A Cold Heritage

“Move! Get in the boats now!” An officer shouted as the regiment rushed into several smaller landing crafts, climbing down netting alongside the ship to do so. Winter ran out to join the rush, fastening his rifle strap as he prepared to board. He climbed three quarters of the way down the netting before he jumped into the boat, nearly slipping, he leant over the side to see the beach, tantalisingly close.

The steam engine roared, sending the little machine chugging towards the shoreline. After a short wait the boat landed with a grinding sound that was soon replaced by the sound of a whistle.

“Right, onto the beach let’s get go, go, go.” The soldiers climbed out of the sides of the boat and began to form at the beachhead. Winter felt warm tingly inside as he finally found himself walking on the sand. His lip trickled into a slight smile while the regiment moved into position ahead of him.

“Feeling at home ausländer?” one of them jeered as he grabbed Winter and shoved him towards the beachhead. Winter considered socking him one but the stripes on the soldier’s jacket told him otherwise. He, with great effort, forced himself away from the sergeant and into formation where his smile was no longer. It started to snow.

Princess Luna was standing in the royal war room with Princess Celestia, and several generals and ranked officers. “It is official,” Luna solemnly announced. “My spies have reported that a small German force is to land on our coast, just west of Whitetail wood.” The small crowd began to mumble amongst themselves, only to be silenced by Luna’s gaze.

“Our forces must be dispatched as soon as possible to stop them from reaching any of our major cities or towns.”

“But ma’am?” A stocky stallion with a southern accent interrupted. “Won’t they take the railroad? That way they would get much further into our territory before they’re stopped.”

“Yes… this is a possibility.” Luna paused for a moment, deep in thought. “What if we booby trapped it? Your men have plenty of explosives, take a train to the woods and lay an ambush for them, that would work would it not?”

The room clamoured in agreement.

Celestia chimed in, “Well we all have a job to do so let’s get to work.”

The coach was alive with cheer and laughter, some of the younger soldiers were laughing at a young filly that seemed to be terrified by the train, others were engaging in rather noisy banter. There was a group of four playing cards in the corner and the same mares as on the boat were placing bets on where they would be getting off the train. A banner had been hung over one of the windows for the Equestrians to see as the train passed them.

Winter simply sat in his corner, his smile had not returned. He had to remind himself that he was German, he would fight for the fatherland, not for Equestria. He sighed, why was this so difficult to comprehend? Winter examined the coach, all he could see were his brothers, he would fight with them in the years to come and they would likely grow close. His smile returned at the thought, they would accept him as their brother.

Winter finally relaxed a little as he stood up and joined a group of draftees nearby.

“Ah the ausländer finally awakes.” Sneered one of them as they all picked up on the laughter. This didn’t faze Winter, he was too happy to take offence, instead he laughed with them.

They continued to chat for a while until it got cold enough to close the sliding door. Winter put on his pickelhaube and walked up to the large open door and reached out to close it. An ungodly loud crash coming from the engine room interrupted him, followed by an earth shattering explosion that derailed the train and knocked Winter off his hooves. As he braced himself against the doorframe he saw the room quickly rising up to a panic, the soldiers all tumbled over each other trying to get out of the door. The door that Winter was standing in.

The third shell landed right next to the carriage, this time it hit Winter like a wave, knocking him right out of the carriage and into the tree line. Dazed he tried to stand up but failed, merely collapsing under his weakened legs. His ears were ringing and he couldn’t see straight. The world was becoming darker and darker, Winter weakly reached for his helmet, his only comfort as he lapsed into unconsciousness.

How long had it been? Winter opened his eyes slowly and looked at himself, he was partially covered in snow and his neck had a small cut but he was otherwise okay. His pack had survived and was still on his back, whether the contents had been destroyed or not he was unsure. Finally, his helmet was a few metres away from his head, he tried to reach out for it but found his body to be too weak.

Winter laid back his head, in doing so he viewed the train, or what was left of it. The entire carriage had been blown open along with its contents and the derailed engine had been also destroyed. As he looked up and down the train he noticed several survivors walking around, it took a while for his vision to focus but when it did he saw that they were wearing a light green uniform with an almost flattened helmet. His heart skipped a beat… they were Equestrian.

They were searching for survivors amongst the dead, he was just a little bit further from the train for them to be actively searching but not too far away to miss. Thankfully, one of the soldiers called out to the rest in Equestrian, this made the nearest one turn around for just a small amount of time.

Winter took this as a sign and bolted up, he began to sprint towards the thicker part of the woods, his legs buckled beneath him but he kept pressing on, forcing himself up and continuing. He heard shouting in Equestrian behind him but kept on running.

“Over there Sky, get him!”

The bullets flew by Winter causing him to panic, he stumbled into a tree and collapsed to the ground. The bullets kept flying by, pinging splinters off trees as they did, Winter began to crawl through the thick snow and over a log as the shouts continued.

“I think I got him sir!”

“Good, go make sure you killed him private.”

“Sir!”

Winter finally made it to the top of a small hill overlooking the woods, he could lose her in here. He struggled to make it back up onto his legs and began to run as fast as he could through the snow, the wind picked up, covering his tracks as he ran. The cold biting into him as he forced his way through it.

He pushed his way through several tree branches and stumbled down the hill. The snow was less thick down there so it was easier to run, he ran as fast as his exhausted legs could take him.

It seemed that his pursuer had taken a wrong turn because Winter could not see or hear her anymore which was enough to warrant a sigh of relief. He slowed down a little and took a small map out of his pack. There was a small town just east of him called Ponyville, maybe an hour’s walk or so, if it wasn’t snowing. It was the safest place to be, he figured he could lay low for a while until either the war died down or the Germans caught up and then re-join the army.

So that was the plan, Winter took his uniform and helmet off and put them inside a hollow tree, he marked the tree with an ‘x’ and put the same ‘x’ on his map before tucking it back in his pack and putting on his favourite jacket and wide brimmed hat. There was a long walk ahead of him and the sun was only getting lower.