The Honorable Discharge of Lieutenant Rainbow Dash

Daylight and the stench of death filled the train, casting long crooked shadows through the windows on the wall overhead. It was early, that much Rainbow Dash could tell clearly-even the light had shadows, and the air was still cool.

She didn’t remember falling asleep, but she must have, somehow-after all, she was awake now. She stirred slightly, and then paused. In the crook of her hoof was the little filly with the lavender eye, curled up into her side, coat wrapped around her. She lay on her side, almost hiding the jagged cloth wrapped around the eye she lost.

As she gently as she could manage, Rainbow pulled herself free of the sleeping filly, shaking out the pins and needles she felt in her wings. Sticking her tongue between her teeth, she flew up to the wall overhead, carefully pulling herself through a window that had lost nearly all the glass in it’s frame.

Lightly, she stood on the wall of the train car, glancing out. It was a bit of a wasteland, dry and hot, no towns as far as she could see. The bombers had been targeting the railroad then, maybe to stop reinforcements and supplies from getting through. They’d done a bang up job of hitting them, even in the night.

Behind them, only one train car was left, and it was still smoldering, walls bent out of place from melting and hardening after the blast. Ahead was the engine, but it hadn’t managed being knocked over as easily. From the looks of things, any survivors outside of their car hadn’t lasted long.

Her ticket had been for one of the back cars. She’d only survived because she’d gone up front to ask the conductor how much further they’d had to go.

Shaking her head, she tore herself away from the morbid thought, looking down along the line in the direction they were heading. There was no sign of the city on the horizon, and no weather patrols flew across the skies. It would take at least a day to fly there, maybe even longer, and that wasn’t even considering the earth pony and pegasi, or those who’d been injured.

Rainbow Dash let out a long low sigh of frustration, brushing a few stray strands of crimson hair from her eyes, glancing towards the sun, low and amber on the horizon as it began it’s slow steady flight into the sky. They’d need to start out soon if they wanted to make it to Manehatten. She’d get everyone up and going in a few minutes.

As she walked back to the broken window, she paused, frowning. Dropping down through, she flew parallel with the upended walkway as not to wake the little filly. She glanced down the long narrow train, eyes sweeping the still forms. Some stirred softly with the early breath of morning, but others lay still as stars. They were the ones who wouldn’t be moving again. The smell was suffocating.

Finally, she saw what she was looking for; a spindly small figure, curled up against a paisley suitcase, the morning light shining lightly of her soft peony pink hair.

Rainbow Dash landed lightly, folding her wings into her sides. For a moment, she stood in the silky silence, watching the rise of Fluttershy’s side as the pegasus slept, eyelashes fluttering softly as she curled in on herself. She stirred slightly, and Rainbow wondered what the quiet mare was dreaming about. Was it something happy? Was she relieving the crash?

She watched for a while longer, wondering if she should wake her, or at very least comfort her. But no-they hardly knew each other, and everyone would need as much sleep as they could to make the walk to the city.

She wasn’t sure how to explain the guilt, though.

Rainbow paused, wondering what to do next, before she woke the other survivors. She glanced back to Fluttershy, curled up against the suitcase, then back up to the ceiling. Maybe she’d go to the car behind them and check to see if any of her own luggage had survived, or some sort of supplies for the walk into the city.

Hesitating, she glanced around the dimly lit train car. Shadows of people slept between corpses, too exhausted to have even moved away from the bodies before falling asleep. Some times you could hardly even tell the living and dead apart.

No, the other cars had been hit by the bombs-they’d be far far worse. She suppressed a shiver, walking quietly back down the way she came. Even as softly as she stepped, the metal rang beneath her feet, echoing faintly before absorbed by the dust choked carpet and the mix of warm and cold bodies. She moved slowly as she could without growing impatient, careful to kick aside any broken glass that had snapped free from the windows.

The chill of early morning was slowly giving away to the warmth of a day in the vast barren desert, and though her coat still stood on end with the faint cold, no doubt the metal walls would turn the upended train as hot as the sun. Somehow she got the idea the conditioner might not exactly be working.

She couldn’t stand doing nothing any longer. The need to do something, anything, had swollen like a tick gorging itself on blood, annoying and painful in a way that was more in the skin than anything else. She had decided to let them sleep a bit longer; but her mind was changed. They had to get up and moving and some point.

“Everyone wake up! I’m going to lead a group towards the city in half an hour if you’d prefer not to rot here with the rest!” she yelled, her voice echoing off the walls. “Grab your stuff and anyone in your group who isn’t a corpse-we don’t have time to burry the dead! Thirty minutes! I’ll leave behind anyone who isn’t on time!” That was lie. She knew herself well enough to know she could never live with the guilt of leaving anyone.

A few shadowy figures stirred, and some sat, rubbing blearily at their eyes. Slowly, painfully, the wreck of the train car slowly dragged itself back into the world of the living.

Striding past the still figures, she padded back over to where she had spent the night with the lavender-eyed filly. The tiny mare was still asleep, silent as she lay curled up in her daddy’s oversized coat. Ignoring any creepings of guilt for waking her, Rainbow but a hoof on the filly’s shoulder, shaking it gently. “Hey kid, wake up. We’re gonna head to the city soon.” She waited for the pale purple eye to blink open and look to her, the weak voice asking for far from the first time where her daddy had gone. But she didn’t. “Come on now Scout, it’s time to get moving.” No matter how much she spoke, no matter how loudly she asked the tiny filly to wake, she stayed still, head lolling to the side as Rainbow shook her.

She knew what she’d said to them. She knew some might be angry an exception was being made, that they might argue, but it didn’t matter. Her hooves grew sore quickly-she spent more time on her wings, and her legs quickly began to throb. But she ignored it all.

In the early light of the morning, she dug a shallow hole in the rough earth, a place for a little girl to go meet her daddy.