Twilight, Soldier of War

Twilight sat in a heavily cushioned chair. The fireplace in front of her was the only source of light in the dimly lit room. With focused eyes, she flipped through a book of blank pages, taking care to examine each page before turning to the next. When she reached the end of the book, Twilight closed the cover shut and tossed it into the awaiting fireplace. The shadows receded as the light from the fire grew with its new meal, and for a brief moment allowed the rest of the room to be seen. Bookshelves lined two of the walls in the red carpeted room, a couch stood against the wall to Twilight’s left next to the sole window, and a single door mark the entrance into the small room. However, it quickly faded from view once Twilight picked up the next book in the stack and began the process anew.

Twilight was only partially aware of the dark alicorn that stretched out on her couch, watching her from the shadows silently. She had gone through another two books before Luna spoke up, “Is there a purpose to that? Do those books represent something?

Twilight glanced at Luna through the corner of her eye before returning to examining the books. “Perhaps they do, perhaps they represent memories I wish to forget or have already forgotten,” Twilight slammed her book closed with one hand and gave Luna her full attention. “Is that what you want to hear, or do you need more while you psychoanalyze me? I believe I declined your request to enter my sleep,”

“No, you decline my request to forcibly enter your sleep, and I did not,” Luna clarified. “I may have been too hasty in my petitioning of you. I had forgotten how sensitive ponies have become about their privacy in these times, but in the two week since then I have been studying your mind. I now have a firm understanding of it, and can now enter your dreamscape normally, your privacy intact,”

“Small miracles,”

Luna ignored the comment and let her eyes venture away from Twilight and take in the room. “Where are we? Does this room hold any meaning for you?”

Twilight opened her book once more and returned to her task. “This is the apartment I had when I lived in Eastelf for six months as a… let’s call it a research assistant, shell we,”

Luna rose from the couch and in two steps stood in front of the window. A night sky shined down on a city of steel and concrete. It reminded Luna much of Manehattan. She could remember how she marveled when she first laid eyes on the city and how it managed to fuse both the modern world and nature into one without sacrificing the other. But this city, there was no nature to be seen, just the cold hard efficiency of progress. It was not something ponies would build, familiar yet so alien.

“I suppose it’s my turn for a question,” said Twilight. “I get the feeling you are here for more then to uncover my secrets. So why are you here?

From the reflection in the window Luna could see Twilight perfectly, her head angled down and her arm tossing yet another book into the fire. “Before I can answer that I must ask you a question first: What is the last thing you remember?”

Once more Twilight stopped her task. She thought back but the haziness of the dreamscape made it difficult. “I wasn’t feeling well so I spent most of the day in bed, drifting in and out of sleep. I guess I finally fell asleep,”

“So that is all you remember?”

“Is there more I should be remembering? Did something happen?”

Luna took a breath and turned away from the window. With a stoic expression she told Twilight of how she pointed a weapon at her friends and the resulting hospital stay. Twilight’s mouth hung open. Her book fell to the ground forgotten as she sprang to her feet. “You’re lying!”

“Lying am I now? Than pray tell what is this?” Luna waved a hoof over the window and the view twisted and changed from a cityscape to the memory of Twilight on the night she pulled a gun on her friends. Twilight watched the memory play out from start to finish in disbelieving silence.

“How did you…”

“You are forgetting, Twilight, that this is the dreamscape, were the mind rules over the physical,”

Twilight began to pace back and forth, her hand on her forehead. “Ok let me try and remember, I was trying to stretch out my medicine. If I only needed to take it once a week I could get through the year,”

Luna carefully watched Twilight with her eyes. “Yes, the medicine. Why did you need it?”

“That’s not important,”

Luna looked back to the window. The image was frozen on an injured Rainbow Dash after she took a fall out of the castle. “You told your friends you were fine, endlessly. Never letting them help you, and this is where it led. How much longer will you continue to lie, continue to carry a burden that you can no longer bare?”

For a long moment Twilight stared at the image of Rainbow. Tears weld in her eyes before she looked to Luna once more. “They still see me as the same pony that disappeared all those years ago, but if they knew… I don’t what them to look at me differently,”

“You don’t see yourself the same anymore, do you?”

Twilight shook her head. “I haven’t been that pony in a very long time,”

Luna stretched out a hoof for Twilight. “Then show me what has changed you into the person you are, show me why you must drown yourself in a drug in order to function, and if it is as bad as you say than your friend need never know of it, but you must share because this burden is killing you,”

Slowly, hesitantly, Twilight took the out stretched hoof and stepped to the window. “You don’t need to see everything,” she whispered. “But I will show you how it all came to an end,” Twilight placed a hand on the window, and like water, it rippled at the touch and the view changed.

***

Two weeks before return

From atop the inner walls of Eastelf Twilight watch the scenery of roof tops, alleyways, and roads that stretched all the way to the outer walls. Twilight’s legs dangled over the edge of a twenty meter drop as her mind recalled trivia of what she saw. Like how Eastelf started out as a fort with a single wall before becoming a trading past, and eventually the capital of a nation that spans half a continent. The outer walls, in the centuries since it’s construction, had never been breach, but that was back when the greatest singe weapon was the trebuchet. Still, over the centuries the outer walls had been reinforced, rebuilt, and expanded countless times. It wouldn’t stop the Commonwealth army that even now marched on the capital, not by its self, but it would slow them. And that would have to be enough.

Twilight could barely see the blurred distance beyond the outer wall, yet it wasn’t hard for her to imagine what it would look like when the only thing out there was enemy soldiers. “Nice view,” Twilight didn’t need to look to know it was Nadia who stood behind her. “Shame you have to watch it sober,”

“I’m still on duty, technically,” Twilight informed. “And the view here is better than in the barracks, not to mention the mood,”

Nadia stepped over and took a seat next to Twilight. “The mood? I can’t imagen why that would be bad considering we’ve lost more territory in the last few months then in the entirety of the war, the rats suddenly changed their MO from killing everyone they can find to bulldozing everything between them and the capital, and the third army may as well be pissing in the wind for all the good they are doing at slowing them down, and we will likely all be dead by the end of the month,”

“You certainly have a way of putting it into perspective,”

Nadia gave Twilight a playful nudge on the shoulder. “So tell me, why the scenic viewing? Or do you have a thing for contemplating your deep dark secrets from atop high places?”

Twilight gave her an eye roll. “The rats will be here in, what, a weeks’ time?” Nadia nodded. Twilight pointed down below to the buildings. “Do you see that building with the red roof? That’s a bread store that’s been there for one hundred and twenty years. It’s had over a dozen owners but it’s always been a bread store. The building next to it sells fresh produce. The owner always gives me a free apple and never lets me pay for it, he would say ‘if he can’t fight he can at least feed those who can.’ And he always checked out my ass when I wasn’t looking, creepy old man,”

“Twilight, I’m not following you here?”

“How much do you think will survive, the buildings, the people? Will Eastelf be just another Huron?”

“Damn, Twilight, that’s like… everything I tried to avoid thinking about. I don’t know, and honestly I don’t want to know. But I can tell you that this will not be another Huron, because we’re here and we will stop them. The buildings on the other hand… we can always rebuild those,”

“Yes, I suppose we can,” Twilight said, half-heartedly.

Nadia rose up from her spot. “Come on,” With a hand, she grabbed ahold of Twilight’s arm and helped her to her feet. “We are way too sober for this conversation. Let’s go drinking,”

Twilight raised an eyebrow as she said, “You know we are still on duty, right?”

Nadia gave a snort in reply. “Yeah, so. What are they going to do, kick us out?”

A grin spread on Twilight’s face. “You know what, drinking sounds great right now,”