Chapter 1, Introduction

War, war never changes… Regardless of what any pre-war, ministry washed history or psychology books tells you, from the earliest days of equestrian society conflict was a part of everypony’s life, and ponies were never the fun loving, innocent, and peaceful people that those books made them out to be.

Ponies fought, waged wars, killed, and did countless horrible things lost to the forgotten pages of history, both to others and to each other, and almost all of these wars were waged over resources. It is known to all that ponykind had battled the “aggressive” carnivorous griffins in order to keep their homes and family safe, it is also known that ponies had a long and bloody war with the zebras, the modern world itself still has proof of that, but, few know that in the days before the rule of the Princesses that ponykind also fought and killed each other in the days when resources were scarce, and each pony race formed their own societies and kingdoms. There are also legends of a powerful northern ruler that through the use of black magic managed to enslave the entire Crystal Empire, while it is unknown if the conflict between the Princesses also involved military action, and was underplayed in the history books, but, nevertheless it was all real.

After the bombs fell, and the world took its familiar form, there was no shortage of conflict, from individuals fighting each other for any bit of scrap that they could find, to people who would just not let old hatreds die, to the sick people who killed, raped, and tortured just for the fun of it. These stories are innumerable, with almost all of them were forgotten, and probably for the best. These were numerous , but incredibly small in scale, however recently to the all too long list of long bloody conflicts that the world saw, written in blood and in all capital letters two new big names were added, NCR and Germaneigh. Two nations, in the truest sense of the word, that through diplomacy, scare tactics, bribery, and let’s not forget violence unified huge parts of the world under one banner. Two ever expanding powerhouses, whose borders were destined to collide, and collide they did, a few years ago at the river Rein.

Thankfully, both powers quickly realized that their policies of, if we cannot get what we want peacefully, we are sending in the troops, would not work against the other, since both of them possessed both large amount of pre-war equipment, the people to give them to, and the caps, or the influence to make those people go kill, and die, for a nation, or for a cause that most of them did not actually believe in, or wanted to be a part off.

Separating what was once known as equestria from the Crystal Empire lays the Northern Waste, a huge, inhospitable, frozen wasteland that through the ages has claimed the lives countless brave, and foolish explorers and travelers.

Now as winter is drawing closer and closer, things were not well for the inhabitants of Hole#34, a relatively small mining town in the Waste [1], that also served as makeshift, small scale penal colony. Technical issues cut them off from the rest of the world when their only working radio decided to just stop, and no amount of tinkering, cursing, threats of violence, actual violence, sweet talk,  or prayer could get it working again. To make matters worse, a relatively small cave in injured a few of them, and made them lose weeks of hard work, and weeks of food. Their main food store being located above the collapsed area, and the nearest resupply caravan a good two weeks away, a whole week more than their food will last, even if rationed.

More out of desperation than anything else, the mayor, or the warden in the prisoner's eyes, decided to send three of their best fliers on the month long journey to the nearest settlement, and hope that they would be able to reach someone, though hopes were low.

With every passing hour, as more and more people realized the gravity of the situation, things looked more and more grim, whispers and rumors of possible violent actions by the prisoners, most of which were ex-raiders and ex-slavers, became ever more present and scarry. Fear spread like wildfire, and the people in charge were actually considering not if, but when they should kill the prisoners, and there was talk of making supplies last longer through “alternative food sources.”

On the second day after the messengers were sent out on their suicidal journey, one of the largest blizzards that anyone could remember hit Hole#34, and what little hope the most optimistic of them had was completely and utterly shattered. The pantry was approaching depletion, and people were desperate, angry, scared, and armed. Only luck and the divine will prevented violence from breaking out until then, but it seemed that both of those things ran out at the same time, and everyone was asking for action from the warden, some even said that if she is unable to do it, then they would take it upon themselves.

“Everyone shut the buck up!” a little voice rang out from the crowd, much louder than it normally should, causing everyone to do just that and turn towards the voice.

A small yellowish green unicorn filly, her mane a dark blue, wide open, almost white eyes staring at them, and an eye for a cutie mark was just sitting on a minecart, covered from hoof to glowing green horn in dirt.

“Good, now that you scared little foals are finally quiet, I can get back to my nap, wake me up when the tall lady with the food gets here,” she said before lifting a chunk of dirt and covering herself with it, as one would do with a blanket.

Before the crowd could understand what the crazy filly meant, they were blinded by a flash of light, as two entities manifested in front of them.

One was a pony, slim and tall, a unicorn mare by the shape of her face and the long horn sticking out of her forehead, her baby blue coat, and long white mane barely visible under the hood of her quite massive winter cloak, the faintest aftermath of a magical glow still linger a bit at the tip of her horn.

While the other was, or at least looked like a cistern truck that had steam coming from its back, not from any exhaust ports or anything like that, but straight from its back. However the most shocking part, the thing that both confused, shocked, and to a lesser degree disturbed everyone was the fact that it had a face, with eyes, snout, a mouth and a tongue that was sticking out almost like a dog does when it is panting.

A soft motherly smile showed itself on the mare’s face before her horn glowed and she started talking.

“Citizens of 34,” her voice was soft, but amplified by magic so that she could be heard. “We received your message and arrived here as fast as we could. We have brought food for all, medical supplies for your injured, and a new long range radio to replace the one you have. Now, the spell casted on this little guy, would last for ten to twenty minutes, I recommend that you all wait for it to wear off, since the way one would get the food out of him, the way he is now I mean, is… not very appetizing to look at,” she said while scratching what could be best described as the truck’s head.

A short moment of confusion, followed by a shocking realization and without a word the citizens nodded in relieved assurance that everything would be just fine, they went back to work like nothing had ever happened. Half an hour later, the Come to Life spell that affected the cistern truck wore off and the thousand liters of hot stew was fed to everyone and the rest bottled up. The canned and preserved supplies filled the pantry, and the injured were cared for, the mare in her part proved to be a skilled medic that used her magic to heal many of them within a few hours, so that the supplies she brought would last longer.

Now healed, fed, and with their spirits lifted the inhabitants of 34, citizens and prisoners alike resumed their daily business, the miners continued digging and ferrying the ore to the upper layers via minecart where it was put into large containers ready to be shipped away, the guards still kept an eye on the prisoners just in case, but for the most part things went back to normal.

The truck reverted back to normal some time ago, and the unicorn mare was just sitting beside her, just writing some things in a small notebook when the blind green filly from before approached her.

“Huh, you really need to learn to pace yourself,” she said when she was just a few feet away.

“Excuse me?” the mare replied in her soft voice, no longer amplified by magic.

“You are excused,” a smirk was on the filly’s face, proud of her joke. “But really, you should learn to pace yourself, you came pretty close to burning out back there. I would expect that from a filly, or from one of the dumbasses downstairs, but not from someone like you.”

“How did you...” she paused for a bit gathering her thoughts. “How did you know I was close to burning out?”

“Breathing,” she answered matter-of-factly. “Your breathing is shallow, it’s been like that for a while, honestly, don’t they teach you big city guys anything nowadays?”

The mare opened her mouth to reply but before she could say anything the filly continued.

“The way you walk and talk. You were going to ask how did I know you were from a city, and I was generous enough to spare you the effort. Right, so unicorn, mare, in her mid twenties, lives in a big city, quite a powerful spellcaster, knows Teleportation, Come to Life and a decent amount of medical spells, so judging by the way you walk and talk my caps would be either soldier, actually no, an officer or a mage,” she paused for a bit, “more likely military, a mage would pace themselves better. So how did I do?”

The mare, quite surprised, and with many more questions than before, simply replied “Not bad, three, maybe four out of seven, not bad at all. So, mind if I ask what exactly what do you want?”

“Nothing much really. I am just a curious little girl, who was wondering why the buck they send someone like you to deliver supplies to this hellhole, in this Celestia forsaken place?” the filly asked with an innocent demeanor.

A bit surprised by the bluntness of the question, as well as by the language the filly used, the mare couldn’t help but reply.

“You know, you remind me of a dear friend of mine,” she said with an innocent chuckle. “Both of you are really smart, and perceptive, and...” she chuckled again,  “both of you tend to use the same tone when talking to people.”

“Nice guy I’m sure, now would you be so kind as to answer my bucking question.”

“Well the short answer would be cause I was the closest. When news of your predicament reached Tailgrund, it only took us a couple of hours to get everything ready, and well a few moments for me to reach this place.”

“Do you think I’m dumb?” the filly raised her voice. “I know how teleportation works, you can only go to a place you know, and I know you’ve never been here before. Only one of your official types came here, and that was months ago.”

The mare just nodded. “What you say is true, but you don’t have to personally go to a place to know exactly who, or what is there. Sometimes, its enough that a really close friend of yours goes somewhere, and you can see things through their eyes.” She gave the filly a little wink, and then facehoofed when she realized that there was no way for her to notice her gesture.

“What did you do?” the filly asked, in an almost patronising tone as the facehoof was still ongoing.

“Nothing,” the mare replied, trying to think of something to change the subject to, in order to not admit to a blind filly that she gave her a visual cue. Clearly that will not be going on her report.

“Umm… Umm...” she looked around desperately for something to use, something to do, but, all that she could think about was just teleporting away, burnout be damned.

Thankfully luck was on her side today, as she saw a group of workers just sitting around an electrical heater trying to figure out what to do now that they were off shift, when an idea popped into her head. The mare got up, and trotted towards them, the filly following close by.

“Hello,” she said to them to grab their attention. “I couldn’t help but notice that you are bored, might I make a suggestion?”

“Go on,” one of the ponies replied.

“Well, there are a few hours before I have to leave, and I noticed that there are very few recreational facilities around here, so I was wondering if you would like to listen to a little story I know?”

Their ears, as well as the fillies perked up at that, but quickly went back to their normal position because of the cold, but the mare had clearly gotten everyone’s attention. The workers shifted about to make room for the speaker, and for the filly to take a sit.

They did just that, and the mare’s cloak opened up in the front revealing the clean pressed mage uniform underneath, to the surprise of everyone there, except the filly who couldn’t see.

“Now then, once upon a time....”