Stale Mate

It was more than frightening just how deathly quiet it had all become.

Earlier, there had been noise; deafening, thunderous, booming even. The rise and fall of distant, beyond yonder blurs of absolute terror, their hellish screaming in the chipper autumn wind hailing an uprising of the incessant wails and bellows of countless stallions and mares. The simple cracks—foalish fireworks on a constant snapping and popping during a joyous holiday—that sold the taxing letters home every able pony here dreaded. The voices of brave young soldiers, breaking and cracking under the pressure of their friends, their allies, their mates lying face down in the dribbling mud right next to them, their dark tan uniforms torn open and their prior wondrous lives whisked away in a mere instant. The thump thump thumping of hooves slogging through wet dirt and wetter rain, only to come to a sudden halt and a messy splash before they had even heard a sound apart from their own echoing heartbeat.

Now, there was nothing but utter, complete, genuine, disheartening silence, one that sounded for hundreds of miles and miles and rang into everyone's eardrums. There was something about fighting that passionately accustomed one to the seemingly endless barrage of destruction, be it very far up the front lines ahead of him or so close to the support trench he and his squad of five had occupied that the dirt and red hail could soak his coat and splatter onto his shallow bowl-shaped helmet. There was, at first, the breathless seizing for oxygen, accompanied by the scared, wide eyes and the horrible shaking running up and down one's entire body. One had to learn to simply get over such occurrences, whether by a painstaking trial by fire or simple instruction from a mustached stallion who'd end up face down with the rest of the best in the ground by the start of the next morn.

It was fast approaching dawn when the roaring quiet had first set its sights on the battleground of what was once a pretty spot for a family picnic, the ground reduced to black craters and wet earth, the scattered trees like blank white ghosts on the misty horizon, and the lovely blue skies above painted with remnants of Pegasi flight maneuvers and disturbed dogfights from cloud-spewing death machines nestled miles below. There were many sounds that he would have loved more than anything to never hear again in his entire lifespan, but the torrent of splashing Pegasi bodies from beyond the trench line had to be the absolute highest on his ill-fated list.

He hoped that he wouldn't have to see any on his patrol out there.

Many ponies, front liners and even higher-ups, argued that such a thing would and could only lead to even more needless deaths. Sending even a single troop over the trench just meant yet another lost soul in a sea of already charred bodies, whether by a rain of dust clouds and crimson water or one snap of a wayward firework. Getting assigned to such a chore called for a small, unofficial going away party consisting of one last hearty meal amidst jokes and laughter, and a flurry of "see you later's" that would end up being nothing but empty, hollow promises. Ponies believed it to be suicide, and in a very good reason, it most definitely was. You'd be hard pressed to not find a pair of ponies sobbing for their comrade before they even stepped up the parapet. Tonight was the long-dreaded night that his squad leader had told him that he and his battle buddy would be heading up to do the messy work. Their turn, like some kind of little foal's game with standing cardboard pieces and a colorful board. Many of his close friends—hardened and steeled under the unbearable heat of gritty wartime—had already tried denying his accepting of such an assignment so vehemently that even the stallions among them had squeezed tears out their tired, baggy eyes.

Sure, even he was scared. There had been so few reports of surviving soldiers returning from patrol duty that it was almost like Bighoof in a way; some kind of myth or legend installed in one's mind to keep them satisfyingly full on wishful thinking and unrealistic ideas like Santa Hooves or the Easter Bunny. Even as he trotted across the swallowing mud and the slick, splashing puddles beside his mate, he could feel his sleeved forelegs positively quivering from the sensation. He had to constantly remind himself that it was either him, or some other young pony who sure as hell didn't deserve such a sentence, one who had a wife and kid back home, or a pair of parents who would've wanted nothing more than to see their child again safe and sound, terrified of the appearance of robed stallions on their doorstep with a letter in their hooves and a word of condolences on their lips.

Somepony had to make sure that those letters, be they as saddening and gut-wrenching as they may be, were sent on a confirmation and not an assumption, after all.

There were many more ponies heading out over the trenches tonight, not just him and his battle buddy. The sections of the doomed were cut by lengths of a hundred and twenty yards; hoofball field lengths of ponies walking out into the open air and praying that their feathered enemies would be so merciful as to not fire upon them, as easy as it may have appeared to them. Some ponies wouldn't make it back tonight; in fact, it was more than likely that none of them would, but survivability didn't run on pessimism. Even in wartime, with bodies lining whole trench lines and red rain the likes of which nopony should ever have to see, remaining positive was really the only way to stop yourself from simply flinging your body over the parapet into the business end of enemy fire.

His squad mate, doomed with the likes of he, was a mare too small and short for such an event to even cross her mind. Even with her battered coat and necktie draped over her body and the affectionately nicknamed "Hoof Slogger" helmet propped atop her daily endangered scalp, he could still see the effects of yesterday's painfully low rations plaguing her figure. The large backpack over her back was indeed way too big for her stature, and the bolt-action rifle holstered butt-end back next to it was a horror to see in such a pony's hooves, but her look of undeniable hardness was a sight to behold. This aforementioned look suddenly found itself addressed to him, and so he simply gave her a curt nod and an afterward jerk of his head in an attempt to defuse his obvious staring at her.

She silently raised an eyebrow at him, but turned back to face forward just as quickly.

He himself wasn't much to look at, but it was certainly loads easier to do so than the mare still trotting next to him. He hadn't looked at himself in what he believed to be weeks—it wasn't like there were many mirrors to use around here that weren't already destroyed or purposefully chipped to be used as weapons—but the unmistakable beard on his chin and the drenched whipping at the back of his sweaty neck told him that he desperately needed to get a trim once he returned. He had hoped that his facial hair could catch the cloud of projectiles that would surely meet him, but one look at the bloody gurneys wheeling toward the reserves told him that acting stupid wasn't something that would save his life. One could dream, however.

He had always wondered what it would be like if he ever happened upon a living pony while trotting through the proclaimed "No Mare's Land" on patrol, but the mental image of crimson stumps and choked retching was enough to make him wish for anything but. Even a blown apart corpse couldn't stare back at you and call for their mother, wherever they may have been. The countryside, maybe. A nice farmhouse with mooing cows and calls of necessary milking. A creaky steel windmill that stood out for miles and reminded the returning inhabitants that home was only a couple minutes away. Maybe they lived in an apartment complex, with a view of the local metropolitan society and expansive bridges that stretched far past the dense clouds of fog that seeped back in like massive waves on a quiet, relaxing ocean. Ponies outside playing baseball, and yelling at one another if they suspected cheating or foul play. Young colts playing with wooden guns in the streets in a simulation of war, not fully knowing just what they were attempting to recreate.

The smell of garbage bags and ozone had not a single candle to hold to the decaying slabs of bare meat he was now trodding through.

His hooves sloshed through a small puddle of what he sincerely hoped to be nothing but rain water, soaking the fur and caking them with black mud he wouldn't be able to get rid of for days. It was like he was slowly walking through a blank white sheet of crunchy snow during the winter time back home, except there was no white to be seen for miles. Not a single cloud hanging high in the sky wasn't some shade of gray or black, long reminders that a frantic pony had been previously flying up there with the wind whipping their neck and their hearts still beating inside their heaving chests. There were many times where he found himself jealous of the Pegasus ponies, who could so easily hide in a cloud and wait for the battle below to finish, but the explosions of black dust and the glistening of griffon claws strayed him from believing aerial combat to be easier than his position. Stomaching one side of the battlefield was hard enough; there was no real guarantee he'd be perfectly fine stomaching both sides.

He couldn't imagine what it must be like on the griffon's side of the field. He'd seen nothing but pony bodies littering the ground from where he usually stood shivering in the support trenches