Nobody But Us
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“Now don’t run too far, ya hear? It’ll only take a minute fer me to have my work with Princess Twilight.”
“But, Sis, why can’t ya just talk to Twilight when ya see ‘er ‘round town?” Apple Bloom’s hooves clopped on the stone floor of Canterlot castle outside the stately door designed at Princess Twilight Sparkle’s private office.
“Because the rules say she can’t take business out of her office and as Ponyville’s delegate to Canterlot, I have ‘ter follow ‘em.” Applejack explained to her little sister. “And I gotta be here for the Municipal Delegates meeting tomorrow; just wanna see if I can get her purple highness’s backing for my irrigation policy proposal before gittin’ it chewed up tomorrow. Should take but a moment. Now go on, git.” Applejack playfully ruffled her sister’s mane, sending the yellow filly scampering off.
The door opened and an effeminate dappled brown stallion wearing glasses welcomed her. “Right this way, Miss Applejack.” She entered the office and sat down in front of a richly carved mahogany desk, behind which sat a familiar alicorn princess.
“Hey, Applejack,” Twilight said, her eyes strangely red.
“Hello, Twi…” Applejack mumbled apprehensively, barely hearing the faint clopping of Apple Bloom’s hooves recede away.
Apple Bloom breathed in the warm air as a sunny breeze wafted through it replete with floral scents of spring. She walked through the gardens, delighting in their florid splendor. She smiled. And she’d been afraid that Canterlot was going to be all concrete and stone. She knew all the flowers by sight and smell – yellow dandelions, blue irises, violet azaleas, yellow tulips, white orchids, and pink roses. But there was one flower than evaded her, though she smelled it and it made her think of her dear home at Sweet Apple Acres. There were no red poppies. She followed her nose, not noticing that it was leading her away from the ornamental gardens, though she appreciated the lower volume of big ponies. The filly soon found herself on a great, sloped lawn, traveling uphill. The scent of poppies was strong now, but it too was suddenly darker than it had been. Clouds, perhaps? She looked up and saw not just those delightful red poppies, but something unlike anything else in her life.
The stone memorial stood near the royal gardens in Canterlot. The sun gleamed through the sky and cascaded through the scattered white clouds in radiant beams. Birds sang and ponies milled about in the bright, verdant gardens. But in the park just a short while over, few ponies treaded. All that stood there was a granite statue of a pony warrior of old brandishing a spear and shield. Below his rearing form was a long bank of the same granite stone carved with various scenes of ponies with spears, swords, bows, and gun. Some were killing. Some were dying. Some were dead. Some were armed. Some were unarmed. Some seemed brave. Some seemed frightened. The figures marched, stood in formation, clashed, and retreated. In the center of the monument, between the rearing figure and the carved mural, there were three simple words carved deep into the rock, set in stone with absolute precision to be seen and read by all passerby into eternity. Its oily surface appearance told that it was enchanted to last, that it would not rot like the flesh of mortals and not rust like the steel of civilization. They were three simple words.
NOBODY BUT US
Apple Bloom suddenly realized how silent it was around her. The birds had stopped. The rampant hoofsteps were now just a faint murmur in the low registers of her hearing. The air was suddenly still, eerily still. The shadow of the monument encased her and made her feel so small. Her eyes met the fierce glare of the stone warrior. She lowered her gaze, feeling indecent as if she had just walked in on something sacred. She forgot to sniff the great array of poppies forming a bulwark around it and instead walked around them, drawn to the monument inexplicably.
Standing right before it, Apple Bloom air traced with her hoof over every carved contour, marveling in the little details. Every face was unique. One pony had a mole on his snout. Another had a piece clipped out of his hoof. One of them was missing an ear and had a huge scar on his neck. No detailed was spared on the scenes of killing. The little flecks of pale, rosymineral seemed to suggest something as they flew out behind where spears emerged from the backs of skulls, where swords severed limbs, arrows stuck in chests, and bullets perforated bodies. She could see what were clearly meant to be bones and severed limbs, and perhaps it was just the light, but the stone appeared ever so slightly redder where she would expect gore.
Apple Bloom walked the length of the monument, noticing that the background was not just blank as she had imagined it, but instead had little shapes suggesting castles, forests, plains, and towns. At the very end of it, she saw the familiar shapes of Canterlot; its mountain, castle, and buildings. And standing at the farthest end was Princess Celestia with a curious expression and one hoof raised forwards, as if a conductor waving the soldiers on in their hellish symphony. Something felt wrong. The filly stepped closer only to find her hoof on something hard yet not immobile She looked downwards. Rocks. She glanced along the whole thing. There were stones lined up from end to end and then stacked in some places. It was probably just a barrier, she figured, and took a step back. She looked to her right side and noticed a unicorn stallion with a pale coat and a patchy, charcoal mane clad in some brown camouflage. He turned to look at her. Perhaps he was the caretaker? They made eye contact. His eyes had this look in them she could not describe. Sheepishly, she wondered aloud loudly enough to be heard, “What does “nobody but us” mean?”
“It means that nobody but us can do this.” She jumped, having not expected an answer. He had a slight accent like one she’d expect from Griffiya and imagined with somebody reading some harsh-sounding document written in script that looked almost like Equestrian but with letters in weird places, and backwards R’s, N’s, funky things that looked like 4’s, w’s, and had some letter that looked like a 3. “Sorry, did I scare you? My name is Solnyechnyi Veterok.”
“Solnechny Vetterak?”
“Close enough,” the stallion ceded. “And you are?”
“Uh, Apple Bloom.”
“Apple Boom?”
“Not boom -- Bloom.”
"Sorry, just playing with you,” the stallion chuckled. He didn’t seem dangerous. In fact, in that instant with the laughter reaching around his eyes, he seemed almost normal.
“It’s okay. So, well, um, did you serve?”
“I did, but not in the Royal Guard.” Solnechny replied.
“Thank you for your service,” said Apple Bloom after a moment, remembering what Applejack had told her to say to veterans.
“Thanks for not forgetting Remembrance Day.”
The filly’s eyes widened. “That’s today?”
“Yeah, today. At least you thought to say something. Not a lot of ponies come by here, except to maybe take thirty seconds to look for a place to have a picnic.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Not your fault. Then there are those flagellants who seem to be going to every monument and every servicepony and vet they can find and thanking them. At least you aren’t doing that.”
Apple Bloom scratched her chin. “Why? What’s wrong with thanking ya’ll for everything you’ve done for us.”
Solnechny Veterok nodded and rumbled back, “Nothing really; I don't mind at all." A faint hint of smile showed on his face. He stretched and said, "It’s awkward when ponies come and put you on a pedestal, like you’re a god above them.”
“Oh, I guess I see why now…”
“You know what’s really funny, though?” He looked at the yellow filly before pointing a hoof at the rearing sculpture. “The same ponies who tried to make us all into great heroes and are so eager to make us go do the things in these carvings are same ones who don’t give to us much of help when we come back. Maybe because they’re afraid of warriors.” Apple Bloom rubbed her bow thoughtfully. “Then there are the ones who think we’re all stupid victims of politics. At least they seem to care about supporting us when we come home, at least. Maybe because of guilt. Too bad neither of them are really giving me what I’d like.”
“What do ya want?”
“To be able to just live normally again.” For a second, the grimness on his face yielded to a look of weary grief worn into the lines of his face by years of despair and horror. For a split second, the warrior looked like a casualty. “Perhaps I just want to be thought of as a pony who put his life on the line once upon a time, nothing more or less. I don’t want your veneration or your pity. I don’t want to know everyone is secretly thinking that I’m expecting praise because I went and killed, or that I may just turn on them if I’m not bought off with welfare and benefits. They all fear me.”
“Why would they fear you, Solnenchy?”
“Look at these carvings and think. It's not a pleasant business. Would you really want to be caught in the middle of it, forced to kill or be killed? It changes us. It even breaks some of us. You can see it in my eyes." And there it was, a look that said danger, but at the same time plead for help with the faintest hint of a tear.
“No,” whispered Apple Bloom, tears welling up in her eyes just like in his.
“Nobody but us, because nobody else could. Nobody but us, because nobody else should. Nobody but us, because nobody but else would. They can’t understand why I went, nor do they want to”
“And why did you?”
“A lot of reasons. I wanted to see the world, make friends, do some good, and get paid for it. I’d say I wanted just to prove myself as a stallion. I was nopony’s fool; none of us were. And none of those who made it back are heroes.”
Apple Bloom asked, “Who are the real heroes, then?”
“There are so many of them,” he answered. “These rocks are marred with the echoes of thousands of years of warfare. The ones this day is for? You can see them carved into this hunk of rock. For their true number, well, just wait a sekundichku; you’ll see, here comes another one now.”
Apple Bloom heard hooves approaching. She caught sight of three ponies. Looking up, she recognized the nearest one, with a white stone levitated in front of her and a red poppy levitated beside it. She placed it on the pick of rocks directly beneath the words Nopony But Us. Tears welled up in the filly’s eyes, threatening to spill out and leking already. The mares, Applejack, Cadance, and Twilight, turned around. Cadance said with remarkable control over her evident grief, “Apple Bloom, my husband is dead.”
“My brother died today in Afghneighnistan in an attack near the Zebrican border,” said Princess Twilight.
“He was the only casualty; he covered their retreat; he died a hero,” Cadance said, planting another poppy to add to the mass. Too many…
“Nobody but him, Apple Bloom,” said Applejack.
Veterok’s weary eyes met hers understandingly. Hers fled his to the warmthless sunny sky, to the lifeless statue, and then to the bloody poppies growing from ground, under which Shining Armor must now be sleeping forever young. The pressure in her eyes grew. She could hardly breathe. Suffering everywhere, and only the dead had seen the end. She opened her mouth to say something, but that came out was a wail.
Author's Note
I'm back and alive! So nice to finally be back on here and have a story for you all.
Thank you so much for reading and I hope you liked it and found it interesting. I wrote this after reading about a journalist named Sebastian Junger and the work he's done around US troops during the War on Terror, and some of the ideas he has about veterans and how society treats and considers them while also making a point about the reality of death behind a holiday that many of my countrymen seems to just be an excuse to get drunk and get an early look at the Summer's bikini babes. I hope you enjoyed and and that it made you think. Kalash93 here, glad to be back. Keep calm and brony on. And if if you liked this... Support me on Patreon.
