Broken Hearts And Broken Minds

We reached the fighting after only about a minute of running. We found it just a little deeper into the forest. There seemed to be only barely more changelings than ponies left over, as most of them had been trapped and killed in the fire outside our homebrew walls, and the rest were overcome by friendly soldiers who outsmarted or outfought them. It wasn't over quite yet though.

Wanderlust and I took on a duo of Changelings together. After only a few seconds of standoff, we stabbed them simultaneously and brought them down. I could tell that her ear was bothering her, because she kept touching it gently with the tips of her hooves.

"Are you okay?" I asked her between fights.

"Yeah. I'm just not used to missing half of my ear." She replied.

The Changeling's numbers were quickly dwindling. The ones that were left out of the combat were the ones stuck in the fire. Groups and teams of ponies that had survived the battle thus far were cutting down the separated, disorganized Changelings like a plow through snow. Wanderlust and I patrolled through the forest, stopping only twice in a hour to fight the failed invaders. The battles slowly became less frequent throughout the day. By evening there were only a handful of Changelings that had not been killed. They surrendered and were sent back South without their weapons or armor.

The unicorns magically extinguished the forest fire and we moved back towards the charred remains of our walls and the surrounding area. Against the outside of our walls, hundreds of Changelings were lying dead. The ones that had tried to fly away were hindered by the dense trees above, and the rest probably either asphyxiated or burned, being surrounded on all sides by flames. The bottleneck created by our walls was blocked up by Changeling corpses, so they couldn't have simply run around them either. Seeing this made me think about what I had done out here.

Thousands of lives had been lost, both civilian and military, in the Changeling's attempt to invade our beautiful land of Equestria. The majority of their species lay dead all over our desert and forest, staining our nation's soil with their dark turquoise blood. They properly announced their surrender in the morning of the next day.

Before returning home, all of the surviving soldiers, flyers, medics, pikeponies, guards, unicorns, and all of the rest of Equestria's Royal Army, regrouped in the clearing created by our fire and celebrated. We talked and laughed and took our armor off for almost the last time. We had no food to feast on, or dress uniforms, but some musicians had survived, so we still had music. A trumpeter began to play an iconic Equestrian victory song, and everypony around joined in immediately, creating a beautiful chorus of ponies who understood and meant what they were singing.

"Stand fast! The beasts draw nearer and nearer.

They mean to take over our land!

Stand fast! Their intentions grow clearer and clearer.

So line up and take a stand!

They spread their wings and gnash their teeth,

Their trumpets call and their war drums beat.

They come in force to take our homes.

Their flags are up and our land they comb.

Stand fast! Over the hill they come!

Stand fast! Right into our blades!

Stand fast! The ground is stained with blood!

We stood fast! And our trumpets in victory brayed!"

Our hymn echoed throughout the charred forest, a fittingly powerful end to this anti-campaign. Once the world around us finally fell silent, the band resumed their normal playing. We celebrated for the rest of the day, only crashing late in the evening. Wanderlust and I found some kind of fruit on a tree, which we shared for dinner, then we found ourselves a patch of soft moss to sleep in. We rested against each other quietly for a while before I remembered that I still had Grayscale's note tucked into my breastplate. I pulled the note out of my armor and read it out loud to Wanderlust next to me.

"If you have this note in your hooves, I am likely dead. I hope that my death did not hinder your ability to effectively defend Equestria. In the short time I spent in this world, I had an exceptional time. The ponies I loved were always near me, and were always ready to fight with me. If Wing Nut and Wanderlust die beside me, or die before they get to read this letter, I hope they were as ready as I was. They made my life feel meaningful, showing me a good time between fights and cheering me up when I needed it. If I did not die a hero, I hope that you will not lie and tell the world that I did. Though I hope to be recognized in death as I was in life. If you didn't like me, you don't have to start liking me. If you saw me only as an acquaintance, treat me accordingly. If you were a friend, remember the fun times we had together. My only request is that however you saw or knew me during my life, don't forget me in death.

• First Sergeant Grayscale"

The two of us sat together in silence on our bed of soft moss. Then Wanderlust closed her eyes and began to cry. I lay down on top of her and placed my filthy chin on top of her filthy mane. In response, she brought her right hoof up, placed it on my head softly, and began to stroke it. Eventually the crying stopped, and I rolled off of her and onto the moss.

"Are you ready to go home, Wanderlust?"

"Sir... yes sir."

When we woke up on the morning, we all began our trip home. The pegasi flew back to Cloudsdale and the earth and unicorn ponies marched back towards Canterlot. Our flight was only an hour and a half. The airfield staff were stunned when I told them that we were the only pegasi left. There was me, Wanderlust, and ten others that were from random regiments around the army. We were forced to stay on base until the rest of the army arrived, and we were finished with the memorial service in Canterlot.

The service came three days later. We were ordered over to Canterlot, back in our armor again. Only this time it was clean, and so were we. My armor no longer carried any scuffs or scratches, nor did my body. We paraded through the center of Canterlot as heroes, though to this day, I'm still not sure if we really were. After going down Canterlot's main boulevard, we marched into the castle's garden and lined up by regiment.

We had short, sad lines of up to five ponies in each row, as most of us had been killed. Spectators and family members of the soldiers were lining the castle walls around us, greatly outnumbering our ninety remaining ponies. Celestia and the newly returned Luna approached our ranks, we exchanged bows, then she read the names of the ponies that had gone missing or were killed. The name reading took four hours.

The eight remaining officers were presented with a war veteran sash, and then we bowed to the flag. Finally, we dropped our weapons at our hooves, Celestia bowed to us, then we heard those words that we had all been waiting for.

"Equestria's Royal Army! As princess and ruler of this nation, I compliment your efforts to defend Equestria, and commend you for surviving the struggle through honorable means. You are hereby dismissed from your wartime duties."

Everypony along the wall that wasn't sobbing or mourning was then permitted to run down into the garden to meet us. Aerodrome flew straight down to me from the wall and crashed into me violently, knocking me over and pinning me on my back.

"I'm so glad you made it!" She yelled in my face. Wanderlust was watching us and smiling at me happily from her spot next to me, waiting for her brother to find her.

"I am too..." I responded, thinking about all of my dead friends. "I don't want to discuss what happened right now, so don't ask. Maybe I'll tell you some other time. If I can manage to."

"I don't want you feeling any worse about anything. Tonight we can go out to dinner and then you can finally get back to our house." She said caringly. "I'll bet you're exhausted."

She looked into my eyes, searching for an answer. I remember she had the biggest smile on her face. I let my head drop down into the grass and I closed my eyes and relaxed all of my muscles.

"Yes..." I told Aerodrome. "I am exhausted."