Sunny Breeze wandered throughout the park. His head scanned about as if it were on a swivel, looking out for something or someone. Ponies milled all throughout. Stallions and mares, colts and fillies, young and old, eath pony, pegasi, and unicorns and one purple alicorn. But none of them were the one the pale unicorn stallion sought. He paused for a moment to look more carefully. He frowned. “Damnit, Haye, where are you?” Sunny muttered under his breath.
“Oi, Sunny, here!”
Sunny spun round on the spot to focus on the shout. Sure enough, there was a yellow unicorn stallion standing on a hillock a short distance away, but there was also somepony with him. Sunny sighed but waved back enthusiastically. “Zhdi minutichku. Ya pridu k tebe.” Suppressing his grumbling, Sunny jogged up the hill, towards his friend.
“Sunny, great to see you, how’ya doing?” Haye beamed at him, wrapping him a big hug.
“You know, the usual stuff. And you?”
“Fine, great, actually,” answered Haye Bailer. Finally got that promotion up to captain of the Ponyville Defense Force.” He smiled
“Not bad,” smiled back his friend. “And as for me, well, the life of a soldier of fortune can hardly be called life easy, no?” Haye nodded.
A little voice interrupted, “Hello, Uncle Breeze.” Sunny realized that he had not been hallucinating the extra pony. He recognized that little voice. While he did not have any animosity against the young owner of said voice, he felt a sharp jab of annoying strike him right in the gut, causing him to clench his jaw for a split second before he could stop the impulse.
Sunny asked Haye, “Warum ist dein Sohn hier? Ich dachte, dass diesen Treffen sind nur für uns.”
Haye shrugged, “Keine Wahl. Und er möchte Dingen mit dir besprechen.”
Sunny whispered, “Darf ich noch trinken? Ich habe die Lauge gebrauchen. Ya bral vodku.”
“Mein Sohn ist hier – was denkst du?” Sunny frowned. First no privacy and now no booze. Lovely.
Sunny felt the familiar ache of dread reignite in his gut. It was their annual private commemoration of their past service, Haye had brought somepony else with him, which had never happened before, and had just told him that the somepony he had brought with him wanted to discuss things with him. Considering that Haye had blown of both work and wife to keep his tradition with Sunny, this meant that something big was afoot.
“Hello, Uncle Breeze,” the small voice said again.
Sunny looked down to meet the voice’s gaze. He made eye contact with its owner, a young, red and white striped unicorn colt. He was half pony and half zebra, and it showed. “Hey, Starglas,” said Sunny with a faint smile. “What’s up?”
The enthusiastic little pony chirped back, “I’m in first grade now, Uncle Breeze. I’m almost a big colt.” Eeyup, no mistaking it, this was Haye’s son alright, if memory served. Ethusiastic, energetic, always wanting to hear a story, and a little egghead in the making. Although he shared absolutely no familial relationship with him more recent than their last common ancestor, Starglas had always called him uncle while Sunny always thought of him as being a nephew. In truth, there were godfather and godson, despite arrangements having been made to send Staglas to Zebricy to live with his mother’s family if anything ever happened to Klee and Haye.
Sunny smiled, disarmed by Starglas’s cute innocence. “So that means your six years old now?”
“Yep! And we’re learning geography right now.”
Sunny asked, “What do you know?” Haye Bailer gave the stallion a reassuring nod.
“Lots of things,” said Starglas. “Like that Celestia and Luna take turns sharing beign in charge of Equestria, but they have to get along. And nopony has ever explored south beyond the Badlands. And the Crystal Empire is kinda like a country but a city, too. And Equestria’s neighbors are Zebricy and Griffiya.” Sunny and Haye nodded to this list of factoids.
Sunny asked, “Star, did you know that Griffiya didn’t always neighbor Equestria?”
The colt’s eyes widened in surprise. “Really?”
“Yeah, really. Your dad remembers it, too.”
The colt looked over at his father. “Daddy, is this real?”
“Totally, Star.” Haye patted his son on the head. “In fact, did you know that Uncle Sunny and I were involved in changing the borders?”
“Cool! But how did you do that?”
Haye explained, “You know already-”
“That daddy and uncle were in the Transzebrican War and their side won the war.”
“Of course we were on the winning side – we woul’ve been liquidated or castrated otherwise,” Sunny joked. Haye gave him a look.
“What does that mean?”
“I’ll tell you when you’re older.”
“Okay.”
Haye continued, “Sunny and I fought for Equestria, and at the end… he did a lot more than me.” Haye shot Sunny a look that said ‘help me explain this’.
Sunny took over, “At the ends of wars, things have to happen for the war to stop. This is called the peace process. The different sides talk about what happened and what the losers will do in exchange for the winners not wiping them of the face of Equestria. In this particular case, the meeting involved Equestria, Zebricy, Afghneighnistan, Chechneya, Griffiya, and Miền Sói.” The colt looked confused. Sunny cut the elaboration in favor of explaining it immediately in very simple terms. “Zebricy was mean to Chechneya, so they started fighting, and then the fighting spread to Afghneighnistan, which made Equestria support Zebricy, but only after a lot of griffons already helped the Chechneyans. The fighting also spread to Griffiya, making the griffons team up with Equestria to stop the Zebras fighting each other. And then Miền Sói, the Wolf Kingdoms, got involved, because they wanted to steal land while everybody else was busy in Zebricy.” No luck. Sunny swore that he could actively hear the gears whirring in the confused colt’s brain. “So, Equestria, Afghnieghnistan, Zebricy, and Griffiya were the good guys and the bad guys were Chechneya and Miền Sói. Now, just because you win doesn’t mean you’re right, so during the peace process, Princess Celestia and the leader of Griffiya agreed that we should be in charge of rebuilding Chechneya so maybe there won’t be a next time. Zebricy was happy to get rid of Chechneya and with just a little bit of persuasion from Equestria, actually gave away Chechneya to Griffiya for keeps. It’s our problem and the griffons’ problem now.”
“Wow, that’s crazy. Countries really can do that?”
“Da.”
“Cool. What about that wolf place and Afghanistan?”
Sunny answered, “Miền Sói was defeated and the warlords responsible were overthrown. There was no point in taking on all of Miền Sói, because it’s not one country. Rather, it is a collection of lots of little kingdoms controlled by the biggest baddest wolves there. And as for Afghneighnistan, the important job it did in fighting for Equestria and protecting the rest of us from the bad guys made us, with permission from the people, reward it by making it a full part of Equestria.”
“But how do you fit in, Uncle Sunny?”
Sunny stopped. “Cho? What?”
“If you weren’t at the big peace meeting, how did you help?”
This wasn’t looking good. Great, personal questions about the war. Just what he needed. How could he put anything into terms the innocent could understand? How could he even describe his experiences? “Uncle Sunny helped by being on a team and helping them win,” Haye explained. “It’s kinda like soccer.”
“Oh,” gasped the colt as the analogy clicked into place. Then, without blinking, he asked, “What was it like?”
Slam! The question hit Sunny like a blow. He started trembling – all these years and he still couldn’t get over it. He remembered the sounds of marching boots, heavy diesel engines, harsh languages on radios, gunfire, seeing guys fall over with bleeding holes torn through their bodies, feeling the rumble of his machine gun, the terror in being hunted by a sniper like a rat, the horror guys burning alive in vehicles…
Haye saw the change. With a good-natured chuckle and slap on Sunny’s back, he responded to his son, “Oh, that’s something for old ponies; young colts like you shouldn’t worry about stuff like that. It’s hard to put into words and I’d have to tell you a really long and not very fun story that’s not for colts your age.”
“But I want to know,” Starglas whined. The whole time, Sunny was doing his best to maintain composure by biting down on his tongue and focusing on the physical pain from his body rather than the spiritual pain from his memories. Oh how he wished he could open a bottle and flood himself away with alcohol.
“But you told me today is when you and Sunny get together and talk old war buddy stuff. You said I’m old enough to come, dad. I can handle it, I promise.”
Haye pointed a quizzical glance at Sunny. Sunny was tense, but nodded.
“Okay, for me, serving was sorta like being on the biggest, best team in the world. All the guys were really great and like brothers. And it was exciting, first time away from home, all your best friends, and you’re out there doing something you believe in. It’s something good, something to be proud of, because you did something good for other ponies, something that mattered in the world.” He didn’t even have to look to know that Sunny was rolling his eyes at 1800RPM. “Sunny, can you say more?”
Sunny forcibly stilled himself. He couldn’t talk – not now and not here. He held back tears. “Yes, but not now.”
“Why not, uncle?”
So impudent! Disrespectful! Callous! Hold on, he was just a foal who didn’t know any better, who couldn’t even be expected to know yet. A snarl nearly formed on his lips, but he forced it down. He stifled another tremor. “I don’t want to talk about it now. “
“Aww, I was hoping you could help me with my geography project.” Project? What? That didn’t sound good.
Haye cut in, “Star has a project, Sunny, where he needs to bring somepony to class to talk about some way they were involved with history in their lifetime.”
He retorted, “So you came here so your kid could show me off as a living relic of the war?” Rage. Hurt.
“No, I just couldn’t get out of having to watch him today because they let school out early because they ran out of chalk.”
“Oh. What do you want me to do, Haye?”
The yellow stallion whispered, “Humor him. Odds are he’ll just talk about Princess Luna’s return or something.”
Hesitantly, Sunny nodded his head. “Okay, I’ll play ball.” The danger had passed. He turned to the colt and said, “I’ll gladly help you, Star. When’s it do and what am I doing?”
Star jumped for joy and sang, “Just come to class with me on Friday and talk about any historical event you lived through you want.”
“Sure, I’ll do it.” Sunny gave his best practiced smile.
++++++++++++++++++++
Sunny spent the rest of the week taking an unexpected vacation in Ponyville. Given how things had been when he had left, he kept a low profile, spending most of his time as a guest in Haye’s house. Haye’s wife, Klee, a zebra, was glad to have him over, as it meant that she could go run errands and see her friends while household chores got done. While Sunny Breeze did not enjoy doing housework at all, he put up with it without complaint to thank them for their hospitality.
Unfortunately, this extended vacation was not particularly pleasant in one way. Sunny constantly worried over the presentation on Friday. While he rationally suspected that it would just be at most five minutes of talking about Princess Luna’s return, or Discord’s return, or Sombra’s almost return, or Tirek’s return, there really had been plenty of catastrophic threats to Equestria recently, he had a nagging suspicion that he would have to talk about the war. And unfortunately, Haye had not issued a decree forbidding his son from doing that. He discouraged his son from pressing Sunny about the war, but he hadn’t said anything about what if the presentation just so happened to be about the war and Sunny was around to talk about it…
How to talk about serving to Starglas? Sunny had no idea what to do. It was Thursday evening and Starglas had been sent to bed. He, Haye, and Klee were sitting around the table after supper, talking. In their tradition, Haye and Sunny had a half liter bottle of vodka, which they split between themselves. Klee, Haye’s zebra wife, sat off on the side with coffee as the two stallions were seated directly across from each other on the small table. Sunny was clearly drunk.
Klee was finishing her story about her daily life. “So, after all that excitement, you’ll never guess who I ran into today after market?”
“Who was it, dear?” Haye asked his wife, passing the vodka to Sunny, who immediately took a small swig.
“Sassaflash.”
“Cho!?” Sunny sputtered, taking a big gulp from the bottle, noticeably lowering the amount in the bottle.
“Not what, who,” said Klee calmly.
Haye interrupted, “So, how is she? Still scandalized by how your husband earns his daily bread?” Sunny paid more attention. It had come out years ago that both he and Haye were professional soldiers. It did not go over well with anyone.
“She’s fine,” Klee responded. “She asked you how you were doing, and I told her you’re fine. We got coffee together and got to talking. She’s really glad to hear that you’re working now as an associate of the Royal Guard, which she thinks is honorable work.”
Haye laughed, “Funny how that community defense group we set up after the Great Bank Robbery was despised, despite being a small, barely-armed force, but now we’re working with the Guard, we’re suddenly the good guys.
Sunny nodded. “Da, that’s bullshit. Remember how things went when they found out the indentities of the bank guards?”
“I remember you skipping town, my friend, because it wouldn’t have happened if you weren’t so trigger happy.”
Klee said, “Sunny, you’re lucky you’re even free.” She grew suddenly stern, crossing her eyes and looking at the pale unicorn.
“I know. That’s the thanks I got for putting down a dangerous bandit for good.”
Klee said, “You shot him in the face in the middle of Ponyville when he was helpless and surrendering.”
Sunny replied with a clenched fist, “What was I supposed to do? Just let him go? Let him strike again, murder more innocents, terrorize more towns, rob more families?”
“You should have let the law take care of him.”
“I did what I had to do.”
“No, you killed him in cold blood.”
“Klee, what would you have done? He and his gang had shot their way through Ponyville, caused lots of damage, injured my comrade, endangered lives, wounded innocent bystanders, and nearly killed a princess in the crossfire! This isn’t the same as catching a burglar. It was like-” Sunny paused. What words could he use? How could he make her understand? “It was war!” He took a big gulp of vodka in a vain attempt to regain his composure. He shuddered out, “You wouldn’t understand.”
Haye stepped in, “Liebe, Telny, cool it.” He explained first to Sunny, “My friend, losing your temper isn’t helping.” He turned to Klee. “Love, you really can’t say if he was right or wrong; you weren’t there and didn’t have to make a choice to end a life. Sunny was the one who had to make that call in a snap, and now he has to live with it. It’s a different world with different rules.”
“Is it not against those rules to kill surrendering enemies?”
“It is, but bandits don’t count as either lawful combatants or civilians.”
Sunny grinned and added, “No rule against smoking ‘em.”
“Not quite, Sunny,” countered Haye. “But remember it wasn’t a military incident.”
Sunny groaned, “Why does this stuff have to be so damn complicated? An enemy is an enemy. If it’s hostile, you kill it.”
“Yeah, but a war isn’t exactly normal circumstances, is it?” Sunny nodded in agreement with Haye’s statement.
Sunny dropped his shoulders and sighed, “Shame it’s so hard to come home, though. You’d think after everything, it’d be the easiest, happiest thing in the world to stop fighting and go back to normal.” Tears began to leak from his red eyes. “But after you’ve been, how do you go back?”
“It ain’t easy, man.” Haye agreed, taking a sip of the vodka and passing it back to his friend. “I nearly lost myself when I came back. Didn’t know what do to with myself. Without Klee, it would’ve been a lot harder.” He gave the zebra an affectionate stroke.
“It’s the shock of the change that’s so hard to get over. One day, you’re just a regular fellow on the street. The next day, you’re being given a gun and being told exactly how to run your life down to the minute. The next day, it’s a switch between being constantly bored out of your mind and occasionally being terrified out of your wits. You see and do a lot of things nobody back home will understand or believe. Then one day, it all just comes to an end – no more guns, no more watches, patrols, inspections, marches, and fights. And you’re told to just go home and do whatever. But now you’re back, what do you do? You’ve just spent years of your life doing nothing but following orders.” He was trembling.
“I know that feel, bro.”
Sunny grimaced, tears leaking. “And how do you explain the things you seen, let alone what you’ve done? How do you describe what it’s like to awake to the sound of gunfire? How do you get over stumbling across a mass grave?” He gulped in air. “How can you go back after you’ve had to kill or be killed, and gone through every single day fully expecting a bullet, a bomb, or something to find you? When you’ve been so close to death…” Sunny took a long draught before pushing away the bottle and resting his head on the table. “How can you make anyone understand what it’s like?”
A protracted silence. Haye Bailer asked gently, “Sunny, you okay? You’re drunk”
Sunny barely whispered back, “I’ll be fine.”
“Okay. I believe you. Let’s call it a night soon, okay?” As if to emphasize the fact that it was getting on to midnight, Klee let out a yawn.
Sunny smiled sadly, “Thanks.” Silence. “The thing is, it’s not all bad.”
“What do you mean?” Klee asked.
Sunny propped himself up to look at her. “I wouldn’t change a thing if I could. I can’t deny that it gave my life meaning, shaped me into who I am today, and gave me a chance to be more than myself.”
Klee nodded with a smile. “Haye told me the same thing.” Her husband nodded. “There’s pride in it, isn’t there?”
Sunny Breeze and Haye Bailer nodded and said together, “More than you can imagine.”
“And there’s pain, too, no?”
The stallions nodded sadly. They repeated, “More than you can imagine.”
“And even with that, you still would never trade it for anything?”
“Absolutely,” the two replied. Silence. Haye and Sunny killed the rest of the vodka. A few conversations attempted to break out.
“Damn,” Sunny yawned, “I’m beat.”
Haye grinned, “I told you we’d call it in soon. It’s the booze, isn’t it?”
Sunny rubbed his bleary eyes. “Probably,” he admitted. “Either way, I’m going to bed or I’m gonna collapse here. Night. Night, Haye. Night, Klee.”
“Night,” the couple replied together. Sunny drunkenly stood up from the chair and shuffled over to the living room. There, he tumbled down onto the couch, his knees knocking the pile of magazines everywhere, but he was too wiped to care, with the portents of troubling dreams stirring at the edge of his consciousness. Sunny closed his eyes and immediately wandered off into drunken sleep.
++++++++++++++++++++
“Achtung!” A menacing zebra clad in khaki stalked up and down the line of recruits on the concrete platform. He stood at ease in front of the center of the group, flanked by two smaller zebras in khaki at attention. He spoke with a barely contained rage, a whisper almost a shout, his eyes casting a withering glare of pure raw fury. “Welcome, recruits, to training. I am Senior Instructor Apfel. These fine gentlecolts are Instructor Linden und Instructor Baum. You are nothing but recruits. You are here only at our pleasure – you have no rights – you are nothing. This is my camp; I am the king and you are all the lowliest form of life in it. You will speak only when spoken to. You will obey all instructions and orders absolutely without question, without backtalk, and you will always address instructors as sir.” Everyone was absolutely silent and still. “You think you’re all tough, don’t you? Think you can take anything?” His eyes passed over Sunny. “I see some of you don’t even have a cutie mark.” Sunny’s cheeks burned with shame and he tried to hide his blank flank, hoping nobody realized it. “Well, if you think you can just waltz right through my training, you’re dead wrong. My mission is not to improve you or teach you.” He stamped, his hobnail jackboot clattering on the ground. Sunny flinched, earning him a death glare from all three instructors. He couldn’t do this; there was no way he could ever be strong enough. “No! My mission is to weed out every last pussy. I will make you sweat, suffer, and squirm, and you will all be grateful, because those of you who survive will, as you crawl through mud, blood, and bullets, be damn thankful that I made you good enough to have a chance in hell of not going home in a box, and those of you who can’t hack it will be grateful that you never had to see a real battle, because if you think this is hard, if you don’t have the balls to tough it out, you’d better ruck the hell up or leave right now. The van’s right behind you; take it if you’re scared, because I won’t kill you – the enemy will! Am I clear!?”
Sunny considered leaving. He did not like the sound of any of this at all. He shifted his eyes up and right to look at Haye. Haye gave him a covert look as if to say ‘don’t let them get to you.’ Could he trust Haye; they’d only just met some hours before. A noncommittal response came from the frightened recruits. “Yes, sir.”
STAMP! “LAUTER!”
“Yes, sir!” Sunny joined in, trying to sound like he wasn’t almost soiling his pants.
“Good,” Senior Instructor Apfel growls. “When I say march, you will march through those doors behind Instructor Linden and Instructor Baum. Your old lives are over; your new life starts now.” With that, the zebra stalked off out of sight while the two instructors strode to the front of the group.
They shouted, “Recruits, move out!” Sunny found himself at the front of the line to his alarm. They went forward towards the doors of the austere-looking building. No way out. Darkness crept in around Sunny, causing him to sink into oblivion.
Darkness.
Sunny found himself lying prone on his belly, staring down the sights of an AK-74, trying to line it up with a silhouette target 200 meters away. His sight was set to the appropriate distance. The crackling booms and percussion from rifle fire by other recruits in the firing line made his heart rate automatically spike slightly. He stilled his breathing, held the forend still and adjusted his aim from the rear grip so that the very tip of his front sight was just over the head of the target, or so he hoped. He had to check that his front sight looked level with his rear sight. He shut one eye and slowly put pressure on the trigger. It crept, the pale unicorn’s ginger touch applied like one wrong move would provoke the gun into biting him. The sunny grass of the field faded into indistinct greenness as he concentrated on the shot. The trigger stopped. Just a little bit more pressure and the weapon would fire. The thunder of guns around him faded into background noise. Sunny took a deep breath, resisting every urge he had to break position – his neck craning unnaturally low and back to meet the sights, his front limb burning with exertion from being held outstretched, his back aching from arching backwards, his joints aching from being used to prop him up, his eyes desperately watering for a blink, and the whole position being just silly. He almost broke position, in spite of Senior Instructor Apfel, who had just instructed them on prone shooting, standing over him like a threatening gargoyle. Sunny Breeze needed to apply just a little more pressure. It felt like something was giving way… BANG!
The rifle roared, the weapon jumped just a bit, but it did not escape Sunny’s grasp, in spite of its muzzle trying to buck free.
“First shot, Breeze. Good technique.” Senior Instructor Apfel remarked.
Sunny blinked. Had he just been complimented? “Thank you, sir. I am doing exactly what you told me, sir.”
“Mh-hm. Fire until empty, take your time, but get it done sometime before I die of old age!”
“Sir, yes, sir,” Sunny responded with confidence as he lined up the next shot. He fired twenty-nine more times until the rifle went click. His was the last to run dry. Sunny, keeping in mind what he had been told earlier that day, reached forward and pulled back the charging handle and inspected the chamber. Empty. He pushed forward from the bottom of the trigger guard, where there was a tab where there magazine met the receiver. With a bit of effort, the magazine rotated forward and came out of the weapon. Sunny pulled the charging handle one more time to confirm that the assault rifle was cleared. Then he pushed the safety lever up two notches, rendering his weapon safe with a metallic clack as the selector switch snapped into place. “Sir, ammunition is spent and the rifle is cleared, sir.” His ears rang and he felt a little funny.
“Cease fire!” Senior Instructor Apfel shouted. “Weapons down!” They all rested their diverse firearms on the ground. “Retreive your targets. Go! Thanks to Sunny, double time it – run!” They all surged upwards into a dead sprint. Sunny lagged in the rear of the pack, but kept up, which was something he could only start doing recently. He took his target down from the clothespins. As he did so, he noticed that all his shots were tightly grouped with a few large, ragged holes from multiple shots. He sprinted back, trying not to fold the paper. Apfel looked through the targets one by one, commenting on the marksmanship. Most of his remarks were like “You hit everything but your target,” or “What did I say about automatic fire?” or “Are you writing poetry in braille or are you shooting?” or “You’re gonna help a lot of enemies live long, happy lives,” or “I’d tell you to try to not shoot yourself in the foot, but I’d be surprised if you could,” or “You can’t shoot for shit.” When he got to Sunny, he looked at the tight grouping, raising his eyebrows a bit, a deep hum coming from his throat. He told Sunny, “Focus on the target, not your weapon. And adjust your aim a bit down and right.” Then he addressed them all, “Some of you shoot like shit. The rest of you aren’t even shit. Reset targets and repeat.”
They set about their task. Sunny snarked to Haye, “Best range session ever.”
Haye chuckled, “It’s just the first one, and most of these guys have never even seen a gun before.”
“Yeah. It’s my first time with a gun, too. I wish I could shoot like you.”
“Don’t worry,” reassured the zebra. “Your first target was pretty good; you’ll only get better.”
“Thanks.” Then they stopped talking, for they had to focus on their marksmanship. The distance made the targets seem tiny despite their size.
As the second round of shooting began, Apfel barked out guidance. “Stop jerking off the trigger! Your rifle won’t bite you – don’t flinch and control that bitch! Plant your cheek on that stock! Don’t grab the magazine! Stop fisting the M4 – use the forward assist!” Sunny gained confidence with shot after shot, learning how to control the AK-74 as he lined up each shot and then gradually upped the pressure on the trigger and then wrangled the recoil. His speed increased. A smile appeared on his face as a feeling of inner peace filled him as he sent shot after shot exactly where he wanted to. After the shooting was done, the order came to retrieve their targets. Senior Instructor Apfel criticized their marksmanship again. “You really can hit the broad side of a barn.” “You can hit the target, usually.” “You didn’t get him, but his friends won’t be doing so hot.” “You’re almost as good as my little nephew.” When he got to Sunny, he said, “This is not bad at all for puke.”
“Thank you, sir.” Sunny felt a bit of a tingle on his flank, but he resisted the impulse to look away from the instructor.
“You might even have a talent for this,” Senior Instructor Apfel said, gesturing at his flank. Sunny twisted around to see a fresh cutie mark, a 5.45x39mm cartridge, stamped on his flank. He broke out into a wide grin. He could shoot well! He could do something well!
Haye clapped him on the back. “You look like a born sharpshooter, Sunny. Everypony’ll know you’re good with a gun.” Sunny felt something like ice water flush out all his happiness for despair. He had found his talent, and now everyone would see that he was born to kill…” Blackness and unreality overtook the unlucky unicorn.
Darkness
Gunshots like firecrackers echoed in the night. Tracers soared in thick, deadly streams of red and green. Sunny watched the proceedings from a rocky outcropping on the mountainside. It was beautiful for a moment, then Sunny remembered that only one in five bullets at most was a tracer. Oh crap. He felt the ice of fear creep down his spine like a splash of ice water. A Griffon appeared next to him. “Otdyhaj, tovarisch, they aren’t shooting at us, Sunny.”
“I know, Berkut,” he answered.
The griffon sat down beside him on the sandbags and asked, “First time watching a battle?”
Sunny answered, “Y-yeah. Never seen a fight at night, especially when they aren’t shooting at us.”
“Kinda pretty isn’t it?”
“I guess so. I think it’s scary. It’s bad being in a battle, but just having to wait to go down there and fight in the morning is even worse.”
“You are a smart one, Sunny.”
Sunny smiled, a blush warming the rookie’s cheeks. “Nah, I’m just an idiot who decided to go to war.”
“Aren’t we all,” chuckled Berkut. Sunny let out a few humorous snorts.
“Well, the Grollen Company isn’t paying us to be philosophical like your Griffiyan novels. I don't really want to kill, but alas, that's our job."
“Doesn’t mean that we can’t be more than just weapons of war, though…”
Sunny’s sight began to fade to black. He started to panic, but he couldn’t move or even cry out. Berkut kept just staring at him with that mildly amused expression. The darkness was pulling at him, engulfing him. Had he been killed? Was this it? Was it all over? No, it couldn’t be. He tried to stand against the creeping dark, but it overwhelmed him in seconds, dragging him down painlessly into oblivion.
Sunny Breeze jerked into alertness. He was in the passenger seat of a gun truck driving along a forested mountain valley road. The trucks went forward, approaching a low bridge over the valley floor. Some other trucks were parked up on the bridge. They bore friendly markings, but Sunny didn’t like their stillness, the lack of activity. A gruff voice growled on the radio, “Oi, get up, punks! Eyes up, quit your shaking! We’re on the attack. Come in, Zero-four, come in.” Static and silence. Sunny felt his AK-74 uncomfortably. It was loaded, cocked, and set to fully automatic. He held it, expecting the worst, expecting to die any moment from an unseen foe. Ambushes here were common – he had witnessed them, he had perpetrated them, and now he was almost certainly driving right into one. For the love of God, please have mercy, commander. For the love of God, don’t be a trap!
BABABA-BANG! Machine guns! Damnit.
“Zasada!” Yelled a voice over the radio. Cries of “ambush erupted left and right. Oh, no, it was happening, and here they were, right in the middle of one. Sunny felt sick with fear.
The commander barked, “Number zero-eight, don’t shut off the engine.” The motor roared, the truck sped up in a deadly contest between them and the enemy.
The zebra driving shouted, “Breeze, get up on the machine gun.” Sunny pulled himself up and immediately saw shapes moving on the mountain road.
He called, “I see movement on the road. Presumed hostile.”
“Engage!”
Sunny opened fire with the DShK. The Dushka with its 12.7x108mm round roared to life, sending massive bullets hurtling into the mountain side, stopping the motion in its tracks, giving Sunny a grim satisfaction. “I got ‘em.”
“That’s lovely, salaga, but there’s more. Don’t stop shooting!” Sunny opened fire, blazing away with the fifty caliber beast at what he hoped were the enemy. The unicorn fired as fast as he could, praying that it would work, but to no avail! The enemy kept growing, sending more bullets and rockets and grenades flying at them. They were approaching-
Someone screamed, “The bridge! There they are – s grenatemyotami!” Sunny wrestled the machine gun around, desperately trying to fend off the attack. Then he saw too late – they had run right into the kill box!” He strafed the bridge with fire, but failed to stop them. They were almost directly below, at the narrowest point of the road.
BOOM! A roaring explosion ripped through the truck, sending a scorching wave of flame. He had to get out of here. Screaming. Sunny opened his eyes and saw the driver engulfed in flames, burning alive, thrashing around, flailing out of the truck, falling over, going quiet… This could not be real. The horror…
MREAAAAAAAAYYY! “Incoming mortar!” GUMP! Sunny snapped. This is real! He awkwardly tried to pull himself out of the turret, fumbling in attempts to survive. Bullets whistled all around, coming within inches of him. He fell out and suddenly noticed something hot. Fire, on him. He was on fire! Put it out! Make it stop! On instinct, he leapt with his rifle into the creek, quenching the fire. Then, fwip. Crack. Pain in his chest. No! He dropped his weapon and clutched at his chest in pain. He couldn’t breathe! Such horrible pain.Some guys tried to get over to him, and some of them were struck down, bullets ripping them open, falling down…
Two reached him. A zebra with a lean face grabbed him by the assault vest straps and started pulling him. “You are going to be alright, my friend!” But it was too late. The darkness had come, easing his pain, taking him into oblivion…
Darkness.
Sunny slouched in his chair at the outdoor café in Klopdagar. He wore his TTsKO camouflage uniform and had his AK-74 with him by his side. However, the loaded weapon was set to safe and it was standing propped up against the metal table. Presently, a local Afghneighn arrived with his piping hot chai. Sunny smelled the spices, the mint and cinnamon, the pepper and cardamom. He inhaled deeply, enjoying the intoxicating aroma of the brew. Though delicious, it would take several minutes for it to cool to drinking temperature. While Sunny waited for his chai to cool down, he looked up at the sky. The sky, so endlessly blue with unlimited promise, seemed to smile down upon him. He seldom had cause to be happy, so he embraced this one.
“Excuse me,” a voice said. Great mood quashed. Sunny opened his eyes to see an dusty brown earth pony clad in desert DPM camouflage, one of the local Afghneighns with an M16a2 strapped to his back.
Sunny Breeze looked the stranger in the eye and responded, “Nu, cho?” If he was like a surprising number of the locals, chances were that he was either trying to get him involved in something shady, or he was wasting his time by trying to impress gunponies. Either way, he internally berated himself for having left his Makarov pistol back at base.
“Mind if I have a seat here?”
“No,” he said, using his boot to push back a chair. He sat up to better converse with the pony.
The strange pony asked in the distinctive accent of Afghneighnistan, “Are you a soldier?”
Sunny shook his head. “Not really. I’m a mercenary working for the Grollen Company. I have a friend who’s in the expeditionary force, though. If you’re looking for a soldier to talk to, we could probably find him pretty quickly.”
“But you served and fought in a war?”
“When you phrase it that way, yeah, I did, just not in any kind of actual military. And you?”
The stranger smiled, “I am a soldier of the Local Defense Force of Klopdahar,” He motioned to the patches on his sleeves. Sunny saw them. “Or you could say I was; I’m getting demobilized soon,” he smiled. They were the real deal, as were the other parts of his uniform. Interesting. The unicorn’s eyes widened in surprise as he sat more upright, seeing an interesting conversation unfolding.
“Going to be a veteran soon? That’ll be nice, won’t it?”
The stranger nodded, “I can’t wait.” He scratched his chin, making a peculiar face. “What is your name?”
“I’m Sunny Breeze.”
“My name is Dari,” countered the Afgheneighn. He scooted his seat closer to the table and asked, “So, where did you serve, Sunny Breeze?”
Sunny answered, “I was in both Afghenighnistan and Zebricy, Chechneya mostly.”
“Where in Afghenighnistan?”
A twinge of remembered fear. Sunny bit his tongue to stifle the feeling. “I was in Shindand, Klopdagar, and Nagram. I was there at Hill 20. Took part in breaking the siege of Klopadagar, actually.” Sunny grit his teeth.
Dari leaned forwards. “What did you do?”
Sunny shook his head. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
Dari looked at him sadly, compassionately. “I understand, Sunny. I was there for the whole siege. I still have nightmares about it.” Sunny relaxed.
“I know what that’s like. I have nightmares about Chechenya, especially Grozny. Not at all a good place to be, Dari.” He hung his head and muttered, “Gorod smerti, goryachij gorod.” He wished dearly in his heart for alcohol.
“City of death, burning city,” translated Dari.
“Eeyup. It was hell…” Sunny paused. “I didn’t know it was possible to be that vicious… Anyway, what about you, Dari?”
“I mostly just protected my hometown; I have my family and friends here in Klopdahar. I wanted to do my part for my homeland, but I didn’t want to leave my dear ones behind. The Defense Force was a perfect fit. Other than when I went to Klopbul, I never left my city.” Sunny nodded. “I lost a really good childhood friend of mine on the way there when the truck he was in got blown up by a bomb.” Tears pooled around the edges of his eyes. Sunny could only smile sadly at him, his own tears locked under mountains of things that would haunt him forever. On an ironic note, Sunny found himself feeling a strange connection to this stranger who had also been there, fought, risked his life, and had lost friends.”
“I know what that’s like, Dari,” Sunny said softly.
“I’m sorry about the tears.”
“Don’t worry about them; you’ve had to be strong for too long; it’s not because you are weak.”
“Then why don’t you shed any?”
“Because I don’t know how to be anything but strong.” Silence. Sunny drank his chai. He said, “Funny how the war’s over, isn’t it? If it’s a victory, why are we crying?”
“Maybe because it’s okay to be sad now?”
Sunny shrugged his shoulders and replied, “Possibly. Perhaps we’re saying goodbye to the war, too. After all, it’s dominated our lives for years and it’s going to impact not just us, but the world forever.”
Dari nodded. “I am happy that the war is over. I am happy to be getting out of the military. I want to get back my old job as a stonemason. But I am afraid.”
“Of what?”
“The future.”
Sunny gave him a meaningful look as he took another sip of spiced tea. “What about it?”
“I don’t know what I’m going to do with my life now that I’m done fighting. I guess I’ll have to go home, try to find a real job, find a mare, the normal things you’re supposed to do. You know what I mean.”
“I do, but I feel like that kind of life is almost a sort of death; it seems really weird for me to be thinking about a day job, a family, normalcy and all that. I was pretty young when I signed up; we is all I’ve known my entire adult life.”
“You’re not alone in that, my friend. It’s strange, right, how this stuff has become normal for us?” Dari motioned to the automatic weapons and the camouflage uniforms. “I mean, here we are, two young guys at a café, there is no war happening, but here we are with our assault rifles and our camo, wearing our combat boot, and we’re talking about how we don’t know what to do in the peaceful future, and we’re scared of it.”
Sunny nodded thoughtfully and slurped down more chai. After a few moments to compose his thoughts, he replied, “I don’t fear the future -- I fear peace. I fear peace, because I have never known peace. My only career has been gunfighting. I’ve never learned how to fend for myself without somebody taking care of me, whether my family or the company.”
“Then what will you do?”
“I don’t know. I’m thinking of going someplace where they always need fighters. The East has its petty feuds between the different Griffon lords. That’s where a lot of those mercenaries came from. The North has great opportunities if you don’t mind the miserable weather, the radiation, and reality getting messed with on a daily basis. The West has the Wolf Kingdoms and their constant infighting and clan wars. The South has Equestria, but what am I going to do there? Even while it’s technically been at war more or less, the citizenry has been at the mall, so to speak.”
“I see,” said Dari. “But how are you going to keep this up forever?”
“I don’t plan to. Just these short years have taken a heavy toll on me. I know that, at least eventually, I’ll have to go back hom and try to get by not really knowing what to do with myself and having nopony who understands me.” Sunny added, “As long as I’m out in places like this, I can find ponies who understand me, know what it’s like, y’know?”
Dari nodded. “I do.”
Sunny held himself very rigidly, as if holding back a storm of emotion. “I mean, how do you get someone who’s never been there and seen and done things you have – how can you make them understand? They can’t possibly know what it’s like to see shots going through car windows, guys burning alive in APC’s, guys falling over and going quiet forever, the terror in every patrol of being ambushed or hit by a bomb, watching your best friends die in the blink of an eye, having to make snap life or death decisions, what it’s like to draw a weapon on somebody, aim, pull the trigger, and watch them fall, the nightmare of going on an attack that turns into a trap, the look in someone’s eyes when you stab them fatally, passing by ruined wreckage and mutilated bodies at ambush sights, refugees and civilians lives destroyed by war, cities turned to ash, clearing a room with a grenade only to find that there were only civilians inside, the misery in every operation, the terror of snipers hunting you like an animal, the sounds of incoming mortars coming down and exploding all around you, thinking that you’re going to die and there’s nothing you can do about it as your team is killed one by one… The saddest thing of all is that I love war in a way. There’s nothing quite like being on the winning side of a firefight or having a bunch of friends you’re all in it together with…”
Dari nodded sadly to all these. “You can’t just go back after all that and pretend nothing happened, can you?”
“No, no you can’t.” Sunny was on the verge of tears. “And good luck with finding anypony who understands. It’s just not in their frame of reference.”
“But they can learn. You just have to explain it to them.”
Sunny gave mournful look. “That’s just the thing: I don’t know how I could even describe it, even to myself. If only if there were a spell or something to show how I feel.” He took a big gulp and put down his cup.
“You can do it. A little bit of courage is the real magic.” Suddenly, the heat of the Afghenighn sun vanished. A shadow descended over the whole day. The darkness came back and swallowed up Sunny. In a panic, he tried to twist, break free, but to no avail. The world just froze, even the ripples in his not quite finished chai sat like stonework. Dari’s hazel eyes stared unseeingly at him, just like those of a corpse. Sunny found himself succumbing to the oblivion. Just before he passed out, Sunny swore he saw another pony, one he didn’t remember having been there earlier.
Darkness.
“GOTCHAM!” BA-Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba chattered the Kalashnikov, striking the pegasus in the wings, back, and legs. The pegasus fell to the ground, tumbling out of the air, dropping his loot and HK416. He landed hard in the dirt of the Ponyville town square. Adrenaline overwhelmed his pain, but could not mask his injuries, and so he turned over to see Sunny Breeze advancing upon him in full gear – camo, helmet, armored vest, and assault rifle. The wounded pegasus tried to scuttle away like an insect. “STOI, SUKA!” He froze, mortal terror etched into his face.
“P-p-p-please d-d-don’t k-kill me!” He begged, shielding his face.
“Why should I?” Sunny roared, pointing his AK-74 directly at the bandit’s head. The pegasus bandit said nothing, only whimpering. Sunny took himself off the trigger, but stayed ready to pull it if he had to. “Davaj, rasskazhi mne,” challenged Sunny, striking the forelimbs of the bandit pegasus. Crunch! Some bones broke, sweeping aside the defense and unleashing new shrieks from the bandit pegasus. “Tell me, I’m waiting!” He had to keep his foe like this; he couldn’t go for a capture, because he didn’t have any way to restrain him, and there was always the possibility of his opponent either drawing a secret weapon or taking a weapon from him and killing him. He knew from long experience that one could never underestimate the power of desperation and adrenaline. This bandit was young, barely more than a colt, but still a dangerous enemy. All he had to do was keep the bandit talking at just over arm’s length until Haye showed up to back him up.
The bandit cried, “Because killing is wrong.”
“Because killing is wrong? You sure didn’t have any problems with killing ponies in those other towns, even ones whom you weren’t fighting! Non pugnabant, necavistique.”
“We never meant to hurt anybody.”
“So that’s why you initiated an extended firefight, wounding my comrade, and fired shots through innocent civilians, hitting a lot of them.” Sunny spat, “You’re not just a terrible liar, you’re a psycho, a dangerous psycho. Give me another reason why I should spare you?
The bandit sobbed, “Because you’ll be in trouble if you kill me.”
“Just like you, I don’t care. You’re too dangerous to let live. You kill in cold blood and you don’t feel any kind of remorse or hesitation.”
“You’re worse, gunpony!” Spat the bandit. “You’re a psycho for hire. I get my money by taking it, but at least I’m not paid to kill.”
“POMALCHITE ZHE, TY PROKLYATAYA BLYAD’ SUKA!!” Sunny roared, slamming the stock of his rifle into the bandits face as hard as he could, shattering the jaw, crushing the nose, and obliterating his teeth. “I am not paid to murder, you sick liar! I’m paid to protect it from jackals like you who don’t care about others and respect nothing but force.”
He almost put pressure on the trigger.
“I don’t care.”
Then, he looked at the bandit. Then, it occurred to him the bandit, in spite of everything, would be free in in just a matter of years at most, and then, having a record for violent crime and not knowing how to do anything other than rob, and even seeing it as normal, defensible employment, that he would doubtlessly take to it again. Equestrian medicine would have him as good as new in no time, provided that got to him before scarring began. Sunny Breeze realized could prevent all that from happening, that anything bad this bandit did in the future, all the theft, damage, harm, and death would be his fault, because he let him go. It was just like being at war again. No, it was war, and he alone needed to make the decision to end it for good at a price or to content himself to an easily, superficial victory. He had to act for the greater good.
Sunny saw the pegasus with his ruined legs and wings in a pool of his own blood. He was wounded and out of the fight for now, but he was still hostile and not mortally wounded. Here was his chance to do something for the greater good, himself be damned. Sunny felt his AK-74. BANGBANGBANGBANG!
He crumpled.
Silence. Ears rang. Shouts. Screams. Hoofbeats rushed urgently to the square.
“What would you have done?”
“Help them understand.”
Light. Sunny felt suddenly new awareness pierce through him. He opened his eyes to find himself laying facedown on Haye’s red sofa. Daylight. His mouth was dry and his brain felt stuck. He had definitely had too much booze last night. He felt his face. It was streaked with tears. He got up and went to the kitchen sink. Sunny Breeze took a big, long drink of water from the faucet. Having washing his face and gotten some cool water over his tongue, he felt better. He checked the time. It was still early enough to go with Starglas.
Speak of the devil, he saw Klee and Starglas in the kitchen. The colt was almost all packed up and good to go to school. “Guten Morgen,” Sunny said, sticking his head inside.
“Morgen,” responded Klee. “Wie gehst?”
“Morning, Uncle Breeze,” waved Starglas.
“Okay. Besser als letzter Nacht.”
Klee smiled, “Glad to hear it.” Sunny smiled back – his first genuine smile in a long time. He grabbed a slice of bread and ate it quickly.
Star asked, “Uncle Breeze, would you please come with me to school to be my pony who lived through history?”
Sunny nodded and grinned. “Sure, Star.” The colt cheered.
Klee gave a meaningful look and said, “You’re going to be late, Star.”
“Don’t worry, mom, uncle and me won’t be late.”
“Well, you’d better start right now then.” Just then, Sunny finished scarfing down his piece of bread.
He said, “Okay, patsan, let’s get going. Wait just a minute, I’ll catch up.” He pointed the colt to the door. Once Star was out of earshot, he said to Klee, “Would it be appropriate for me to tell Star about what it’s actually like and what it means to serve?”
“Not at all, Sunny. Just don’t go into gorey details,” she warned.
“Got it. Also, I’m sorry for getting drunk and out of hand last night.”
The zebra made a shooing gesture, “Oh, don’t worry about it. Es ist alles okay. Just don’t make a habit of it. Now go, you’ve got things to do.”
“Verstanden.” And with that, Sunny walked out of the kitchen, to the atrium, and grabbed Starglas. The two started off of the way to Cheerilee’s schoolhouse.
Star asked, “Uncle, what’s it like to live through history?”
“Weird. You don’t really notice that something is history until after it’s over. And of course, looking back, it all seems inevitable, although, at the time, nopony had any idea what was going to happen or what the consequences would be.”
“Do you think history would be different if we thought more about the future?”
Sunny laughed, “Y’know, unless you’ve actually been there, you don’t really have the whole story behind things and why some ponies did the things they did. How would you like to have an uncle with really cool stories to tell?”
“You have stories, Uncle?”
Sunny nodded. “Indeed. If you’re up for it. You’re still curious about that question you asked me on Tuesday, aren’t you” The colt’s face lit up. Sunny grinned wryly. He thought back to that presence in his dream. He whispered, “Danke, Luna.” Maybe, just maybe, they could understand how it was.
Author's Note
Fic for Veterans' Day 2014. Thank you, all of you who served and those of you still in service. Thank you so much.
Thanks to The Descendant and his fic, "A Cup Of Joe" for partially inspiring this one.
I figured that I would try to write a more reflective story for this year versus last year's Bratan, which was pretty much just hastily cobbled together glurge. I hope you enjoyed this story or got something out of it. If you have any feedback, please give it. Thank you for reading.
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Kalash93
