the sickle out of her belt and regarded the steel blade tipped in sharpened diamond. “Is tool from farm... but use for war. Is for killing evil, not harvest...”

“It'll work just the same, probably better because it's sharp,” the farmer said, picking up a scythe and sweeping along near the base of the wheat, cutting the stalks down with some ease, thought the blade was not as sharp as it could be.

Quartzite vaulted over the fence, landing with a heavy clatter of metal plates. She had never done anything like harvesting before, but got the basics of the act from watching the farmer. Her razor-sharp sickle whipped easily through the stalks, and she gathered them up as she went, pulling them into ample bunches.

The field was not an especially large one, but it did take some dedicated work. Between the two of them the job was done with a good bit of speed. They were setting up the stacks of cut grain to dry, tying them off with rough twine at their well-pinched middles.

“I'm fairly certain the blood on your sickle won't affect the wheat,” the farmer joked as he arranged a stack.

“Always keep tools clean,” Quartzite asserted with pride. “Represent hope of old world. Must look right.”

“I don't know about looks, I just care that you can get rid of those caribou,” the farmer said. “And looks like you can. We're living here now, after all.”

“Yes, Gaskinwich good town now. Clean, strong, have life,” Quartzite observed.

“That's what I missed the most about the old world. That feeling of unbounded life and joy,” the farmer said with a sigh. “Sorry to have kept you from what you were doing.”

“No! Is fine. Was only walking,” Quartzite noted, going over the fence again and wandering her way further into the rural area, with a parting wave to the farmer, who began whistling as he tidied the standing bunches.

A short space down the road she found a collection of children, mainly ponies but with some others.. They were all in a small age range, not too young nor old, very much pre-teenage. They were gathered around a thick tree with a branch thrust off low to the ground, backed by another near it but higher. They had some slats of wood with them, along with wooden mallets and carpentry nails, and were endeavoring to hammer the wooden assemblage together into a structure.

“What young ones to? Try and build?” Quartzite asked, tilting her armored head curiously.

“We want a treehouse, like we've seen in the books and magazines from the old times,” one of the little colts stated. “But... we can't really do much. It's hard to use those mallets.”

“Mallets only part of problem. Need plan,” Quartzite informed them, clattering her way over and sweeping her hand along a patch of dirt to create a smooth surface. “Not know how work with wood, but am Dog. Know plans.”

“Can you help us build this?” A small filly asked, looking into the eye-slits on Quartzite's helmet.

Quartzite nodded slowly. “Can help. Need make plan.” She scratched lines into the dirt slowly, playing various glyphs around the developing diagram to note dimensions and angles. As she drew she noticed that one of the Changeling nymphs was hiding behind a burly young donkey. “What matter? Changeling scared?”

The Changeling whispered to the donkey with a sibilant hiss, his eyes only briefly flicking to Quartzite. The donkey nodded as he listened and said, “He says your armor is scary. Armor makes him think of the caribou that came into his hive-space and hurt the 'lings inside.”

Quartzite winced. She had heard tell of what the caribou did to to non-compliant Changelings who had not managed to escape Canterlot or who thought they had found a safe place outside of rebel notice. “Sorry. Not mean to scare friend. Will fix.”

Quartzite unhesitatingly pulled off her helmet, revealing her jowly Dig Dog face, and pale gray coat color. She smiled to the children, who had gathered together a little closer, and started working the hidden catches that held on the pieces of her armor. The heavy suit of plate metal was pulled off piece by piece, revealing her broad and stocky body of heavy muscles. She also revealed her under-padding of cotton-stuffed linen, styled like a tank top and shorts.

Fully divested of the confining suit of armor, Quartzite stretched out grandly, looming high over the children, and smiled again. “Is better?”

The nymph at first made no move to come around the protective donkey, but slowly stepped around after a moment. He approached Quartzite with trembling steps until he was nearly against her, and looking up with some degree of awe and wonder at her jowly face. All of a sudden he threw his arms around Quartzite's waist and squeezed tight.

“Oh! Is better, yes,” Quartzite said with a booming laugh, which set the other children to laughing. She stroked the nymph's chitinous head and took her brass hammer from the belt of her set-aside armor. “Now, want small house for play? Is best can do with wood and nails and no training.”

“That would be really nice,” the nymph mumbled, voice almost lost in Quarzite's body as he hugged her tight.

“Good to know have love, do good for good of all,” Quartzite said, glancing down to her scribbled plan. She set one of the boards across the lower branch and used swift, powerful strikes of her heavy hammer to drive the nails into the wood, securing the first piece of the house to the tree

She worked fluidly and efficiently, moving with an easy grace without the close press and great weight of her armor. The killing strikes of her terrible hammer-blows were converted into a creative endeavor. The nicked-up face of the hammer struck each nail solidly, and twice each. Once to set it, again to sink it. As she followed her plan she softly sang old songs of the Colonies, of mines and gems and the joy at being in the Colonies, and the later songs about the wonder of vassalhood to Equestria.

The Changeling nymph that clung to Quartzite was the first one to try singing the strange songs, working his voice to try and match the ultrasonic and infrasonic points in the songs which he felt in the membranes of his wings. Soon all the children were gamely singing along as best they could, making every effort to imitate the unusual barking and growling words of the songs.

The tone of singing and working changed as time went on. Quartzite began to sing the Dog versions of popular pre-fall Equestrian songs, wagging her nub-tipped tail wildly behind her. She also used her hammer to set the nails, directing the children to use their mallets in turn, everyone taking up the task of sinking the nails. They took pride in their work, and scuffled over the right to take a turn on the circle of nail-strikers.

The structure crafted by the little party of workers was little more than a box sitting on one tree limb, and leaning against the one above and behind it, with a roof that sloped at exactly forty-five degrees, and an entrance which was merely the front half of the box removed.

“Mm, not fancy. Need next team, decorators. But good, strong thing. Dog-made. Fit to plan, by rule and square and compass,” Quartzite said, as she regarded it with her young charges. “And not have rule, square or compass! Is more impressive.”

“This is amazing! Come on and play with us!” The nymph pleaded, still firmly and snugly squeezed around Quartzite's middle.

“Oh no. Not have need be back now but...” Quartzite began to protest but found herself faltering as she looked into the nymph's hopeful blue eyes. She sighed in resignation but put a large smile on her face. “Yes. Will play. Go, start play, I come.”

The nymph happily buzzed his wings and finally dislodged from around Quartzite's midsection. He rushed off to join the other children in what looked like a game of tag. Quartzite smiled as she watched that, briefly thinking about the time before, when all children were free to play. She could almost ignore the war, the loss, the insanity. In Gaskinwich, even though she had been betrayed there, she could almost forget anything was wrong.

She became keenly aware of the massy weight in her hand, the brass hammer reminding her there really was a war. Females suffered, screamed and died in abject misery, while resisters only looked forward to the eventuality of death. One madman's bitter selfishness made it necessary to bear the weight of the armor, and carry the tools she did, changed from their normal purpose to instruments of death. She ran a finger over a huge line on her hammer, the bite of that caribou's sword. Even if she ignored it, Gaskinwich would always mean more than what it had become.

Quartzite resolutely set the heavy hammer down with her armor, intentionally crossed with her sickle in the rebel insignia. She was a heavy scout. She was fighting a war for the past. She was never to forget she had a duty. But in that moment, she could walk away from the armor and weapons, turn her smiling face to the laughing children, and give a loud wurf of abandon as she ran to join them in play.

”Suffer, they suffer, the children

When I see them, gods, my heart aches!

Is it ever and always the children

Who pay for their parents' mistakes?

Who pay for their parents' mistakes?

-Mercedes Lackey, Suffer the Children