Perchance to Dreamby MisterMonikerChaptersMare Serenitatis, Sea of SerenityMare Cognitum, Sea That Has Become Known (Part 1)Mare Cognitum, Sea That Has Become Known (Part 2)Mare Imbrium, Sea of ShowersMare Tranquilitatis, Sea of TranquilityMare Serenitatis, Sea of SerenityThe last hoofful of clouds lazed away through the morning sky as Celestia’s sun rose, carrying a quiet breeze with it. Manehattan was building up to the usual morning hustle-and-bustle, and pony-drawn carts skittered back and forth through the busy streets alongside a few of the magical Auto-wheehicular Contra-vices (inventions of FlimFlam Bros., inc.) that had become so popular in the past year. One such four-wheeled deathtrap nearly fishtailed into the milkmare as she crossed the street towards her final delivery for the morning. The cream-colored unicorn barked a few choice words at the driver as he sped away, cackling at her. Stallions and their toys, the mare thought to herself as she blew a few displaced strands of pale-orange hair out of her eyes. She snorted and hoofed the low gate ahead of her open, intent on delivering the rest of this damn milk and getting home before any other maniacs attempted to wipe her off the road. The black, wrought-iron gate opened on well-oiled hinges, allowing her entry into the front lawn of the Moonlight Gardens home. Delivering here always seemed to calm her down on a rough morning, the mare realized. She levitated three white bottles from her basket and trotted softly down the paved path to the front door, admiring the large magnolia tree in full bloom. Where the other, infrequent pieces of foliage around the city were just now showing the first fiery hint of autumn, this tree seemed to be in a perpetual pink bloom, day or night. The grass around it was neatly trimmed up to the garden area surrounding the dark-red brick building. This particular milkmare was by no means a qualified florist (The horror, she shuddered as she thought of having to tend plants inside all day), but she was familiar with a few of the various species arranged throughout the garden. A good earth pony friend of hers from one of the smaller towns further west had been sending her a small collection of flowers that she cultivated for a living. Among the dozens of plants filling the garden that surrounded the home, she could only place a name to a few. Many of the buds were beginning to close with the rising of the sun, like the yellow petals of the Lyreleaf Greeneyes or the stark white flowers hanging from the flowering tobacco. She caught a glimpse of the Scarlet Four O’Clock, the Beauty of the Night, before it sealed itself away from the daylight. It must have taken a powerful magician alongside an experienced gardener to fill a spread like this with plants from around the world, many of which couldn’t live in this climate normally. The mare took a whiff of the heady mélange of scents before it was whisked away with the breeze, growing fainter as each bud closed for the day. A large stem, covered almost completely in hydrangea and topped with a massive yellow bud grew next to the white set of stairs that carried the milkmare up to the front door. She spared a second look at the plant, wondering what kind of flower grew to be this tall and with a stem so thick...she almost didn’t notice the thick spines spearing through the gaps in the hydrangea before touching a hoof to the plant. No. No way. This was the same stupid plant that her pal from Ponyville gushed about letter after letter, wishing she could grow one in her own garden someday. Underneath the heavy coat of vine and white blossoms, a single, spiny stalk of the nightblooming cereus stood vanguard at the entrance to Moonlight Gardens. Her friend’s most recent letter had mentioned news through the local florist’s club about one of these rare cacti having been recently transplanted to a collection in Manehattan...apparently this was it. She was so coming back here tomorrow with a camera. Leaving the beautiful Princess of the Night where it grew comfortably in the company of its peers, the unicorn ascended the last few steps to the porch and raised her hoof to leave a light knock on the heavy wooden door. Somepony had to deliver this milk, after all. Snickerdoodle blinked, confused by the question. Sapphire smiled as she stuffed another bite in Shale’s grimacing maw. “Well, yeah, of course we can, pinks. What do you think brothers and sisters are for?” Doodle slid a plate of flapjacks towards the new addition to their group with a smile. Sapphire scooted the colt off of her lap and began setting up helpings for herself and Lily. Below her, Shale sat on his white-and-black-streaked tail and wiped the rest of his breakfast off of his face. “That’s right, Lil’,” Sapphire mused. “Most of us here don’t have anypony else to look after us, aside from Miss Dew and Auntie Luna. So we’re each other’s family. Do you want syrup with that?” “Oh, yes, please.” The bottle up-ended itself above the table, drizzling a generous helping on both of the fillies’ plates. As Lily drew her plate closer, a glass of orange juice floated to the table in front of her. Four matching glasses sailed through the air to land in front of each foal, and a bottle of the stuff wound its way into Shale’s outstretched hooves. “There you go, kids. Now hurry up and finish breakfast. We still have to clean up the den so the Princess has a tidy house to visit,” Miss Dew called from the kitchen. “Woona!” Shale yelled before Sapphire tilted his bottle back into his mouth. “Yes. Now c’mon, let’s finish up and get the place clean.” “Hey, Sapphire,” Lily asked between mouthfuls of breakfast, “what’s Princess Luna like?” The unicorn tapped her chin thoughtfully before shrugging and gathering up some of the dishes on the table with her magic. “This is your first time meeting the princess, huh?” “Yeah...I’m a little nervous.” It was true; excited as she was, Lily still couldn’t get the storybook image of Nightmare Moon out of her head. Sapphire laughed and stepped away from the table, levitating the stack of dirty dishes in front of her. “You’re in for a treat, then. Get everypony together and meet me in the den, alright?” She trotted into the kitchen, bearing the breakfast load with her. Doodle jumped down from his chair and knocked the back of Petal’s chair as he walked past, startling her awake again. “Alright, time to wake up, sis. Let’s pick the place up already.” Petal yawned deeply, stretching her wings and cracking her back as she tried to re-enter the waking world. “Fine. D’you think I can sneak a nap in before she gets here?” “You’ve been sneaking naps in ever since Miss Dew pulled you out of bed this morning, doofus. You shouldn’t stay up so late to paint. If we can get everything spic-and-span, you could probably snooze a little on the couch.” Placated for the moment, the burnt-orange pegasus flapped her wings and lifted from the chair to follow Doodle into the living room. All that was left for Lily was to gather up Shale...and Hazel. “It’s Hazel, right?” She offered her best smile to the quiet unicorn. He had hardly touched any of his breakfast; chopped-up bits of pancake littered his plate like a battleground, but none of them had made it to his mouth. “Are you alright? You seem...sad.” “Nut.” “Uh...what?” The pink pegasus knelt down to the dining room floor so Shale could clamber up onto her back, carrying his bottle of juice with him. “My name,” Hazel continued. “It’s Hazel Nut. Named after my dad, Birch Nut.” He shuffled around in his seat before climbing down, swishing his black tail around to sweep up a few of the crumbs that had fallen to the floor from breakfast. “Oh. That’s a nice name, Hazel Nut.” Shale was starting to get antsy between Lily’s wings, and she began trotting in place to try and calm him down with some motion. “Can you tell me anything about your dad?” The blank look Hazel gave her told her everything she really needed to know on that subject. “I’m sorry,” she blurted, trying to stretch her neck so Shale couldn’t get a good mouthful of her ear. “I just...don’t really remember much about my parents. I was a little curious, is all.” Blushing in shame, she turned and tried creeping out of the room with a foal in tandem. “No, it’s fine...I forgot that everypony’s here because they don’t have a mom or a dad. At least I still have my dad...sort of.” He fell into step alongside her and gave Shale a nudge back into place. “We used to live together in an apartment on the other side of the city. He got a letter about eight months ago with a golden seal on it...he said he had to go back to work for Princess Celestia. I was dropped off here while he was gone. He never told me what he was supposed to be doing, either. I didn’t find out until I was called in to see him in the hospital...” He paused in his story as the three foals passed the front door. Over the din from the living room, Lily could hear the colt next to her begin to sob. “Hey,” she offered, unsure of what to do. “I’m sure that whatever’s happened to your dad, he’s still thinking about you, right?” She raised a hoof to his shoulder, wrapping him in an awkward hug. “Heh, sure,” he sniffed. “Turns out he had to go fight in the Royal Guard somewhere for the princesses. He got hurt pretty bad while he was gone and he hasn’t been able to come home yet. He...he went and left me and now he might not...” Lily cut him off before a new series of tears could overtake the colt, wrapping both of her hooves around his neck in a silent hug. Shale rolled from between Lily’s wings to Hazel’s broader back, anchoring himself firmly in place with a mouthful of black mane. “Thanks, Lily. I haven’t really told anypony about that yet. I think Miss Dew already knows, but nopony else asked. I guess you’re alright.” His tired smile was split as Shale wrenched back on his mane, squeezing his four little legs around Hazel’s midsection. “Woona!” The miniature foal wailed at nopony in particular. “He’s right, you know. We should go help the others clean up before the princess gets here.” Lily patted each of her new brothers on the head in turn before the smaller one swatted her away from his salt-and-pepper mane. “NO! Woona!” “MISS MORNING DEW, MY STALWART CENTURIONS AND I HAVE CAPTURED A POTENTIALLY DANGEROUS INTERLOPER ON YOUR DOORSTEP.” The volume alone was enough to knock each foal onto their backs, and the sonic aftershock rattled Lily straight to her bones. She stared breathlessly at the front door, terrified at what may lie beyond. “Oh, dear. She’s in one of her playtime moods again.” Trotting swiftly to the door, Miss Dew picked up each of the children and sent them scurrying off to the living room with a wave of her hoof. “Go on then. Let me sort this out with Auntie Luna before she comes in to see you all.” “I CAN HEAR YOU WITHIN, MISS MORNING DEW. NO NEED TO LOOK UPON THE INTRUDER; I SHALL HAVE MY GUARDS TRANSPORT HER TO THE NEAREST PENITENTIARY WITH ALL HASTE. IS CAPITAL PUNISHMENT STILL ENFORCED IN THESE LANDS? MY KNOWLEDGE OF MODERN EQUESTRIAN LAW IS STILL HAZY.” Goddesses above, Lily could swear there were a dozen ponies’ voices forcing their way through the rattling door instead of just one. She chanced a look back as Miss Dew stepped outside and caught a glimpse of one terrified mare, two heavily-armored batponies, and four massive black pillars that each ended in a diamond-encrusted boot. “Good grief, princess, you know full well that there hasn’t been an execution in nearly 800 years. Please stop frightening this poor milkmare - thank you for the delivery, by the way, dear; see you next week - and come inside already! You’re drawing a crowd.” “HUZZAH! A PUBLIC EXECUTION IT IS!” Lily leaped into the den with Hazel and Shale in her wake, a stream of booming laughter and mortified wails following them. “Everypony run! Nightmare Moon’s here!” She leaped behind a thickly-cushioned blue couch, doing her best to draw her tail into the crawlspace after her. “Yeah,” Sapphire deadpanned as she peeked in at Lily. “We heard her.” “But-but-she’s gonna eat us! Hazel, put Shale in here with me and find a hiding spot!” The colt laughed and gave her the first real smile she’d seen from him all day. “Are you kidding? C’mon, Lily, you can’t miss this!” Shale waved his hooves above his head, teetering dangerously on Hazel’s red coat. “Miss wh-aaa...” Pink feathers obscured Lily’s eyesight just as a truly massive diamond warboot crashed into her field of vision. She hardly recognized the wings as her own and opted to freeze in place, hoping the Nightmare couldn’t see her. “I smell four...five...six tasty little foals.” Drat, one of six foals thought to herself as she tried not to breathe. “One of them smells like a pegasus...a pretty pink pegasus with blue eyes.” Double drat! “She smells as if she is hiding behind the couch!” “Augh!” Pink feathers burst out of Lily’s hiding spot as she rocketed up to the ceiling, flapping her wings madly to try and escape almost certain death. “Yes!” Nightmare Moon’s voice wasn’t merely loud, it was deafening. It filled the room and the rooms beyond it even further than the gigantic form of her armored body could. “RUN! IT MAKES YOU TASTE ALL THE SWEETER WHEN I COME TO GOBBLE YOU UP!” Fangs leapt out of the Nightmare’s wide mouth, glinting dangerously in the morning light. Beneath Lily, five foals laughed and disappeared in all directions, giggling as they ran away from the coal-black alicorn. “Wait...what?” Lily’s hover faltered as she saw the Queen of Terror slip her a quick wink before vanishing in a puff of stardust and purple smoke. Another bout of giggles erupted from the kitchen; Paint Petal, if Lily heard right. “One pegasus filly gobbled, five foals left to find!” The triumphant cry echoed from the kitchen back into the den, rocking Lily in the air. Below her an orange pegasus popped into the middle of the floor, scattering specks of magic as she appeared. If she was sleepy before, she was completely awake now. “Heeheehee! Hey, Lily! What are you doing up there? You’ve gotta find a better hiding spot!” She fluttered up to the pink foal and began pushing her down to ground level. “What?” “Don’t tell me you’ve never played hide-and-seek! There, that’s a good spot. I usually hide there.” Petal lifted one of the large blue cushions on the couch and waited until Lily had crawled underneath to lower it. From under the plush cushion came another muffled: “What?” A soft crash came from the second floor, followed by the sounds of foals’ cheers and laughter. Two pops, one after another, signalled the return of two more foals. Lily peeked out from beneath her plush hiding spot to see Hazel and Shale appear in a bundle on the carpet. Shale leapt off of his brother’s prone body, jumping in place and whooping laughter. Hazel groaned and picked himself up, grinning the whole time. “Outta the way! She found me!” A blue-tinted magical flash burst in the middle of the air, depositing Sapphire face-first onto the carpet. Her mane and tail were slightly singed from the imperfect teleportation spell. She shrieked with laughter as a deep-purple cloud appeared in the doorway, rocketing tacross the room and solidifying into Nightmare Moon. The alicorn hung suspended upside-down from the ceiling, hooves spread wide in a predatory stance. “I have you now, child!” She sprang from her perch, tackling Sapphire and rolling into the hallway towards the front door. Lily heard another faint crash as something presumably expensive shattered in the assault. Miss Dew walked through the same doorway, carrying a pile of broken porcelain in her magical field. “Honestly, I don’t even know why I bother cleaning before she visits.” Her white tail disappeared into the doorway to the kitchen just as Nightmare Moon stepped back into the den. Sapphire hung from her jaws by the tip of her midnight-blue tail, smiling and giggling softly to herself even as she tried to play possum. The alicorn princess deposited her gently on the carpet before grinding a hoof in mock frustration. “Only two remain. Perhaps they should surrender so that they do not feel my unholy fury!” She stomped from one end of the room to the other, gnashing her teeth and licking the tips of her fangs for effect. Lily could just barely see a small set of brown hooves following in her shadow. “Attack!” Doodle leaped and attached himself to the alicorn’s tail, scrabbling with his limbs to try and find purchase in the misty veil of starlight and night sky. Even as he started to fall, the mist formed around him and lifted him high into the air, dropping him neatly behind Nightmare Moon’s icy helmet. With a mournful wail, she spun in place and raised a hoof to her brow. “Oh, gods and goddesses above, a brave warrior has surely slain me, the Nightmare That Walks The Waking World, the Devourer of Flesh and Soul, Mare Who Is Blacker Than the Blackest Black...Times Infinity!” “You made that last one up, dear,” Miss Dew called helpfully from another room. Lily grunted as the full weight of an immortal embodiment of the absence of light crashed onto the couch and pinned her under the cushions. “Help! Nightmare Moon is squishing me!” She twisted and managed to get a single, pink hoof out from beneath the mare above her. “Jellied foal was a wonderful delicacy during my all-too-brief rule,” the princess stated matter-of-factly. The weight above Lily shifted away, and the little pegasus squeezed her way out of the couch and rolled onto the carpet. She watched in awe as the humongous black goddess shrank and changed in color to a comfortably blue shade of midnight. Princess Luna, Dream Mother and Patron of the Watchful Eye, lounged on the couch as a proud-looking Doodle adopted a heroic pose on top of her peytral plate. “Come now, Snickerdoodle, let an old horrorterror such as myself be vanquished with her dignity.” The colt atop her wrinkled his nose at the sound of his name. “Please, Auntie Luna, it’s just Doodle. Don’t call me by my first name.” “I will do no such thing. I will continue to call you Snickerdoodle, because they are delicious and it is a cute name and I enjoy antagonizing you. Now, Lily Breeze, the quiet little pegasus, come here please.” Princess Luna levitated Doodle away from her as she sat up on the couch, slipping the tiara off of her head and the plate from her chest. “P-princess! Um, how do you know my name?” The fact that the other foals seemed to remember her name was surprise enough for Lily. “Child, I know every pony’s name that stays under my roof. While you are all living here, you are living in my home, under the care of my very good friend Morning Dew. Have you enjoyed your first morning here?” The princess patted a spot on the couch next to her, and Lily hesitantly lifted herself up to the seat. The rest of the children gathered around the pair on the couch, taking seats on the carpet or pulling cushions from the living room’s chairs to sit on. “I’ve been having a nice time so far, princess. My, um...my new brothers and sisters all seem very nice. And a lot of fun!” “That’s more or less us in a nutshell,” Sapphire added with a wry smile. “Nice, and fun. We accept praise.” “That is good to hear, but please don’t bother calling me ‘princess’ here, child. I’m making a family visit, not entertaining a court full of nobleponies. Now children, how have you all been since I last came? What have you all done that is new and exciting?” Upon hearing the princess’ question, Paint Petal gasped and zipped out of the living room. She came tearing back down from the second floor a second later, a large sheet of butcher paper in tow. “Auntie Luna! I painted something for you. I stayed up all night working on it!” The orange filly held up the wide canvas, beaming with pride. A panorama of the night sky appeared to have been vomited onto the paper. White-and-yellow stars speckled a haphazard swash of deep blue and black, and an ovalish-looking moon was scarred with dozens of grey splotches in the rough shape of a pony’s face. Princess Luna took it from Petal’s hooves gently, handling the artwork as if it was the rarest treasure in the royal vault. Her eyes lit with a warmth that Lily still couldn’t understand, and she raised the painting high above her head in glee. “Wonderful! Thank you, dearest Paint Petal. I shall have it hung in the palace’s display gallery today! Besides,” she added conspiratorially, “Between us, the horrid old place could do with a few more moons and stars. Far too many paintings of the sun and stuffy old dead ponies.” She shared a giggle with Petal and rolled the canvas with her magic. “Imbrium! Somniorum! Attend your princess!” Princess Luna called her guards into the den happily, enjoying, as she always did, ordering them around as often as she could. Somniorum, the taller of the two armored batponies, was the first through the hallway. He took a stance next to the couch and raised a gauntlet-sheathed forelimb in salute. Imbrium came shuffling into the den a moment later, his grizzled muzzle and leaner frame showing the signs of his age. His eyes, however, carried a fierce light to them - and the sardonic smile on his face hinted at the attitude he carried along with it. “Yes, m’lady,” Imbrium reported. “This is a highly valuable piece of post-modern expressionist artwork, Captain Imbrium. See to it that it is delivered to the royal gallery at once.” The Centurion took the rolled canvas from Princess Luna’s magical grip and sheathed it in a sheet of hide that he pulled from his saddlebag. “Of course, m’lady. Would you find it entertaining, m’lady, if I were to replace one of the older pieces with this one?” His grin was in full force now. “You have clearly read my mind, Captain. Please relocate a Cubism piece of your choosing. They are ugly, and make my head hurt.” The stallion placed the covered painting in his saddlebag and tightened his straps for takeoff, bowing low to his princess. “As you command, m’lady.” Somniorum watched in growing apprehension as his superior officer left through the front door. He turned his gaze back to the group in the living room, finding all eyes on him. “I apologize, Corporal Somniorum, but as you can see, that only leaves you with the foals and I. And it is now time for more games. Is that acceptable, children?” Her request was met with unanimous approval. “As I thought! Well, Corporal, you know the drill. Children, choose your weapons.” Lily was dragged off to choose from an assortment of costume armor and swords with the other foals while Somniorum let out a quiet sigh of resignation. “Oh, hush, Corporal. I’m sure the children can only handle an hour or two of Hunt the Timberwolf. Besides, ‘tis a fair time to practice your less-than-stellar war face.” Several hours later, Princess Luna found herself back in the den, surrounded on all sides by the tired children she had spent the majority of the day playing with. A slew of hoof-drawn pictures had been tossed around the room randomly along with the crayons and pencils used to draw them. A small stack of plates and glasses sat unattended in the corner, the last remnants of both lunch and dinner. Corporal Somniorum was standing guard outside the house, having earned himself a few minutes of quiet after having been chased around the building by a traveling band of “wolf-hunting heroes.” Celestia’s sun was just finishing its long arc across the sky, barely touching the edge of the horizon out past the city’s limits. Luna could feel the pressure in her mind to begin the moonrise soon. “It’s almost time for me to go, my little ponies. Your Auntie Celestia will need me back at the palace tonight.” A pair of tiny hooves gripped around the back of her neck in protest. “No,” Shale murmured. He had gotten himself tangled in her mane as they sat together on the floor to rest for a moment, and had decided to go spelunking until he tired himself out. “Yes, little Shale. She loves you all very much, but unfortunately Woona has some tasks she needs to take care of before morning comes, and you need to go to sleep so you can have sweet dreams tonight.” The bluish cloud of magic that wafted from her horn pulled Shale free from her locks, depositing him against her side next to Doodle and Lily. Paint Petal and Hazel leaned against her back, relaxing in the twilight and happy to spend time with the princess. Sapphire sat quietly to herself a few paces away. “Well, before I leave for the night...perhaps you would like to hear a little song?” The crowd around her mumbled their approval and curled up closer to the Princess of the Night. Slowly, softly, a quiet melody began to emanate from the tip of Luna’s horn. “Very well, then.” Summer’s eve Long ago Lonely, cold, in the dark of night, Suddenly hooves wrap ‘round, Hold me under the moonlight. “There,” she breathes, “Can’t you see,” “Everything will be alright.” Sisters, we, from that night on Safely under the moonlight. “Ponies come, and ponies leave,” “Between each storm as a brief reprieve.” “Know, dear sister, can’t you see,” “That we are family.” Children, dears, Family, Help each other through fears and frights. Strong and tall, never alone, Sleep now under the moonlight. We’re always near, never alone, When you’re under the moonlight. Friends may come, and friends may go Hearts may break betwixt dreams laid low. But know, my children, don’t you see, That we are family. Children, dears, Have no fear, Learn and love and live with might. Family’s bond is unbreakable Ever under the moonlight. I’m always here, never alone... When you’re under the moonlight. Lily felt a strange warmth against her as she began to stir. She opened her eyes to find herself embraced on all sides by the sleeping forms of her brothers and sisters. “It feels nice, doesn’t it? Having a family,” a voice called from behind. Lily spun her head towards the sound and found a familiar blue pegasus leaning halfway through the open living room window. “Spring!” “Heya, Lil’. Didn’t I tell ya you wouldn’t have to be alone any more? Now c’mon, wake everypony up. The night’s still young and we’ve got a whole world to go out and see.” Author's Note The lullaby is to the tune of Emile Pandolfi's rendition of Once Upon a December. Mare Cognitum, Sea That Has Become Known (Part 1)“Why...why wasn’t it me? Why couldn’t it be me!?” Dust kicked up from the impact of heavy bolts and Scorpion shafts scoured his eyes, making the scene around him all the more difficult to see. It didn’t matter; the images had already been branded into his mind. His horn sputtered and died. The fractured shards of his defensive field scattered and vanished into the air, letting the sounds of battle enter what had been a protective barrier not ten seconds ago. There were screams in the distance. Metal crashing against metal, shrieks of pain and barking laughter, the thick, heavy splatter of fresh blood spraying over the rocks. He shouldn’t be conscious, he realized. That kind of magical overload that had splintered his barrier and ripped the power straight out of his skull should have killed him, or at least knocked him out until another could come finish the job. But instead he was here among the land of the living, watching his friend’s life spill out into the dirt and the dust and the carnage of the battlefield. A final shudder shook him to his core and forced him to the ground. Whether it was from the loss of adrenaline, the damage done to his horn, or the bodies laying next to him, he couldn’t tell. It didn’t really matter, did it?. The bastard komvsvoda was already moving towards him, lifting that damned repeater ballista into the air, bringing the stock down with a sharp cra- “Alright, let’s hear it, Boots.” Sergeant Birch Nut fiddled with the enchanted helmet that rested around his horn; the stupid thing never seemed to fit right. “Roger that, Sergeant. Okay, as of zero-seven-hundred hours this morning, our battalion's been on high alert due to repeated probing maneuvers made by griffon hostiles along the border between here, here...” he paused to adjust the map in his telekinetic grip, “...And here.” “Yeah,” barked a voice from the rear of the transport, “We know. That’s the reason we got pulled out of chow and stuffed in a shoebox to fly all the way out to Goddess-knows-where. Get to it, Boots.” Birch glared at the unicorn who had interrupted, boring a hole in him from six paces away. “That’s enough, Snap. I’m sorry the BC specifically decided to ruin your day with a frag-o. Private Bootshine, please continue.” The guardspony nodded and lifted a second map in the confines of the troop carrier, highlighting a mountain range just between the borders of the Griffon Empire and the land of Equestria. “Right. Anyway, our squad is making for this location to try and scope out whatever featherhead activity’s popping off. We’re not there to start a fight, guys - Celestia knows we’re not equipped to fight a Griffon platoon off - so watch your six and keep your heads on a swivel. That high in the mountains is beaky’s home turf. They find us, we’re gonna be sent home in a box.” Bootshine rolled up the pair of maps and stuffed them away in his saddlebags. As he finished, his green eyes - the only part of a guardspony’s hide that wasn’t enchanted to look uniform - turned to the sergeant. “Cut-and-dry, guys. We get in, perform recon for our area, and send off a message to higher on what we find. Then we get the heck home. Bootshine, Snap, you’re with me. Rubble and Sledge, you fall under Sergeant Cliff Jumper. Don’t try to be heroes; you know how he gets.” Cliff grinned and finished attaching his saber to his side. “Didn’t you hear, Birch? We’re all heroes. Just ask any filly in Canterlot.” The six guardsponies checked their gear as the transport rattled in the wind, going over each other and making sure everything was in place. Snap helped Boots adjust the straps on his saddlebags while Birch moved towards the sliding doors of their flying coffin. With a burst of magic the doors opened, giving the sergeant a full view of the Blue Mountains beneath them. If they were blue before, they sure didn’t show it: from the soldiers’ position above the foot of the mountains, everything was dirt and rock. Gemstones were hidden far beneath the rocks’ roots, but everything above ground had been burnt to cinders centuries ago by a long-forgotten dragon migration. Nothing was left to grow back. Pegasi to his left and right fought to stabilize the transport in the howling wind as they soared for higher ground, though they had the easier job among the Flight Squad - two heavy draft fliers were anchored to the front of the armored vehicle, hauling it forward and hurtling at ever greater speeds towards their destination. In the distance, Birch could see a similar transport moving towards the same location. Another team of six pegasi hauled the elongated, enclosed chariot, and another squad of unicorn and earth pony guards waited inside for the call to hit the ground running. “No, genius. Look. Secure it like this.” Private Snap Freeze grunted as he cinched the heavy leather buckles anchoring Bootshine’s combat load to his sides. The pair of saddlebags were packed full of medical equipment, maps and assorted gear that made Boots appear twice his actual size. Tying off a quick knot to make sure his partner’s saber would stay flush with his gear, Snap stepped back to admire his work. “Yep. That oughta do it. How does it feel?” “Can’t...really breathe...my hooves feel numb...” To his credit, Bootshine didn’t drop under the weight of his ruck. On the other hand, he didn’t look ready to scale a mountain. “Rub some dirt on it. You’ll be fine.” Birch chuckled and removed his helmet, running a hoof through his close-cropped mane as the armor’s latent magics faded and his coat reverted back to its normal tan. His two soldiers were each other’s foil as much as they were friends - quick to lash out at each other during bouts of boredom, but even faster to cooperate when given a task to complete. Boots had just finished his training as a member of the Light Arcane Infantry not two months ago, but he’d already proven himself resourceful and adaptable under the constant pressure of garrison life this close to the border. Snap, on the other hand, had already been serving for nearly a year. Still green compared to the other guardsponies on board, but clever enough to stand side-by-side with the more experienced unicorns and outshine them whenever he saw an opportunity. “Come on, Snap, give him a hoof with some of that crap. Can’t expect one pony to hike up a mountain carrying his own weight in gear unless you plan to roll him back down when we’re done.” Snap groaned and began transferring a few of the bundles of equipment from his friend’s packs to his own. “Sure thing, Sarge. Don’t worry, Bootlick, mama’s ever-lovin’ blue-eyed Snap will carry all the stuff that’s too heavy for your dainty little hooves.” “I told you to stop calling me that, you ass.” “Tough nuts. You’re the eff-en-gee now, not me. You’ll grin and bear it. That light enough for you?” “Oh, yeah. That’s much better. Thanks...Sugarsnap.” A chorus of snickers surrounded the red-faced private as he latched his saddlebags shut and shoved Bootshine back onto the bench. “Oh, okay, yeah, buck you, Boots. How’d you even hear that?” Bootshine rolled his eyes and settled back into the bench, stretching his legs out beneath him. “You leave your mail lying open on your desk, you moron. I get to read everything your marefriend has to say to her little Cheesy Freeze.” “I swear to Celestia I will crawl down your throat and violate your soul if you say another one of those stupid nicknames out loud.” The roar of the wind through the open bay door punctuated the otherwise silent interior of the chariot. Convinced he’d ended the argument, Snap spun around and began trotting back to his seat before the whisper reached his ears. “...Snapple.” “I am going to MURDER you, Boots!” The two unicorns crashed into each other and rolled to the metal floor. Boots couldn’t stop laughing; Snap was trying his best to make him. Birch tossed the two of them back into their respective seats with a lazy glimmer of magic before Snap could finish an impressive guillotine clench on his younger companion. “Time for you two chuckleheads to sit down and shut up,” he grumbled, “We’re almost there. Try not to crash the bus while we’re in it.” In truth, he was trying not to laugh. Not that they needed to know that. Across the chariot, Sledge and Rubble glanced at each other before turning their attention to the lounging Cliff. “Hey...hey, Sarge. Give us our bits back; they didn’t finish the fight.” Sledge flexed his considerable bulk in agitation while he and his teammate waited on their leader’s response. “Sorry, don’t know what you’re talkin’ about. Gambling’s against regulation in the Guard, boys. Were you two gambling? I sure hope you weren’t. Schucks.” He grinned beneath the cold glare of his helmet. “Besides, I bet on Birch.” Birch smiled in spite of himself and leaned through the open door again, relishing in the feel of the wind whistling over him. The rocky ground soared beneath him, blending into a blur of gray and brown as their team of pegasi shuttled them onwards. The pegasus directly to his left unhooked a hoof from his support harness and pointed towards a thick outcropping of stone far below. “Sergeant! At our 10, take a look. Ground level.” Birch levitated a pair of binoculars from his saddlebag and stretched out into the wind. The soldier’s hoof pointed him towards a large cluster of boulders that had fallen from a higher outcropping in the rock. As his lenses focused, he could just barely see a pair of thick, black feathers drift to the dust beneath the stones. “Cliff, buckle up back there. Got a possible hosti-” The craft groaned and tilted wickedly to the left, cutting off his order. Birch flailed his hooves and caught himself on the door before he fell out. With a grunt, he pushed himself back inside the chariot... ...And stared into the dead eyes of the pegasus he had just spoken to. His body hung limply in the harness, wings swinging as the wind thrashed them in the chariot’s downward arc. Three tightly-grouped crossbow bolts rose from the back of the dead colt’s neck. Oh, Goddesses... “Shields up-!” Birch’s own magic joined with his soldiers’, raising a powerful field of energy around the chariot fast enough to stop the massive Scorpion bolt that blazed towards them from a hidden launcher. He remembered screaming as the maliciously sharp tip of the missile lodged partway through his shield, cracking it with a sound like bursting china. The world around him was fire and blood and shrapnel and death. Birch was sprinting when he came to, and he screamed again in mid-stride as the pain began to sink in. His right hindleg was gouged deeply by a pair of smaller bolts that had passed clean through the muscle. The griffon above him loosed another furious burst of rounds that scattered wide to his left as he tucked and rolled out of the way. Orange flame and energy crackled over his horn as he rose, gripping the enemy’s thick leather barding with his telekinesis and dragging the creature out of the sky with a burst of power. The griffon hit the dirt like a meteor, crushing one wing and bending the other at an awkward angle in the crash. Even with his wounds, he tried to grasp for the axe slung over his shoulder before Birch could close the gap and finish him off. There was a quick scream, and a bubbling gasp for air. Birch trotted up to the corpse and pulled his saber free from the griffon’s tattered neck. Funny, they always seemed to forget about the telekinesis. “Sergeant!” Snap’s voice reached him from across the battlefield where the private was weaving his way through a barrage from two more skybound griffon soldiers. They both carried brand-new repeating crossbows, launching dozens of penetrating metal bolts in quick succession under the energy of enchanted gemstones. Birch was hurting. He was tired. He was drained from the pain dealt with the backlash from the penetrator bolt that had struck his shield...but his soldiers didn’t need him exhausted and blind with pain. He shelved away the cold ache that had begun to creep from the tip of his horn and the burning agony in his leg. The first griffon fell lifeless to the ground, clutching the huge bolt that had speared him through the chest. The second had time to dodge Birch’s other Scorpion round he had pulled from the wreckage of their partner chariot, but fell shrieking as a flurry of ice shards sliced the flesh from his body. “You...you okay, Snap?” Birch staggered for a few steps before gritting his teeth and standing as tall as he could manage. In the distance, he could hear another pony screaming. A pair of pegasi dodged and juked in the air above, flying circles around the larger griffon soldiers and slashing at them with blades hidden in their wingtips. “...Never better, sergeant.” Snap Freeze was shaking as exhaustion threatened to overcome adrenaline. His armor was smeared with fresh blood. Birch tried not to think about how much of it could be his. “Thanks for the assist, by the way.” “Think I’d leave one of mine behind?” Birch clapped his soldier around his neck, wincing softly as he put pressure on his bad leg. “Where’s Boots? Did you two send that report up?” He didn’t bother adding the fact that none of them were likely to make it home if they didn’t. “Sent it by flame just a few minutes ago before those bastards dropped on us. They...they got Boots pretty bad, sergeant. Bolt caught one of his bottles, and...just look...” The two guardsponies trotted behind the pile of boulders that Snap had been guarding. The same pile that Birch had spied up in the sky...what, ten minutes ago? Fifteen? He couldn’t tell. Private Bootshine was stretched out in the dust under as much cover as Snap could find, the left side of his body covered in horrible burns where his liquid flame had detonated. Four crossbow bolts were lodged deeply into his chest and belly. “H-hey, Sergeant. Did you...did you find them?” His voice was strained and raspy, and his throat gurgled with each breath. One of the missiles had punctured a lung. Kneeling down, Birch kicked his soldier’s discarded armor to the side and started inspecting the wounds. “Cliff’s fine, and he’s got Rubble and Sledge with him. They’re moving to our position right now, buddy.” Boots didn’t need to know about how the griffons had opened Sledge from stomach to sternum, or how Cliff had shielded Rubble with his body while the enemy poured a deluge of fire into them. “Good, good. I was-” he coughed up pink foam, the blood already seeping into his airway. “...Was hoping they made it through alright. Never got to meet Rubble’s cousin, heh-heh. She’s supposed to be pretty cute.” Snap jumped to his hooves and poured energy into his horn, striking a griffon out of the sky above them with icicles formed from the air. It looked like more were on their way down the mountain. “I tell you what, Boots; we get you home and I’ll teach you all about how to wine and dine her. Hell, I’ll get the two of you tickets to the next Wonderbolts show. Got a buddy of mine on the tech team for their act.” He hated lying more than he hated airshows. “You’re gonna be fine, pal. How do you feel?” Boots smiled beneath him, coughing lightly and cringing as his blackened flesh split with each breath. “Can’t breathe that well, my hooves are a little numb. Snap put his shit back in my packs again, didn’t he...?” His sentence tapered off as his breaths became shorter and more painful. “C’mon, Boots, stay with me. Relief team’s just a hop, skip, and a jump away from here and we’ll get you home. Just...just keep talking, alright? How many hooves am I holding up?” “Just...one,” the private chuckled before wheezing and gasping for fresh air. “Great. You’ve learned to count. Who’s the current ruler of Equestria?” The soldier in his hooves was fading fast, he hadn’t trained in healing spells, and Snap was yelling at him. “Hrrk...it’s a...a diarchy, sergeant. Celestia and L-Luna...they share the throne.” “You’re too smart for your own damn good, Boots. Hey, keep looking at me.” Birch gently shook his soldier’s hoof. “Focus. If you could get the hell out of here and be anything, do anything, what would you choose?” Somewhere in his failing body, Boots found the strength to return the grip around his hoof. He drew his leader closer, choking the words out through a mouth stained with blood. “I think I’d...want to be you...Birch.” Look, dad! I’m just like you! The image of his son wearing his ceremonial helmet came without warning. It had been only a few months ago, before Birch had been sent forward to the border with his troops. Hazel had surprised him in the living room of their apartment as he returned home from shift, having buckled the heavy golden helmet around his chin. The enchantments worked into the metal had turned the colt’s dark hair and mane to the stark colors of the Guard, and his smile had reached all the way to his eyes for the first time since his mother had passed. Grunting angrily, Birch forced the picture from his mind and tried to focus on the soldier in front of him. “C’mon, Boots, y’know you can do better than-” Boots’ eyes were distant, staring at a horizon that only he could see. The pink flecks of spittle around his mouth had already begun to dry. He had died smiling, at least. Sergeant Birch closed his soldier’s eyes for the last time and staggered to his hooves. A griffon chanced a fly-by. It crashed to the ground with the shattered blade of a Sergeant’s saber in its chest. Dimly, Birch could see that Snap was struggling against another enemy. Through the taste of blood and dust and ash, he could feel himself screaming as he charged. Griffon armor was designed to protect the more vital organs in the chest cavity and offered little in the way of protection below the belly. A magically-charged unicorn horn could cut through the barding and soft tissue as if it was butter. Birch did just that, bellowing in rage until Snap forced the creature’s corpse off the tip of his horn and brought him back to the waking world. “Sarge...Sergeant Birch. SERGEANT!” “WHAT!?” Birch rounded on the smaller unicorn, ready to stab him, bite him, kick him to death - and everything faded when he saw the tears in the Guard’s eyes. “We need you here, Sergeant. We can take Boots home...but we need you here for a little longer. Okay?” Wiping his eyes, Snap grunted and started tugging a pair of barbs from his left foreleg. As much as he wanted to scream and cry and hate until he died, Birch forced himself to remain with the ponies that relied on him. He wheezed softly and brushed a hoof across his face, smearing the sticky mess of blood that had poured out of the griffon. “Yeah. Okay.” In the distance he heard the crackle of magically-enhanced gemstones feeding power into machinery. The wind whistled as he raised his eyes towards the direction of the sound, spying a heavily-armored griffon komvsvoda with a truly massive weapon in his claws. Something hot and wet splattered across the side of his muzzle. Snap stared at him in shock as he gasped through the hole torn in his throat. “Why...why wasn’t it me? Why couldn’t it be me!?” Dust kicked up from the impact of heavy bolts and Scorpion shafts scoured his eyes, making the scene around him all the more difficult to see. It didn’t matter; the images had already been branded into his mind. His horn sputtered and died. The fractured shards of his defensive field scattered and vanished into the air, letting the sounds of battle enter what had been a protective barrier not ten seconds ago. There were screams in the distance. Metal crashing against metal, shrieks of pain and barking laughter, the thick, heavy splatter of fresh blood spraying over the rocks. He shouldn’t be conscious, he realized. That kind of magical overload that had splintered his barrier and ripped the power straight out of his skull should have killed him, or at least knocked him out until another could come finish the job. But instead he was here among the land of the living, watching his friend’s life spill out into the dirt and the dust and the carnage of the battlefield. A final shudder shook him to his core and forced him to the ground. Whether it was from the loss of adrenaline, the damage done to his horn, or the bodies laying next to him, he couldn’t tell. It didn’t really matter, did it?. The bastard komvsvoda was already moving towards him, lifting that damned repeater ballista into the air, bringing the stock down with a sharp cra- Author's Note Oh man, conflict! But what does it mean!? It took a while to get this up. This chapter was actually turning out to be around 6,000-7,000 words, so I decided to split it in half for you guys. How's Birch gonna tie into the Midnight Gardens crew? What does any of this have to do with Moonbutt? Find out in the next episode. I'm in Afghanistan and I ain't gotta explain shit. Mare Cognitum, Sea That Has Become Known (Part 2)Spring Showers flitted from foal to foal, offering encouragement to one and advice to another. The children of Midnight Gardens, Princess Luna’s adopted wards, were stretched out across the summit of a grassy hill under the soft moonlight. Under Spring’s guidance, each foal was busy practicing… well, whatever they felt like. “Okay, looks like the dream fabric’s pretty loose. So anyway, guys, a long time ago, Luna made something really special for everypony. She called it the Dreamscape! Now, everypony knows who the two Royal Sisters are, right?” The children gathered around him looked up for a moment and nodded. “Well duh, Spring! Auntie Luna’s the Princess of the Night, and her big sister Celestia is the Princess of the Sun! Just ‘cuz we’re orphans doesn’t mean we never got to go to school.” Paint Petal flapped her orange wings in agitation as she buried her nose in the canvas under her hooves.. Spring laughed. “Who told you guys you were orphans? As long as you’ve got family, you’re no orphans in my book. Remember that. You’ve each got a brother or a sister to your left and your right, and Luna’s always got an eye on you. Now where was I?” “Oh, uh…” Lily waved a hoof in the air, looking up from her project. “The Dreamscape and the Royal Sisters?” “Yeah. So like I was saying, there’s the Royal Sisters, right? Celestia is the Princess of the Sun. In the grand scheme of the cosmos, she’s got dominion over the physical world. The birds, the bees, and the apple trees - if it lives and it breathes, she’s the one responsible for its protection. And, in a couple’a cases, even its creation.” He paused for a moment to rub a hoof against his chin. “Luna, on the other hoof, is a horse of a different color. The Princess of the Night has dominion over the, uh… the metaphysical world.” Doodle raised a hoof. “What the heck is that? What’s the difference between something… meta-fiscal and, like, animals and trees and stuff?” The rest of the gathered foals nodded in agreement. “Right, right. That’s a lot of syllables. Sorry. Hmmm…” He landed in the gently-swaying grass and fell to his haunches, considering how to explain. “Well… let’s look at it like this. Luna’s supposed to take care of things that we might not be able to see, or hear, or even feel. Stuff that’s beyond what we can sense. Celestia builds, fixes, and harmonizes things that we’d say exist. But only Luna can change those things’ essence, the stuff that makes them what they are. Are you guys pickin’ up what I’m puttin’ down?” He was met with unanimously blank stares. “Okay, okay. This stuff might be a little over your grade level. How ‘bout this: Luna takes care of things like a pony’s heart. Her mind, her soul, and especially,” he added, “her dreams.” Sapphire nodded, her blue mane bouncing around Shale’s hooves as he played with it on her back. “Alright, that makes more sense. So… the Dreamscape?” “Right! Luna’s greatest gift to ponykind. Heck, not even just ponykind - she made it for all the races of our world to enjoy together. “The Dreamscape was something that Luna worked on for hundreds of years, way before any of us were ever born. It was a world dictated by thought, where essence was at its most malleable and existence was always alterable! She made an entire universe where there used to be nothin’ but a blank slate - a true infinitely-expanding universe, without the dumb laws that govern the plane we live in.” He stopped. Yep, lost them again. Sighing softly, he calmed down and brushed his mane back a bit with a hoof. “Every dream you’ve ever had? It’s a piece of her puzzle. When you fall asleep, deep asleep, sometimes you can find a way back into the world that Luna made for all of us.” “But… why can’t I remember some of my dreams when I wake up? And what about the bad dreams? Nightmares? Did Auntie Luna make those, too?” Hazel stood up from where he’d been sitting and trotted towards the pegasus colt. “No! No way! Not even close!” Spring’s rebuttal was frantic. “What Luna worked on for all those years was perfect. A world that you visit when you’re asleep, where anything is possible if you can just imagine it? She never wanted it to be dangerous, or scary. It was a place to relax, to rest, to think and draw and paint and sing and create! But… just as she put the finishing touches on it, the whole thing broke. It was the Nightmare that did it, not her.” “Auntie Luna had a nightmare?” Lily shivered. She didn’t like nightmares very much. Spring shook his head and stared at the horizon, trying to compose his thoughts. “It wasn’t a nightmare, Lil’. We’re talking The Nightmare. The very first one. Luna had worked too long, too hard. She stretched herself pretty thin trying to build her vision of perfection for everypony to enjoy… and another part of her took advantage of her weakness.” “The thing she’d spent so much time honing and shaping, down to the last tiny detail… The Nightmare shattered it in an instant.” He raised his eyes to the group that had now gathered around him in a loose circle. “Whenever you have a happy dream, that’s just a little piece of Luna’s gift that you’ve managed to latch onto. When you have a nightmare… well, that’s a part of her that was never supposed to see the moonlight.” Shale slipped off of Sapphire’s back and rolled to face up at Spring. “Dream!” He waggled his hooves, wanting to take a ride. “Heh, that’s right, squirt.” Spring lifted Shale up onto his shoulders, flapping a few feet above the ground to the colt’s delight. “Broken or not, we can still have some good dreams together.” From a grove of trees at the base of the hill, a tiny blue bat fluttered its way up to the crest and flew in a tight circle around Spring’s head. Shale swung at it, nearly losing his balance before Spring nudged him back up. The animal gave a quiet screech before continuing off down the opposite side. “Alright, alright; that’s a story for another night. I’ve gotta get going. Make sure you all keep practicing what I’ve been showing you! And don’t forget to show Luna everything you’ve done so far. I know she’ll be proud of you guys.” He set Shale down in the grass, rubbing his mane and blowing a raspberry at the foal before lifting off again. “Hazel, you’re comin’ with me. We’ve got an appointment to keep.” The little unicorn colt frowned. “We do?” “Yup,” Spring nodded. “C’mon. I’m gonna introduce you to another friend of mine. Like a sister to me, really. She’s got something to show you. Now let’s go!” He turned in a neat backflip, coasting down towards the bank of thick trees the bat had emerged from. Shrugging to his brothers and sisters, Hazel took off down the hill at a quick trot to keep up with his feathery blue friend. The cramped cab of the transport always smelled funny. Birch was busy fiddling with his signature golden helmet of the Guard, doing his best to resist throwing the massive metal doors open and letting the slipstream clear the stench out. Looking around the cab, he took a moment to reflect on the squad he was traveling with. Near the back was the team of earth ponies - Sledge and Rubble, two nearly identical slabs of muscle that kept trading glances. Looked like they were trying to decide which of them would be responsible for waking their team leader up once they reached their destination. The Guardspony in question, Sergeant Cliff Jumper, took up nearly an entire bench himself as he reclined for a quick nap. Birch was always amazed that the stallion he had trained and fought alongside had never lost his ability to nap anywhere. Sitting in the middle of the transport was Snap Freeze, the gifted arcanist that had been in Birch’s team since he’d been promoted to the position. He was fiddling lazily with his saddlebags and watching his teammate struggle towards the front end of the cab. Snap’s companion, Bootshine, was stuck unfurling a series of maps and notes for the mission brief. He was still pretty fresh, but Birch felt confident in the kid. He’d given him the responsibility of passing on their orders to the rest of the soldiers in the bay. And sitting directly next to him was… “Soldier. What’s your name?” A pretty young unicorn mare, lean and toned from months of difficult training, sat next to Birch. Her blue mane spilled out from the rear of her helmet. As the transport jolted through a quick bout of turbulence, Birch could have sworn he saw her mane turn from the standard blue to a strange mix of brown and orange. Huh, he thought. That’s way too long to be in regs. Gonna have to check the enchantment on that helm, too. “I asked you what your name is, private.” He glared at her from under the brim of his headgear. The unicorn turned towards him and stuttered, nearly banging her head on the armor plate behind her. “Oh, sorry about that, sergeant. My name’s Autumn Winds! Don’t you remember me?” He couldn’t say that he did… though her name was beginning to sound increasingly familiar. “I transferred to your unit just two weeks ago, so we haven’t had a chance to run a mission together yet. Do, uh… do you mind introducing me to the rest of the guys?” Birch rubbed the back of his neck. Yeah, she might as well get the ins-and-outs of the squad. “Okay. Hey, let’s hear it, Boots.” Bootshine nodded and began relaying the brief to the rest of the cab. “Alright, Autumn. The greenhorn reading off our mission plan for the day is Bootshine. He’s still a little scrawny, but he’s smart as all hell. Good guy to keep around.” Autumn nodded as he continued. “The unicorn that looks bored out of his mind right there, that’s Snap Freeze. He might not look like it, but he’s a pretty good spellslinger. He and Boots work pretty well together, even if the two of ‘em get on each other’s nerves every now and then. Mine, too. Speaking of which…” He waved at Snap, getting his attention. The Guardspony had been harassing the private up front. “That’s enough, Snap. I’m sorry the BC specifically decided to ruin your day with a frag-o. Private Bootshine, please continue. So, where was I… oh, right. The bump on the log over there, sleeping on the bench, that’s Sergeant Cliff Jumper. He’s in charge of the earth pony chuckleheads in the back. He’s got a sick kind of humor, so try to steer clear of him until you get to know him a little better. “The two brick walls up against the back of the cab, that’s Sledge and Rubble. Hardly ever see one without the other. I wouldn’t call ‘em the brightest matches in the box, but they’re strong as hell and great at what they do.” He finished up, tapping his new team member on the helmet. “That just leaves you, kid. What’s your story?” Autumn shrugged. “What do you want to know?” “Well,” Birch continued, “The usual. Where you’re from, what you did before you joined the Guard, do you have any family, et cetera, et cetera. Come on, Autumn, you’re a blank slate. Give me something to work with.” He chuckled and moved to give her helmet another flick. Autumn’s white hoof moved to smack his out of the way before he could knock her upside the head, earning another laugh from the larger stallion. The roll of her eyes contrasted with the slight dimples forming at the corners of her mouth. “Fine. Since you’re so interested. I grew up in Yoke Province, about a day’s walk north from Canterlot.” “Wait, Yoke?” The name seemed off, and Birch prided himself on his grasp of geography around the kingdom. Moving from place to place, assignment after assignment, gave him a good lay of the land after his last few years with the Guard. “You mean New Yoke, right?” New Yoke was one of the fastest-growing cities in Equestria. While it didn’t have the architectural brilliance of Fillydelphia or match the booming trade market of Manehatten, New Yoke had become a cultural icon for artists of all races and creeds over the past decade. Griffons, minotaurs, immigrants from the Zebrican city-states, and even a few of the friendlier changelings and diamond dogs had started taking up residence in the sprawling melting pot. The bustling city now boasted the largest multicultural population in Equestria. “Oh! Right. Right,” Autumn groaned. “New Yoke. Memorial Grove, and all that.” A rising commotion picked up from the front of the cab; Boots and Snap were about to start a fight over nicknames or something equally stupid. Hell, sometimes they didn’t even need a reason. One argument in particular over the proper polishing technique for a breastplate had left the better part of a dining facility scarred by magical flame and shards of eldritch ice. Birch groaned and shook his head. “You really care about them, don’t you?” The sergeant turned to find Autumn looking at him with something like admiration in her eyes. “Haven’t got much of a choice, the way I see it. But yeah, I do.” He smiled as he watched the two soldiers bicker. “A squad’s like a family, Autumn. You can’t always choose ‘em, but you can always find something to love about them. These guys… I wouldn’t want anypony else to be out here, watching my back for me.” Birch paused to wipe a tear out of the corner of his eye. That was strange. Why would he be crying? “That’s sweet, sergeant. I knew I had you pegged right from the start. I’m glad I could be here with all of you.” Autumn kicked her hooves out in front of her as Birch stood up to throw the bay door open. “Yeah,” he agreed. “Welcome to the family, kid.” Outside, the pegasus flight crew was busy beating their wings in perfect sync with one another. Peering through the rushing wind, Birch could see the two heavy draft pegasi pulling their transport forward as the mountainside rolled away far beneath them. He almost jumped when he felt a hoof come to rest on his shoulder. “Sergeant… before we start, I need you to understand something, okay?” Autumn pulled him away from the horizon and stared straight into his eyes. “Sure, Autumn. What do you want?” She held her breath for a moment before drawing him into an awkward hug. “It’s not your fault.” The soft thwip-thwip-thwip caught Birch’s attention even as the sudden physical contact made his hair bristle. He looked back outside to see one of his flight crew hanging lifelessly from his harness, riddled with crossbow bolts. Realization sparked as he threw Autumn away from him and spun to face the rest of his squad. “Shields up—!” “Hey, don’t worry about it, bud. You’re doing a great job. I know I didn’t get a proper shield working my first try, either.” Birch scratched at his chin for a moment, reflecting on his first magic lessons. “I think I actually set my teacher’s mane on fire when I tried, heh heh.” Shifting awkwardly in the silence, Birch tried again to get his son’s attention. Hazel sat in the grass next to him, his eyes looking into the distance of the New Yoke public park and seeing nothing. Even three months after his wife Cotton had passed, Birch felt like he was losing ground against the tide that threatened to carry his son away. Hazel rarely spoke these days. When he did, his quiet voice carried the undertones of shell-shock the stallion had seen many of his coworkers struggle with. There was no sense of wonder or excitement behind the colt’s eyes anymore. “Hey, pal, come on. Climb on my back. I want to show you something.” Lowering himself to the ground, Birch shifted as his son stepped over his tan withers and gripped a hoofful of his close-cropped blond mane. “Do you know why I decided to join the Guard, son?” He trotted briskly from the edge of the park towards the center, bringing them closer to the heart of the New Yoke metropolis. “When I was about your age, I heard a story. It was about a lot of very brave ponies that lived a long, long time ago. Way before your mother and I were even born. “These ponies, they lived during a time when they had to fight every day just to survive. Sometimes they would get hurt, and sometimes… well, sometimes they would die fighting. Or even worse, live after somepony they loved died instead.” The scattered groups of tourists and visitors began to thin as Birch walked towards a tall, white statue in the center of the park. From the base to the tip, it was at least eighty hoofstrides tall, soaring over many of the smaller buildings that skirted the edges of the park off in the distance. “Do you know why they kept fighting, even after all the suffering they had to live through, to grow up in? Why they chose not to just lay down and let the struggle of survival roll over them?” Hazel grunted noncommittally on his back, just enough to show that he was listening. “Each of them found something,” Birch continued, “something worth fighting for. I’ve heard a lot of soldiers talk about how they’d be willing to die for something. Not a whole lot of them think about what it takes to live for something, though.” The pair stopped in front of the statue, a monument carved out of a single, massive piece of marble that stood proud hundreds of years after its creation. Atop a raised pedestal, a larger-than-life group of pony soldiers kept a silent vigil as they watched the sunset each evening. Birch set his son down gently in the grass before the monument, smiling as he saw the colt’s eyes widen. “This is a memorial, Hazel. It was built to honor the sacrifices made by ponies that fought and died for what they believed in, and for the ponies they cared about. A long time ago during the war between Nightmare Moon and Princess Celestia, there was a fortress here that fought off Nightmare Moon’s armies. A lot of ponies died here… but they did so knowing that somepony else would be safe. When I was a colt, just like you, my dad took me here and told me the story of the monument. Do you want to hear it?” Hazel just nodded, enraptured with the statue before him. “The earth pony,” Birch began, “ torch in hoof and sword at his side, symbolizes the perseverance of the Solar soldiers and militia members that joined in the final assault on their gates. The pegasus, wings spread above her companions, embodies the vigilance with which they protected their friends and families. Finally, the unicorn, horn and scroll held high, leaves us all with their story.” He pointed at the marble scroll with a hoof, drawing Hazel close as he read. “Here did we fight to the last Against the curs’d Dreaming tide. Our spirit did ne’er waver Neither did our light falter. May the darkness remember Our strength til’ the end And tremble.” Wriggling free from his father’s side, Hazel trotted closer to the monument and stared up at the soldiers that - one thousand years ago - had pushed through their own pain and suffering to fight for those close to them. Resting a hoof on the polished stone, he choked a bit before speaking for the first time that day: “I think... I know what I wanna be, dad.” The last few trickles of blood seeped down Boots’ hooves and fell to the dusty ground. Birch held his soldier’s charred body against his chest, rocking quietly in the dirt and lost in his own mind. I think I’d… want to be you… Birch. “You could’ve been so much more, kid,” he whispered. “You, Sledge, Rubble… none of you had the chance.” The sound of hooves behind him shook him from his thoughts for a brief second. “It’s not your fault, Birch.” Autumn sat down next to him. The sounds of battle, shrieking metal and screams of agony, seemed to fade into the distance as she looked at the broken body in his hooves. His muscles tensed and shook inside his skin as rage started to cloud his vision. “No?” He spat. “Not my bucking fault?” He set Boots’ body down carefully, rising to his hooves and bristling with anger. He was angry at the griffons for killing his squad. Angry at Autumn for telling him he couldn’t have stopped it. Angry at himself. The battlefield came rushing back like a freight train, tearing into his senses and washing his field of view in crimson. Snap Freeze was still locked in combat with a black-feathered griffon scout, dodging her shots and parrying her claws with the fading light of his horn. His hooves were carrying him forward at bone-crushing speed, the dozen cuts and wounds he’d already suffered screaming at him in a symphony of pain. He couldn’t feel a thing. “NOT MY FAULT!?” The griffon screeched as Birch’s horn pierced straight through her armor, doubling over him and falling limp as the unicorn gave his neck a sudden twist. Keratin scraped away from the tip of his horn against his enemy’s spine. “They died because of me!” The creature’s limp body rose up into the air, suspended magically by his telekinesis before slamming into the ground with a heavy crunch. “They trusted me to protect them!” Crunch. “I should’ve been there! I should have been killed instead!” Crunch. “Why can’t I die?” Snap tried to lay his hoof on the sergeant’s shoulder, only to have it thrown back in his face. Birch wheezed as the glow above his helmet diminished. The battered body of the griffon fell to the earth, wings twisted awkwardly and blood pooling beneath her armor. He collapsed under the weight of his own fatigue, sobbing fitfully into his hooves. The ocean of rage inside him had cooled, replaced by an expanding flood of anguish. A faint cloud of dust kicked up and tickled his nose. He lifted his head silently, finding a pair of white hooves dominating his field of view. Autumn stood above him, shaking visibly but still managing to crack a smile. “Please get up, sergeant. We’re… we’re not done yet. There’s still so much left to do. So many more ponies you need to save. Please.” Birch found himself dragged back to his hooves, surrounded by the tan-tinted field of magic spreading from Autumn’s horn. She reached for him with a trembling hoof, steadying him as he stood up straight. “It’s going to be hard. I didn’t know how hard it was going to be, but I knew when I met you that you were going to make it through this. You just need to remember. Why you fight, who you fight for… please remember, Birch.” “Sergeant!” Snap shook Birch’s shoulder, drawing him out of his daze and bringing him back to the battle at hoof. Griffon corpses dotted the mountainside, mingling with broken bits of pegasus light armor and his fallen comrades. The sergeant’s jaw worked wordlessly, trying to catch up with his mind. He turned to his soldier, shaking his head as he muttered to himself. “I… I need to remember…?” Birch grunted, pressing an armor-sheathed hoof against his eyes as a sharp pain pierced through his skull. He’d been here before. He wasn’t supposed to be here. There was somepony waiting for him— “Look, dad! I’m just like you!” Birch dropped his hoof to the carpet and boggled at the sight of his son, prancing around their living room in a gold-plated ceremonial helmet. The metal caught the midday sun through the window perfectly, gleaming bright against Hazel’s scarlet coat and the white, enchanted hair beneath the helm. He tried to speak, reaching awkwardly towards the colt with a shaking, bleeding hoof. Blood. He was still covered in a sticky mess of red, some of it undoubtedly his. Hazel giggled as a single drop fell from the end of Birch’s hoof and stained the tan carpet a dark brown. “Do you think I could be a soldier some day too, dad? You could teach me how to do all those cool moves and spells and stuff!” Hazel jumped up to a chair at the lacquered dining room table, face puffing with effort as he charged a miniscule bolt of light at the tip of his horn. “See? I’ve been practicing!” The battered Guardspony gritted his teeth and smiled through his injuries, content to just watch his son try increasingly awkward and dangerous feats of magical ability. He took a deep breath, stretching his aching limbs and feeling more at ease than he had in… how long had it been? Weeks? Months? Hazel managed to conjure a flickering, half-solid shield spell around himself before magical backlash scorched the tip of his horn, knocking him backwards and into the splayed claws of a dead griffon. What…? “Hazel, get away from there!” He almost shrieked as he moved, scooping his son out of the clutches of the battle-scarred corpse that rested across the small coffee table in the middle of his living room. “How… what!?” “What’s wrong, dad? I’m fine. Still trying to get the hang of it, heh. Sorry if I scared you.” He chuckled and hopped out of his father’s hooves, trotting over to the couch and sitting next to the body of a pegasus with a railroad track of crossbow bolts from flank to face. A two-meter-long Scorpion bolt ripped through the drywall above Hazel’s head and buried itself in the center of a family photo on the opposite wall. Small bits of debris and flecks of paint settled to the floor in a thick cloud, dusting over the foal’s coat like snowflakes. Outside the apartment, Birch could hear the faint noises and commands of a fire team loading another missile into their siege weapon. “Hazel… I need to remember. I need to remember my son. Let me have my son!” “Fight it, Birch! These are your memories, your dreams. Pick yourself up and focus!” Autumn burst into the apartment behind him, tumbling in a heap as she tried to dodge a griffon scimitar. Her armor was scarred and burnt in several places, showing the wear of the battle that continued to rage outside the borders of Birch’s concentration. A wicked, curved piece of forged steel swung into the room after Autumn, wielded with terrible precision by a wounded and bloodthirsty griffon. The door frame buckled and split at the sides as the creature forced his considerable bulk through the entrance. His wings unfurled with a crack of lightning, the bladed tips tearing deep gouges in the battered wood. Unlike the concealed, spring-loaded blades the pegasi guards fit their primaries with, these were massive implements of deathly sharp metal. Birch moved quickly, putting himself between the gigantic mass of muscle and his son. Ignoring the pain settling deep into his skull, he lifted the table from the dining room and threw it with a blast of telekinesis. The heavy wood collided with the griffon, knocking him to the floor and buying Birch the few seconds he needed to rush to the couch and pick his son up in his hooves. Angry roars and screeches rose from under the splintered table, drawing Birch’s attention even as he cradled Hazel against his chest and wheezed in pain and fatigue. The spear-tipped bolt embedded in the wall above the couch, heavier than the table had been, tore itself out in a field of weak, flickering magic. Birch heard the griffon smash his way out of his prison. Heard him stand up, growl in irritation, and flick the tips of his wingblades together to test their edge. He heard his enemy move, and he spun to meet him. There was a splatter of fresh blood, a deep gurgle through a pierced windpipe, and a strangled gasp from Autumn across the room. “S… srrrgnk…” Snap’s tear-filled eyes locked with his sergeant’s. Birch gaped, horrified, as the young unicorn looked down to see the wooden shaft of the bolt emerging from his throat. Another choked mewl crept out of his mouth before his body collapsed, dragging the spike to the blood-stained carpet with him. The transport rocked in the buffeting wind. Birch fiddled absentmindedly with his helmet, ignoring the sick, coppery stink of the bay. It smells like blood, he mused as he struggled. Death and decay. A rather attractive mare wearing dented, blackened armor sobbed quietly on the bench next to him. Her mane spilled out of her helmet through a wide split up the back, blue one second, and a shifting, stuttering mess of orange and brown the next. Orange and brown… like a pile of fallen leaves. I like it, Birch thought. He smiled and cleaned the fresh streaks of blood from his saber. They would be there soon. He wasn’t sure where, he realized. But he maintained a positive attitude about it and agreed with himself; yes, of course, they’d reach their destination in no time at all. “How… how long have you b-been doing this to yourself?” Wiping her tears away with a bloody hoof, the mare beside him tilted awkwardly with the turbulence. A smear of red stood out on her miserable face like a splash of paint on an empty canvas. “What? Oh, uh, are you one of mine? Sorry about that, soldier, my mind gets away from me sometimes—” Birch stopped mid-sentence, pausing to see Bootshine begin his brief. The private flipped through a few pages of notes before staring directly at his sergeant. “He’s moving again. Queue up the methohexital, please. Quickly.” His carefully-written annotations skittered around the diagrams and maps next to him like a swarm of angry ants. They usually didn’t do that. “Look at me, Birch!” He felt a hoof on his face. As he turned, a pair of bright green eyes filled his vision. Or were they blue? It was hard to tell. “Did I… Get your name, private?” He wasn’t sure he had seen her before. Was she new? “Don’t forget again, dammit! Focus! You can’t die here, not like this!” Cliff Jumper stirred from his bench, rubbing at a knot in his back. “Get more alfentanil. Double the dosage.” “Heart rate is dropping,” Sledge groaned from the back. Dozens of crossbow bolts erupted from under the stallion’s skin as he wiped his nose. A strong pair of hooves gripped Birch by his helmet, dragging him forward. He found himself trapped face-to-face with the mystery mare, her expression shifting from hurt to horrified to absolutely livid. “Stop it! Do you have any idea what you’re doing to yourself? I tried easing you out of it, Birch, I’ve been trying for days. But if you keep this up, you are going to die!” She shouted at him, shaking the helmet around his head and breaking into a new fit of tears. “You didn’t kill them! You don’t deserve this… this poison… and you damn well didn’t leave your son all alone just to die here and never come home!” “My… my son?” His head swam with flickering beats of memory. Hazel nuzzling his chest, barely three weeks old. His first few awkward steps across the den floor. A single marble, suspended perfectly in the air next to Hazel’s proud, beaming face and gently glowing horn. A double-bladed griffon battleaxe, buried in Rubble’s body. The crackling feeling of Boots’ burnt skin against his hooves, like a scorched sheet of parchment. The scent of blood. Blood. So much blood— “Dad…?” Birch’s eyes refocused. The one word seemed to echo around the interior of the cab, simultaneously whispered in his ear and shouted from outside the transport’s thick ballistic armor. He tore himself away from the stunned mare beside him and followed the sound of his son’s voice. “Daddy!” All around him, Birch’s world shattered into a million blood-stained shards of glass. “Dad… I found you. I finally found you. You’re… you’re gonna be okay.” A small, lanky bundle of red gripped Birch’s chest as he came to. The unicorn groaned as he rolled from his back to his side. His world swam around him when he made the movement. Wherever he was, he must have had a hell of a time getting there. As his eyes focused, he realized that he had no idea where, in fact, he was. A blank, warm whiteness stretched around him in all directions. The light seemed to come from every direction at once, leaving him with no shadows and no landmarks to judge distance. He reached down with a foreleg to find his hoof come to rest on a black mane just below his chin. “Hazel? Is… is that you?” Blinking through a haze of tears, Hazel looked up at him and buried his face into the stallion’s chest again. “It’s me, dad. I’m here. You’re gonna be okay,” he repeated. The colt pressed up against him was warm, and he could feel the burning heat from the child’s teary eyes as they rubbed into his coat. He was with his son again. “Goddesses… it is you,” he breathed. Part shocked and part joyful, he threw his forelegs around his son and pulled him even closer. “Is this another dream?” “It is a dream, Birch. But Hazel is here with you, and I guarantee that he is very real.” Out of the stark white landscape, a curiously familiar mare trotted towards Birch and his son. “Autumn!” The mare looked awful; blood ran from the corner of her mouth, and her once-pristine white coat was marred with several burns and cuts. Apparently heedless of her injuries, she walked forward and settled to the ground a short distance away from them. “I’m glad you finally remember me, Birch. I can’t tell you how aggravating it was trying to pull you out of there and having you forget me every time you relapsed.” She smiled warmly as Birch opened and closed his mouth in disbelief. She batted a hoof at him playfully while he fumbled. “Don’t worry about me, I’ve been through worse. I’m really just happy that Hazel here managed to help you when I couldn’t.” “What happened? What did my son do?” Fighting against the slowly-clearing fog that covered his thoughts, Birch began to remember everything since that griffon’s bolter had smashed into his face. Memories of the mission, interspersed with snippets of his life and his family, replayed through his mind in a continuous loop. Throughout them all, Autumn appeared - sometimes on the sidelines, and sometimes directly. “You were hurt badly during your last engagement with the Guard,” Autumn whispered. “Reinforcements found you before you could slip away, but aside from stabilizing your injuries, the medics couldn’t do much for you.” She drew a breath, pushing aside memories of her own. “You’ve been asleep in New Yoke Memorial Hospital for nearly six months,” she continued. “I’ve been trying to bring you back to us for… well, a long time. Much longer in here than it would seem out there. Your dreams and your memories were at war with the rest of you, Birch. We’re both very lucky. If Hazel hadn’t pulled you out of this coma, your mind would have been the end of us both.” Birch swallowed and laid his head on the white, featureless ground beneath him. “How did Hazel find me here in the first place?” “Your son was transferred to the Midnight Gardens home in your absence,” Autumn explained. She ran a hoof through her brown-and-orange mane, letting the blood-matted hair settle against the back of her neck. “The children there have formed a family of their own in place of the ones they’ve lost. And they have been receiving certain lessons from Princess Luna herself, along with a few of her… friends. Including me. Some of these lessons include the ability to shape and channel dreams.” She gestured with a hoof towards Hazel, smiling again as she did so. “Your boy is something of a quick learner. I asked that he be brought here to help me get through to you, but he took control and dispelled your nightmares almost immediately. I didn’t even know he could see what we were doing. “I knew you were a fighter, Birch, and I can see Hazel’s inherited a bit of that as well. He forced his way into a network of memory locks that I couldn’t break over months of work. You should be very proud.” Hazel raised his head and grinned, wiping away his tears and turning towards Autumn. “Dad told me I had to find something to fight for,” he said. His voice wavered as he stood up on his hooves. “And I found it.” Birch rose to his hooves beside him, suddenly feeling very weak and almost painfully tired. Despite his exhaustion, he felt… whole. The colt at his side awakened something that had almost died with him half a year ago. “Thank you, Hazel. You saved my life, son. And even if I don’t completely understand how… well, I’m still damn proud of what you did.” He tousled the colt’s mane and turned to the mare in front of them. “And thanks to you too, Autumn. I’m sorry I put you through the trouble—” “Oh, hush,” she nickered. “It’s my job, and seeing the two of you together was worth fighting for.” Autumn rose to her feet and smirked at Birch’s sheepish grin. Hazel mirrored it almost perfectly. Turning on her hoof, the mare began to march off into the white landscape, fading slowly as she moved. “Hey—wait! I still don’t even know who the hell you are! And what are we supposed to do now?” Birch called out after the unicorn before she completely disappeared. “You’ve had a long enough nap, Sergeant Birch Nut,” her voice called out from every corner of the landscape. I think it’s high time you woke up.” Author's Note Thanks to Skeeter the Lurker and Death the Kid for pre-reading and editing, respectively. BADA-BING Mare Imbrium, Sea of ShowersThe skies over Manehatten weren’t known for being the clearest, or the prettiest, or even the easiest to inspect in the first place – a towering, jumbled skyline of rooftops blocked most of the view from street level. Tonight’s brief glimpses of the cloud cover were worse than usual. Dark shapes hovered above the layer of smoke and smog from the city, grinding against each other in the night air and blocking even the light of Princess Luna’s moon from breaking through. A misty, acrid rain began to fall from the shifting mess high above even the weather ponies’ normal routes. The miserable drizzle soaked every pony shuffling across the crowded streets below, and any sense of discomfort was both ignored by busy office pawns and lost in the din of the construction crews’ constant bellowing. Somepony, somewhere, had said that Manehatten would continue to rise forever. The peaks of its skyscrapers would grow higher and higher, and the unstoppable ocean of bits swapped between hooves would swell in the greatest localized economy Equestria had ever known. Not even the capital city of Canterlot could match the gleaming spires of the Big Apple’s industrial and corporate sectors. As beautiful as the Royal Princesses’ home was, it was still the same old Canterlot…and Manehatten changed on a daily basis as the main hub of commerce, trade, power, and greed. Manehatten was many things Canterlot couldn’t claim to be. The sleepless labyrinth of districts and complexes was hectic, rather than merely busy. It was ambitious, not serene. The city was vicious. The city was unforgiving. And the city was definitely not fair. In the back alleys and the damp shipyards, ponies continued to breathe and work and sweat and starve, with or without the attention of the nobles and the bit-tossing fatcats that rarely deigned to travel below the umpteenth floors of their various studios and boardrooms. The ground level was for peasants, and peasants lived and died there. The Royal Guard’s presence this far from the capital was slim, and there were no princesses nearby to cast a kind eye on the lives of their subjects. Curled up under a few scraps of tarp and a haphazard pile of cardboard, one little pink pegasus filly desperately wished that there were. “Five seconds, blank flank. Five more seconds an’ I’ll just beat it outta you.” Outside the relative protection of the lean-to, a scrappy young earth colt snorted in agitation. On his pale green flank was a series of thin scars – whatever his cutie mark had been, he either hadn’t been happy with it or the local color had found it amusing to carve away his dreams after a fight. Beside him stood another filly, this one hardly older than the child trying to back deeper into the heap of trash. Her pretty orange face might have been prettier without the bruise around her left eye. Or the cut above her lip. Or the cigarette burn on the tip of her horn. The cutie mark above her leg showed three fallen rose petals, arranged in a simple triangle. Her gaze drifted indifferently over the whimpering pegasus as her sneer split the cut open again. “He means it, you know. Just give him the food.” “Four...” “C’mon, runt, we’re giving you an offer here.” “Three…” “Just give us the damn food, you stupid waste of wings!” Squealing in fear, the pegasus retreated against the brick wall her hideaway was built against. “Please, stop! This is all I’ve found for two days!” Sagging under the weight of the rain, her cardboard roof ripped with the sudden movement and collapsed in on itself, covering the filly in wet sheets of paper and plastic. Snorting in agitation, the unicorn lit her injured horn with a dim flicker of orange magic and began tearing the filly’s home to shreds. Pieces of rain-slick garbage came apart easily under the glow of unicorn energy. Weeping openly without the meager protection of her roof, the little pegasus never even saw the blow coming. The dull crunch of the colt’s hoof as it pounded her into the concrete was the greatest pain she’d ever known in her short life. The second kick was worse. Magic fields relieved the filly of her half-eaten stash while the green colt pummeled her. “Cinder, quit it. We’re done. All she had was a few pieces of rotten old fruit, anyway.” Wiping the rainwater from her tangled brown mane, the little unicorn took a greedy bite from an apple. She spat it out almost as quickly. “Eugh. I hate apples.” Bruised, battered, and beaten, the pegasus watched as the older foals stomped her remaining food into a pulpy pile of mush on the asphalt before trotting deeper into the alley. Deeper into the city. Even at her young age, she knew that the city wasn’t fair. Her wings flapped feebly as she crawled back to the brick wall and hugged against it, drawing a sheet of tarp over her body to protect herself from the rain. A thin trail of blood and pink feathers spread behind her before being washed into the gutter by the increasing downpour. On a cold, wet night in the city, what was there left to do but cry? Lily Breeze woke up to the pitter-patter of rainfall on her tarp and rosy fur. The asphalt was wet and the sky was still dark, but she felt warmer than she had in days. Her stomach rumbled uncomfortably as she thought about the last of her food that had already been washed away by rainwater. Occupied by the aching of her bruises and her belly, she didn’t even notice the blue-furred foal soundly asleep against her side until he yawned and blinked awake. Filly and colt stared at each other for a few seconds before screaming simultaneously. “What do you want!? Stay back!” Lily fluttered her wings wildly as she backed into the wall of the alley, scattering her tarp and the few bits of her cardboard fort as her pale blue eyes widened in shock. Too many encounters with the other ponies who skulked in the back alleys of Manehatten had taught her quickly that strangers rarely, if ever, had anything pleasant to share in their company. “Woah, hey! Hold on a sec! I’m not trying to hurt you or anything, I just wanted to get out of the rain! I was just trotting by and I saw your tarp there, and I figured, hey, she’s not using all of it, and…well…” Rubbing the last of the sleep and rainwater from his eyes, the colt looked at his confused bunkmate. Dark spots had begun to form on her face, stomach, and legs from the beating she’d endured earlier, and her small wings were missing patches of feathers. Even without the obvious signs of injury, she looked like she was on the verge of collapse. Her chest heaved with stifled sobs and her eyes searched for escape avenues. She wrapped her wings around herself protectively as she shuddered against the dirty bricks. Chancing a step closer to the injured filly, the foal cleared his throat before starting over. “Had a rough night, huh, kid?” The only response he received was a quiet murmur under an outstretched wing. “…I’m Spring Showers. Sorry I scared you.” Spreading her feathers a bit, the filly peeked at him from under a curtain of pink. “Say, are you hungry? I’ve got a little food I snatched from a couple of hoity-toity types earlier. You can have some if you want.” Reaching under his wing, Spring pulled out a rumpled paper sack and laid it on the street in front of him. Lily’s stomach betrayed her with a loud groan as soon as she smelled the telltale citrus scent of fresh oranges lilting from the bag. The young pegasus pulled her wings to her sides as she leaned away from the wall to savor the smell. “Um…I’m a little hungry. You’re…just giving it to me?” When was the last time somepony had offered her food? “Well, not all of it, kid. I’m a little hungry, too.” Spring laughed and upended the bag, letting four ripe oranges and a single, beautifully red apple roll into the rain. “Besides, you look like you could use a bite to eat. Tell you what; you tell me your name, too, and you can have two of these oranges and half of this apple.” “The people at the orphanage called me Lily. Lily Breeze. Are you sure…?” She half-extended a hoof for an orange, still unsure about the generous offering from a strange colt. “Well, jeez, Lily, you want me to peel it for you, too? Here, lemme show you.” He smiled and stuck his tongue out in mock concentration, biting into a fruit’s thick skin and scraping some of it away with his hoof. “Here you go, fresh off the branch. Try ‘em, I had one earlier. I’m not really a big fan of those frou-frou stuffy nobleponies, but they sure know how to pick good eats. And I don’t think they’ll miss them – they owned the fruit stand. And the city block it was on.” Lily giggled a bit as she took the sweet-smelling treat from his hoof. “You know,” he continued, “You kinda remind me of a pink party pony I met once when you do that.” Breaking from her delicious mouthful of citrus just long enough to give him a curious glance, Lily gulped down the first bite of the kindest gift she could remember. “Do what?” “Smile.” Spring flashed her a grin of his own before digging greedily into his meal. Mare Tranquilitatis, Sea of TranquilitySpring trotted alongside Lily as the two foals crept through the back alleys of Manehattan’s busy streets. The colt chatted amiably to her as they walked, raising her spirits bit by bit while they traveled around dumpsters and over discarded bags of trash that littered the narrow roads. It was still raining, but neither of the children seemed to care. The raindrops weren’t of the same harsh, abrasive nature as they had been earlier - instead, they fell lightly and slowly, misting Lily and her new friend and washing away the filth of the street that had matted their manes. Friend...she could call him that, right? He was the nicest pony that she had met in all of Manehattan. Lily ruffled her feathers as she thought about the reason he was walking at her side instead of flying. After they had finished eating the spread he had found, he invited her to go “crusading” with him around town. Once he had finally convinced her enough, he leaped into the air and began flying ahead...but Lily couldn’t even make it off the ground with her injured wings. The pain in her limbs and the embarrassment of being a grounded pegasus forced her to bite back tears as she did her best to keep up with the talkative foal. And that’s when a funny thing happened. Spring had actually dropped to his hooves and began to walk beside her instead. “It’s alright,” she muttered. “I don’t mind if you’d rather fly.” “Nah. The stupid rain’s getting my feathers all wet. I think I’ll walk.” Spring’s smile was infectious, passing from his face to Lily’s before she could notice. They crossed a final, bustling street and passed through a wrought-iron gate that marked the entrance to the city park. On either side of the gate, the Royal Sisters gazed down at them from a pair of pedestals that had been raised with the park’s grand re-opening nearly six weeks prior. Wild Chaos magic had nearly destroyed the attraction during Discord’s short-lived rule, but at the city’s request, Princesses Celestia and Luna had made a generous donation that helped restore the area’s grassy hills and quiet ponds. In the distance, Lily could see a large jungle-gym with a trio of slides that seemed to shine in whatever moonlight slipped through the clouds. The slides spiraled down from a tower in the middle, the tallest point of the gym’s maze of rails and fun toys. Children were always playing here whenever she passed the park during the day, running around the playground and starting games of Bunnies and Manticores as their parents looked on from the sidelines. She had been down the slides once before, but a nasty-looking police pony had chased her back to the entrance. He had bellowed as she ran about making sure the “trash” stayed outside the gate. “Thank you,” she caught herself saying. Spring stopped long enough to give her a playful nudge on the shoulder. “For what? That awesome stash of fruit I nabbed? It was nothin’! We’re just both lucky that the guy I swiped it from wasn’t buying alfalfa for dinner or something. Blech.” He stuck his tongue out and blew a raspberry. Lily couldn’t help but giggle. “Well, that too. But thank you for...just being here.” Spring flicked her with a wingtip and chuckled. “Sheesh, Lily. You don’t have to thank me for that.” Even as he smiled, his eyes darkened a bit as they paced through the fresh grass in the park lawn. “I’ve been there, too...I was all alone for years, with nopony around to share apples or oranges with. Ponies need somepony else to cheer them up when they’re sad, right? It’s not good to be alone all the time.” The jungle-gym rose ahead of their path, all ropes and planks and brightly-colored paint subdued by the night. Spring skipped ahead of his partner and took to the air, soaring above the tower on the gym’s tallest platform. With a beat of his wings, the colt alighted on the tip of the toy tower’s spire, balancing on his left forehoof. “Don’t you worry ‘bout a thing. You’re one pony that’s not gonna have to be alone any more. Besides, I need someone to show off to all the time! Now c’mon!” He swooped back down to the playground and picked the filly off of her hooves even as she laughed, grunting in exertion as the two lifted into the air. “Jeez, I think I gave you too much fruit.” The pink pegasus fluttered her wings by force of habit as they rose, wincing softly at the pain. Even as she gritted her teeth, she was surprised to find that the pain was duller than it had been half an hour ago. It was quietly fading into the background with each breath she took. She could even fully extend her wings with some effort. Beating at the air, she helped Spring lift her to the tower as much as she could. He set her down on the tower’s spire and hovered nearby, panting heavily. “Sorry.” She appreciated the help, but she wasn’t comfortable making the colt work so hard. “Don’t,” he wheezed, “...sweat it.” He did his best to smile as he gulped for air a few more times. Lily watched as he flew back around the spire and landed on the other side of the roof to rest his wings. The gentle rainfall made the tiles slick with water, but a rail that encircled the structure’s tip gave the two foals something to lean on without fear of falling. Up here, high above the rest of the park and listening to the rain’s gentle pitter-patter on the soft earth, Lily felt more comfortable than she had ever been. The nighttime shroud acted like a thick, warm blanket over Manehatten’s usually bright and hectic nightlife. It reminded her of a time when she could always go to bed safe and warm; a time that seemed impossibly far in the past. Manehatten Memorial Park was strangely quiet, even for this time of night, and the delicate sounds of individual raindrops rolling from the tree canopy to the carefully-trimmed grass below began a simple melody. Every light breeze through the branches sang a different note in what was quickly becoming Lily’s personal lullaby. “Hey, Lil’, hold on a sec,” Spring nudged her shoulder and momentarily broke the spell. “I wanted to show you something.” He scooted over beside her and leaned back against the roof, laying comfortably against the damp tower. “It’s been a long time since anypony has ever seen something like this. I used to do this kind of thing all the time, back when I was a lot younger.” He stared into the cloudy sky, looking for something that Lily couldn’t understand. “I used to think that nopony cared enough to be my friend. Like there wasn’t a single pony in the world that would ever try to get to know me. And you know what? I fooled myself for a long time.” “Spring, are you okay?” Lily flicked a tear away from her friend’s eye with a wingtip. His voice had begun to change, maintaining the same pitch of a foal but sounding somehow infinitely older. He shook his head and smiled, raising his hooves above his head towards the sky. “I’m a lot better now than I ever was. Thanks for asking, though. Besides, I’m here for you, remember? So before we start the show, I just wanted to tell you: you’re never alone, Lily. Even when you feel like you don’t have anypony around to help you, when nopony cares about you - you’re never alone. So be brave. Go out there and look for your friends. They’re easier to find than you’d think,” he chuckled. Rising to his hooves, Spring balanced himself with his wings and looked to the clouds. Through the darkness in the sky and the rain falling from it came a single, hazy beam of light. The bright shaft began to expand towards the north and south, splitting the curtain and pouring out across the city. As the clouds above began to spread away from the light, Lily could begin to see something massive hiding behind them. The full moon had never looked so big. Spring weaved his hooves through the air like a conductor lifting an orchestra to its crescendo. Wind forced the remaining clouds from the sky, dissipating them in smoky streams and spirals through the night. As she watched, captivated, Lily could hear the music again - rising from the grass and the trees and booming with the background din of the rain. The moon covered Manehattan in a pale, warm light, and the music sang about that. Years of filth and anguish was washed from the streets and the buildings of the city, and the music sang about that. Spring settled down beside Lily and watched the same filth and anguish trickle away from her into the night, and the music sang about that too. “It’s a moonshower, when the clouds go away and the rain still falls under the moonlight. Manehattan hasn’t seen one in a pretty long time, I bet. What do you think?” His voice was distorted under the symphony that played around the foals. “It’s beautiful. How did you...?” “Don’t worry about it, Lil’. You can do all sorts of fun stuff in a dream.” The crescendo hit, the music soared, and Lily felt herself drifting off to sleep under the light of the moon. “Augh!” The unfamiliar feeling of vertigo came to a crashing halt as Lily landed on the hardwood floor. She craned her head around to see where she had dropped from and found herself prone beside a simple wooden bed. The thick blue blanket had completely wrapped around her hindquarters as she fell from the mattress, and she quickly kicked the sheet away from her while she stumbled to her hooves. Wherever she was, it definitely wasn’t where she remembered going to sleep. Her cardboard-and-tarp fort was nowhere to be seen. In fact, she couldn’t recognize anything about the room she was in. To her left was a row of four beds, three of them neatly made with simple wool blankets and white pillows. The walls were painted in a warm yellow that matched the sunlight beaming through a large window behind her. To her right was a door that led deeper into the building. Lily smoothed out her feathers that had been tussled by her drop from the bed. As she ran her hooves from joint to wingtip, she noticed that the pain that had nearly crippled her last night was completely gone. Not a single part of her body was hurt, ignoring the fact that nearly every inch of her had been pummeled only hours prior. What was going on? Before the filly could continue her investigation, the room’s door banged open to let a white-maned unicorn mare rush in and scoop her up in a cloud of magic. “No, no, no, no. What are you doing out of bed, silly filly? I swear, you show up here this morning the sorriest sight I’ve ever seen and you’re already trying to break out of the place. Lie down, dear.” The bright-orange field surrounding Lily’s body dissipated, dropping her back into the soft bed as the mare sidled up alongside her. “Goodness. What were you thinking?” “Please don’t hurt me, ma’am!” Lily squealed and tried to scoot off the mattress again, only to be snagged with a firm hoof and deposited right back where she started. The mare laughed as she began poking and prodding at her, testing Lily’s joints and inspecting her as thoroughly as she could. “Hurt you? Please, dear. I’m trying to help. When we found you I didn’t think you could be hurt any worse than you were. I just need to make sure you’re alright before we let you get up. Besides - do I look like the type of pony who creeps around harming helpless little fillies?” Pausing her frantic escape attempts, Lily took a moment to see who was actually handling her. The hooves busy spreading her wings and ruffling through her hair were a soft yellow, much like the color of the walls around her. Her white mane was styled into a series of light curls that framed the sunset hue of her eyes, and on her flank was a yellow-and-orange flower with a single dewdrop on its petals. “It’s a daffodil, dear. That’s my favorite flower. And you can call me Morning Dew.” Dew smiled again as she caught Lily examining her cutie mark. “I can tell you how I got it sometime, if you’d like. But before we do that, can I ask your name, dear? I’m sure everypony here would like to know who the cute new filly is.” The question startled Lily - hadn’t somepony else just asked her the same thing? Bits and pieces of her dream were floating to the forefront of her mind like bubbles breaking the surface of a pond. Among them were the memories of a young pegasus who had helped her when she needed it and learned her name in return. “It’s Lily Breeze. Um, ma’am,” She added quickly, almost having forgotten her manners. “Thank you for helping me.” “You’re very welcome, Lily. You’re lucky that whoever found you brought you here.” “Um,” she rubbed softly at her wings, a nervous habit that had formed years ago. “Where exactly is ‘here,’ ma’am? You’re very nice, but I don’t really know who you are or where I am.” “I already told you my name, dear. I’m Morning Dew! And I’m one of the caretakers here at Moonlight Gardens. We try to make a new home for little colts and fillies like yourself that need a helping hoof. Now, can I ask you what happened last night?” Morning Dew seemed to be finished in her evaluation, giving Lily a bit of space and opting to begin gathering up the blanket that had been dragged to the floor. “I, um...I was trying to find a place to sleep last night, ma’am, and some other foals came along and took my food. They weren’t very nice about it.” She gently rubbed at her eye where a large bruise had quickly formed after the colt’s swift kick. It wasn’t sore any more. “I see. I’m sorry, Lily. Sometimes this city can be cruel...especially to children. But why were you out in the streets all by yourself? Aren’t your mother and father worried about you?” The filly shook her head; no. “Do you have any family to worry about you, dear?” Another shake. No. “Well,” Dew climbed onto the bed and wrapped a hoof around Lily’s shoulders, drawing her close. She smelled like wet grass and fresh peaches. “I wouldn’t be so sure of that, dear. You’re welcome to join our family. There’s quite a few new brothers and sisters downstairs that are looking forward to meeting you. What do you think?” “I think I’d like that, Miss Dew.” After declaring her (miraculously) fit as a fiddle, Morning Dew had helped Lily finish making her bed and began to show her around the building. As they trotted from room to room, Dew acted the part of the informal tour guide and explained what she knew about the home itself. “Moonlight Gardens has been around for awhile now, dear. About twenty or so years ago, when I was a filly your age, the royal family began building new orphanages and homes all around Equestria. This particular building was dedicated by the Princess herself to the memory of her sister, who everypony at the time believed was to be forever lost inside Nightmare Moon. We know better now, don’t we?” A wry smile slipped across her face as she led Lily down a staircase to the ground level. “She actually found the dedication pretty silly when she began coming here herself.” Outside the window at the end of the stairs, Lily could see the skyscrapers of Manehattan stretching high and doing their best to block out the sun. Somehow, wherever the ponies traveled throughout the building, the light still seemed to be able to find every window. In all of the hustle and bustle of the city, Moonlight Gardens always managed to remain the island in the storm. This orphanage was a far cry from what Lily had come to associate the word with. She had been passed between a few others around the city before running away and living off the streets. As difficult as life was by herself, she still preferred it to the dark, unkempt buildings and short-tempered matrons that seemed to be the divine rule among Manehattan’s social services. She had been running from bullies and dodging horrible old social workers as long as she could remember. Even as the filly thought about how peaceful her new home appeared compared to the rest of Manehattan itself, one question bounced around her mind like a parasprite trying to force its way out of a bag. “Miss Dew, Princess Luna comes here?” Her pink wings started buzzing in nervousness - and eagerness. A real princess! “She certainly does, dear; I believe she’s due for a visit today, believe it or not. The children love spending time with her. Would you like to meet the Princess?” Did she really want to? What if she was scary, like the stories some of the older foals at her last “home” described her as? What if she chased after the children and gobbled them up, one by one? Was that Morning Dew’s plan? Did she gather up colts and fillies just to feed her mistress? ...Be brave. Go out and look for your friends. “Yes, ma’am.” She could be brave. Besides, Miss Dew didn’t seem anything like the caretakers she had met before. “Wonderful, dear. Now, I bet you’re hungry...” The pair reached the dining area of the first floor, passing several paintings that looked like they had been done with a child’s hoof. Little crafts and pieces of art almost littered the shelves and bookcases that they walked by, a testament to the hobbies of the foals that had come and gone. As Lily was ushered into the dining room, a voice cried out in mock horror from the breakfast table: “Look out!” SPLAT A single pancake arced high above the five foals seated at the table, landing neatly on Lily’s face. Her wings spread out in shock as syrup began to drip off of her nose. “Children...” “Sorry, Miss Dew!” A chorus of voices spoke up from the table as a magical haze lifted the flapjack off of Lily’s snout and deposited it on an empty plate. Morning Dew sighed and reached for a napkin, dabbing the syrup away. “Now who, pray tell, threw it this time?” She finished wiping the syrup off of Lily as a sheepish-looking brown earth colt lifted his hoof in the air. “Of course. Doodle, apologize. You scared the poor girl.” “...Sorry. I kinda slipped, heh-heh. Uh, do ya want some pancakes?” Lily blushed, embarrassed not ten seconds into her first meeting with Moonlight Gardens’ resident foals. “I’m sure she would. This is Lily Breeze, everypony. Why don’t you all introduce yourselves while I get you some juice?” Dew trotted to the kitchen, leaving Lily alone in the presence of four pairs of wide eyes and one filly who was asleep at the table. Doodle broke the silence by clearing his throat before running a hoof through his short, tan mane. “Hi, Lily. I’m, uh...Snickerdoodle. Just call me Doodle. Please.” He coughed and bumped the pegasus filly snoozing in her chair next to him. Her green eyes shot open and she fumbled with her mane for a second, trying to get the shock of orange hair under control. “Whuzzat? Oh, hi. My name’s Paint Petal. Sorry, I didn’t get too much sleep last night. I’m still a little tired...” She yawned loudly to confirm the fact. To her right, a slightly older unicorn with a sparkling gem on her turquoise flank balanced a young earth pony on her lap, feeding him bites of pancake in between his swipes at the levitating fork. “I’m Sapphire Spark, Lily. This is my little brother Shale.” The grey-coated foal in her hooves squirmed and reached for the fork again as Sapphire floated it away. “Gimme!” “No. Eat your breakfast, squirt.” She skillfully speared another bite of pancake and guided the fork into Shale’s mouth, ignoring his attempts to break free. Sapphire gestured with the utensil towards another unicorn across the table, wrapping her hoof tighter around her brother. “That’s Hazel. He’s pretty new, too.” The scarlet colt she pointed at shifted uncomfortably under Lily’s gaze and kept his light brown eyes firmly glued to the floor. Lily assumed he was a shy as she was. She stepped towards the table and climbed into a chair, regarding each of the children around her. She still wasn’t completely comfortable with all of the new ponies, but they seemed really nice. “It’s nice to meet all of you. Thanks for welcoming me.” She smiled at her new...friends? They’re easier to find than you think. “Can we be friends?”
Mare Serenitatis, Sea of SerenityThe last hoofful of clouds lazed away through the morning sky as Celestia’s sun rose, carrying a quiet breeze with it. Manehattan was building up to the usual morning hustle-and-bustle, and pony-drawn carts skittered back and forth through the busy streets alongside a few of the magical Auto-wheehicular Contra-vices (inventions of FlimFlam Bros., inc.) that had become so popular in the past year. One such four-wheeled deathtrap nearly fishtailed into the milkmare as she crossed the street towards her final delivery for the morning. The cream-colored unicorn barked a few choice words at the driver as he sped away, cackling at her. Stallions and their toys, the mare thought to herself as she blew a few displaced strands of pale-orange hair out of her eyes. She snorted and hoofed the low gate ahead of her open, intent on delivering the rest of this damn milk and getting home before any other maniacs attempted to wipe her off the road. The black, wrought-iron gate opened on well-oiled hinges, allowing her entry into the front lawn of the Moonlight Gardens home. Delivering here always seemed to calm her down on a rough morning, the mare realized. She levitated three white bottles from her basket and trotted softly down the paved path to the front door, admiring the large magnolia tree in full bloom. Where the other, infrequent pieces of foliage around the city were just now showing the first fiery hint of autumn, this tree seemed to be in a perpetual pink bloom, day or night. The grass around it was neatly trimmed up to the garden area surrounding the dark-red brick building. This particular milkmare was by no means a qualified florist (The horror, she shuddered as she thought of having to tend plants inside all day), but she was familiar with a few of the various species arranged throughout the garden. A good earth pony friend of hers from one of the smaller towns further west had been sending her a small collection of flowers that she cultivated for a living. Among the dozens of plants filling the garden that surrounded the home, she could only place a name to a few. Many of the buds were beginning to close with the rising of the sun, like the yellow petals of the Lyreleaf Greeneyes or the stark white flowers hanging from the flowering tobacco. She caught a glimpse of the Scarlet Four O’Clock, the Beauty of the Night, before it sealed itself away from the daylight. It must have taken a powerful magician alongside an experienced gardener to fill a spread like this with plants from around the world, many of which couldn’t live in this climate normally. The mare took a whiff of the heady mélange of scents before it was whisked away with the breeze, growing fainter as each bud closed for the day. A large stem, covered almost completely in hydrangea and topped with a massive yellow bud grew next to the white set of stairs that carried the milkmare up to the front door. She spared a second look at the plant, wondering what kind of flower grew to be this tall and with a stem so thick...she almost didn’t notice the thick spines spearing through the gaps in the hydrangea before touching a hoof to the plant. No. No way. This was the same stupid plant that her pal from Ponyville gushed about letter after letter, wishing she could grow one in her own garden someday. Underneath the heavy coat of vine and white blossoms, a single, spiny stalk of the nightblooming cereus stood vanguard at the entrance to Moonlight Gardens. Her friend’s most recent letter had mentioned news through the local florist’s club about one of these rare cacti having been recently transplanted to a collection in Manehattan...apparently this was it. She was so coming back here tomorrow with a camera. Leaving the beautiful Princess of the Night where it grew comfortably in the company of its peers, the unicorn ascended the last few steps to the porch and raised her hoof to leave a light knock on the heavy wooden door. Somepony had to deliver this milk, after all. Snickerdoodle blinked, confused by the question. Sapphire smiled as she stuffed another bite in Shale’s grimacing maw. “Well, yeah, of course we can, pinks. What do you think brothers and sisters are for?” Doodle slid a plate of flapjacks towards the new addition to their group with a smile. Sapphire scooted the colt off of her lap and began setting up helpings for herself and Lily. Below her, Shale sat on his white-and-black-streaked tail and wiped the rest of his breakfast off of his face. “That’s right, Lil’,” Sapphire mused. “Most of us here don’t have anypony else to look after us, aside from Miss Dew and Auntie Luna. So we’re each other’s family. Do you want syrup with that?” “Oh, yes, please.” The bottle up-ended itself above the table, drizzling a generous helping on both of the fillies’ plates. As Lily drew her plate closer, a glass of orange juice floated to the table in front of her. Four matching glasses sailed through the air to land in front of each foal, and a bottle of the stuff wound its way into Shale’s outstretched hooves. “There you go, kids. Now hurry up and finish breakfast. We still have to clean up the den so the Princess has a tidy house to visit,” Miss Dew called from the kitchen. “Woona!” Shale yelled before Sapphire tilted his bottle back into his mouth. “Yes. Now c’mon, let’s finish up and get the place clean.” “Hey, Sapphire,” Lily asked between mouthfuls of breakfast, “what’s Princess Luna like?” The unicorn tapped her chin thoughtfully before shrugging and gathering up some of the dishes on the table with her magic. “This is your first time meeting the princess, huh?” “Yeah...I’m a little nervous.” It was true; excited as she was, Lily still couldn’t get the storybook image of Nightmare Moon out of her head. Sapphire laughed and stepped away from the table, levitating the stack of dirty dishes in front of her. “You’re in for a treat, then. Get everypony together and meet me in the den, alright?” She trotted into the kitchen, bearing the breakfast load with her. Doodle jumped down from his chair and knocked the back of Petal’s chair as he walked past, startling her awake again. “Alright, time to wake up, sis. Let’s pick the place up already.” Petal yawned deeply, stretching her wings and cracking her back as she tried to re-enter the waking world. “Fine. D’you think I can sneak a nap in before she gets here?” “You’ve been sneaking naps in ever since Miss Dew pulled you out of bed this morning, doofus. You shouldn’t stay up so late to paint. If we can get everything spic-and-span, you could probably snooze a little on the couch.” Placated for the moment, the burnt-orange pegasus flapped her wings and lifted from the chair to follow Doodle into the living room. All that was left for Lily was to gather up Shale...and Hazel. “It’s Hazel, right?” She offered her best smile to the quiet unicorn. He had hardly touched any of his breakfast; chopped-up bits of pancake littered his plate like a battleground, but none of them had made it to his mouth. “Are you alright? You seem...sad.” “Nut.” “Uh...what?” The pink pegasus knelt down to the dining room floor so Shale could clamber up onto her back, carrying his bottle of juice with him. “My name,” Hazel continued. “It’s Hazel Nut. Named after my dad, Birch Nut.” He shuffled around in his seat before climbing down, swishing his black tail around to sweep up a few of the crumbs that had fallen to the floor from breakfast. “Oh. That’s a nice name, Hazel Nut.” Shale was starting to get antsy between Lily’s wings, and she began trotting in place to try and calm him down with some motion. “Can you tell me anything about your dad?” The blank look Hazel gave her told her everything she really needed to know on that subject. “I’m sorry,” she blurted, trying to stretch her neck so Shale couldn’t get a good mouthful of her ear. “I just...don’t really remember much about my parents. I was a little curious, is all.” Blushing in shame, she turned and tried creeping out of the room with a foal in tandem. “No, it’s fine...I forgot that everypony’s here because they don’t have a mom or a dad. At least I still have my dad...sort of.” He fell into step alongside her and gave Shale a nudge back into place. “We used to live together in an apartment on the other side of the city. He got a letter about eight months ago with a golden seal on it...he said he had to go back to work for Princess Celestia. I was dropped off here while he was gone. He never told me what he was supposed to be doing, either. I didn’t find out until I was called in to see him in the hospital...” He paused in his story as the three foals passed the front door. Over the din from the living room, Lily could hear the colt next to her begin to sob. “Hey,” she offered, unsure of what to do. “I’m sure that whatever’s happened to your dad, he’s still thinking about you, right?” She raised a hoof to his shoulder, wrapping him in an awkward hug. “Heh, sure,” he sniffed. “Turns out he had to go fight in the Royal Guard somewhere for the princesses. He got hurt pretty bad while he was gone and he hasn’t been able to come home yet. He...he went and left me and now he might not...” Lily cut him off before a new series of tears could overtake the colt, wrapping both of her hooves around his neck in a silent hug. Shale rolled from between Lily’s wings to Hazel’s broader back, anchoring himself firmly in place with a mouthful of black mane. “Thanks, Lily. I haven’t really told anypony about that yet. I think Miss Dew already knows, but nopony else asked. I guess you’re alright.” His tired smile was split as Shale wrenched back on his mane, squeezing his four little legs around Hazel’s midsection. “Woona!” The miniature foal wailed at nopony in particular. “He’s right, you know. We should go help the others clean up before the princess gets here.” Lily patted each of her new brothers on the head in turn before the smaller one swatted her away from his salt-and-pepper mane. “NO! Woona!” “MISS MORNING DEW, MY STALWART CENTURIONS AND I HAVE CAPTURED A POTENTIALLY DANGEROUS INTERLOPER ON YOUR DOORSTEP.” The volume alone was enough to knock each foal onto their backs, and the sonic aftershock rattled Lily straight to her bones. She stared breathlessly at the front door, terrified at what may lie beyond. “Oh, dear. She’s in one of her playtime moods again.” Trotting swiftly to the door, Miss Dew picked up each of the children and sent them scurrying off to the living room with a wave of her hoof. “Go on then. Let me sort this out with Auntie Luna before she comes in to see you all.” “I CAN HEAR YOU WITHIN, MISS MORNING DEW. NO NEED TO LOOK UPON THE INTRUDER; I SHALL HAVE MY GUARDS TRANSPORT HER TO THE NEAREST PENITENTIARY WITH ALL HASTE. IS CAPITAL PUNISHMENT STILL ENFORCED IN THESE LANDS? MY KNOWLEDGE OF MODERN EQUESTRIAN LAW IS STILL HAZY.” Goddesses above, Lily could swear there were a dozen ponies’ voices forcing their way through the rattling door instead of just one. She chanced a look back as Miss Dew stepped outside and caught a glimpse of one terrified mare, two heavily-armored batponies, and four massive black pillars that each ended in a diamond-encrusted boot. “Good grief, princess, you know full well that there hasn’t been an execution in nearly 800 years. Please stop frightening this poor milkmare - thank you for the delivery, by the way, dear; see you next week - and come inside already! You’re drawing a crowd.” “HUZZAH! A PUBLIC EXECUTION IT IS!” Lily leaped into the den with Hazel and Shale in her wake, a stream of booming laughter and mortified wails following them. “Everypony run! Nightmare Moon’s here!” She leaped behind a thickly-cushioned blue couch, doing her best to draw her tail into the crawlspace after her. “Yeah,” Sapphire deadpanned as she peeked in at Lily. “We heard her.” “But-but-she’s gonna eat us! Hazel, put Shale in here with me and find a hiding spot!” The colt laughed and gave her the first real smile she’d seen from him all day. “Are you kidding? C’mon, Lily, you can’t miss this!” Shale waved his hooves above his head, teetering dangerously on Hazel’s red coat. “Miss wh-aaa...” Pink feathers obscured Lily’s eyesight just as a truly massive diamond warboot crashed into her field of vision. She hardly recognized the wings as her own and opted to freeze in place, hoping the Nightmare couldn’t see her. “I smell four...five...six tasty little foals.” Drat, one of six foals thought to herself as she tried not to breathe. “One of them smells like a pegasus...a pretty pink pegasus with blue eyes.” Double drat! “She smells as if she is hiding behind the couch!” “Augh!” Pink feathers burst out of Lily’s hiding spot as she rocketed up to the ceiling, flapping her wings madly to try and escape almost certain death. “Yes!” Nightmare Moon’s voice wasn’t merely loud, it was deafening. It filled the room and the rooms beyond it even further than the gigantic form of her armored body could. “RUN! IT MAKES YOU TASTE ALL THE SWEETER WHEN I COME TO GOBBLE YOU UP!” Fangs leapt out of the Nightmare’s wide mouth, glinting dangerously in the morning light. Beneath Lily, five foals laughed and disappeared in all directions, giggling as they ran away from the coal-black alicorn. “Wait...what?” Lily’s hover faltered as she saw the Queen of Terror slip her a quick wink before vanishing in a puff of stardust and purple smoke. Another bout of giggles erupted from the kitchen; Paint Petal, if Lily heard right. “One pegasus filly gobbled, five foals left to find!” The triumphant cry echoed from the kitchen back into the den, rocking Lily in the air. Below her an orange pegasus popped into the middle of the floor, scattering specks of magic as she appeared. If she was sleepy before, she was completely awake now. “Heeheehee! Hey, Lily! What are you doing up there? You’ve gotta find a better hiding spot!” She fluttered up to the pink foal and began pushing her down to ground level. “What?” “Don’t tell me you’ve never played hide-and-seek! There, that’s a good spot. I usually hide there.” Petal lifted one of the large blue cushions on the couch and waited until Lily had crawled underneath to lower it. From under the plush cushion came another muffled: “What?” A soft crash came from the second floor, followed by the sounds of foals’ cheers and laughter. Two pops, one after another, signalled the return of two more foals. Lily peeked out from beneath her plush hiding spot to see Hazel and Shale appear in a bundle on the carpet. Shale leapt off of his brother’s prone body, jumping in place and whooping laughter. Hazel groaned and picked himself up, grinning the whole time. “Outta the way! She found me!” A blue-tinted magical flash burst in the middle of the air, depositing Sapphire face-first onto the carpet. Her mane and tail were slightly singed from the imperfect teleportation spell. She shrieked with laughter as a deep-purple cloud appeared in the doorway, rocketing tacross the room and solidifying into Nightmare Moon. The alicorn hung suspended upside-down from the ceiling, hooves spread wide in a predatory stance. “I have you now, child!” She sprang from her perch, tackling Sapphire and rolling into the hallway towards the front door. Lily heard another faint crash as something presumably expensive shattered in the assault. Miss Dew walked through the same doorway, carrying a pile of broken porcelain in her magical field. “Honestly, I don’t even know why I bother cleaning before she visits.” Her white tail disappeared into the doorway to the kitchen just as Nightmare Moon stepped back into the den. Sapphire hung from her jaws by the tip of her midnight-blue tail, smiling and giggling softly to herself even as she tried to play possum. The alicorn princess deposited her gently on the carpet before grinding a hoof in mock frustration. “Only two remain. Perhaps they should surrender so that they do not feel my unholy fury!” She stomped from one end of the room to the other, gnashing her teeth and licking the tips of her fangs for effect. Lily could just barely see a small set of brown hooves following in her shadow. “Attack!” Doodle leaped and attached himself to the alicorn’s tail, scrabbling with his limbs to try and find purchase in the misty veil of starlight and night sky. Even as he started to fall, the mist formed around him and lifted him high into the air, dropping him neatly behind Nightmare Moon’s icy helmet. With a mournful wail, she spun in place and raised a hoof to her brow. “Oh, gods and goddesses above, a brave warrior has surely slain me, the Nightmare That Walks The Waking World, the Devourer of Flesh and Soul, Mare Who Is Blacker Than the Blackest Black...Times Infinity!” “You made that last one up, dear,” Miss Dew called helpfully from another room. Lily grunted as the full weight of an immortal embodiment of the absence of light crashed onto the couch and pinned her under the cushions. “Help! Nightmare Moon is squishing me!” She twisted and managed to get a single, pink hoof out from beneath the mare above her. “Jellied foal was a wonderful delicacy during my all-too-brief rule,” the princess stated matter-of-factly. The weight above Lily shifted away, and the little pegasus squeezed her way out of the couch and rolled onto the carpet. She watched in awe as the humongous black goddess shrank and changed in color to a comfortably blue shade of midnight. Princess Luna, Dream Mother and Patron of the Watchful Eye, lounged on the couch as a proud-looking Doodle adopted a heroic pose on top of her peytral plate. “Come now, Snickerdoodle, let an old horrorterror such as myself be vanquished with her dignity.” The colt atop her wrinkled his nose at the sound of his name. “Please, Auntie Luna, it’s just Doodle. Don’t call me by my first name.” “I will do no such thing. I will continue to call you Snickerdoodle, because they are delicious and it is a cute name and I enjoy antagonizing you. Now, Lily Breeze, the quiet little pegasus, come here please.” Princess Luna levitated Doodle away from her as she sat up on the couch, slipping the tiara off of her head and the plate from her chest. “P-princess! Um, how do you know my name?” The fact that the other foals seemed to remember her name was surprise enough for Lily. “Child, I know every pony’s name that stays under my roof. While you are all living here, you are living in my home, under the care of my very good friend Morning Dew. Have you enjoyed your first morning here?” The princess patted a spot on the couch next to her, and Lily hesitantly lifted herself up to the seat. The rest of the children gathered around the pair on the couch, taking seats on the carpet or pulling cushions from the living room’s chairs to sit on. “I’ve been having a nice time so far, princess. My, um...my new brothers and sisters all seem very nice. And a lot of fun!” “That’s more or less us in a nutshell,” Sapphire added with a wry smile. “Nice, and fun. We accept praise.” “That is good to hear, but please don’t bother calling me ‘princess’ here, child. I’m making a family visit, not entertaining a court full of nobleponies. Now children, how have you all been since I last came? What have you all done that is new and exciting?” Upon hearing the princess’ question, Paint Petal gasped and zipped out of the living room. She came tearing back down from the second floor a second later, a large sheet of butcher paper in tow. “Auntie Luna! I painted something for you. I stayed up all night working on it!” The orange filly held up the wide canvas, beaming with pride. A panorama of the night sky appeared to have been vomited onto the paper. White-and-yellow stars speckled a haphazard swash of deep blue and black, and an ovalish-looking moon was scarred with dozens of grey splotches in the rough shape of a pony’s face. Princess Luna took it from Petal’s hooves gently, handling the artwork as if it was the rarest treasure in the royal vault. Her eyes lit with a warmth that Lily still couldn’t understand, and she raised the painting high above her head in glee. “Wonderful! Thank you, dearest Paint Petal. I shall have it hung in the palace’s display gallery today! Besides,” she added conspiratorially, “Between us, the horrid old place could do with a few more moons and stars. Far too many paintings of the sun and stuffy old dead ponies.” She shared a giggle with Petal and rolled the canvas with her magic. “Imbrium! Somniorum! Attend your princess!” Princess Luna called her guards into the den happily, enjoying, as she always did, ordering them around as often as she could. Somniorum, the taller of the two armored batponies, was the first through the hallway. He took a stance next to the couch and raised a gauntlet-sheathed forelimb in salute. Imbrium came shuffling into the den a moment later, his grizzled muzzle and leaner frame showing the signs of his age. His eyes, however, carried a fierce light to them - and the sardonic smile on his face hinted at the attitude he carried along with it. “Yes, m’lady,” Imbrium reported. “This is a highly valuable piece of post-modern expressionist artwork, Captain Imbrium. See to it that it is delivered to the royal gallery at once.” The Centurion took the rolled canvas from Princess Luna’s magical grip and sheathed it in a sheet of hide that he pulled from his saddlebag. “Of course, m’lady. Would you find it entertaining, m’lady, if I were to replace one of the older pieces with this one?” His grin was in full force now. “You have clearly read my mind, Captain. Please relocate a Cubism piece of your choosing. They are ugly, and make my head hurt.” The stallion placed the covered painting in his saddlebag and tightened his straps for takeoff, bowing low to his princess. “As you command, m’lady.” Somniorum watched in growing apprehension as his superior officer left through the front door. He turned his gaze back to the group in the living room, finding all eyes on him. “I apologize, Corporal Somniorum, but as you can see, that only leaves you with the foals and I. And it is now time for more games. Is that acceptable, children?” Her request was met with unanimous approval. “As I thought! Well, Corporal, you know the drill. Children, choose your weapons.” Lily was dragged off to choose from an assortment of costume armor and swords with the other foals while Somniorum let out a quiet sigh of resignation. “Oh, hush, Corporal. I’m sure the children can only handle an hour or two of Hunt the Timberwolf. Besides, ‘tis a fair time to practice your less-than-stellar war face.” Several hours later, Princess Luna found herself back in the den, surrounded on all sides by the tired children she had spent the majority of the day playing with. A slew of hoof-drawn pictures had been tossed around the room randomly along with the crayons and pencils used to draw them. A small stack of plates and glasses sat unattended in the corner, the last remnants of both lunch and dinner. Corporal Somniorum was standing guard outside the house, having earned himself a few minutes of quiet after having been chased around the building by a traveling band of “wolf-hunting heroes.” Celestia’s sun was just finishing its long arc across the sky, barely touching the edge of the horizon out past the city’s limits. Luna could feel the pressure in her mind to begin the moonrise soon. “It’s almost time for me to go, my little ponies. Your Auntie Celestia will need me back at the palace tonight.” A pair of tiny hooves gripped around the back of her neck in protest. “No,” Shale murmured. He had gotten himself tangled in her mane as they sat together on the floor to rest for a moment, and had decided to go spelunking until he tired himself out. “Yes, little Shale. She loves you all very much, but unfortunately Woona has some tasks she needs to take care of before morning comes, and you need to go to sleep so you can have sweet dreams tonight.” The bluish cloud of magic that wafted from her horn pulled Shale free from her locks, depositing him against her side next to Doodle and Lily. Paint Petal and Hazel leaned against her back, relaxing in the twilight and happy to spend time with the princess. Sapphire sat quietly to herself a few paces away. “Well, before I leave for the night...perhaps you would like to hear a little song?” The crowd around her mumbled their approval and curled up closer to the Princess of the Night. Slowly, softly, a quiet melody began to emanate from the tip of Luna’s horn. “Very well, then.” Summer’s eve Long ago Lonely, cold, in the dark of night, Suddenly hooves wrap ‘round, Hold me under the moonlight. “There,” she breathes, “Can’t you see,” “Everything will be alright.” Sisters, we, from that night on Safely under the moonlight. “Ponies come, and ponies leave,” “Between each storm as a brief reprieve.” “Know, dear sister, can’t you see,” “That we are family.” Children, dears, Family, Help each other through fears and frights. Strong and tall, never alone, Sleep now under the moonlight. We’re always near, never alone, When you’re under the moonlight. Friends may come, and friends may go Hearts may break betwixt dreams laid low. But know, my children, don’t you see, That we are family. Children, dears, Have no fear, Learn and love and live with might. Family’s bond is unbreakable Ever under the moonlight. I’m always here, never alone... When you’re under the moonlight. Lily felt a strange warmth against her as she began to stir. She opened her eyes to find herself embraced on all sides by the sleeping forms of her brothers and sisters. “It feels nice, doesn’t it? Having a family,” a voice called from behind. Lily spun her head towards the sound and found a familiar blue pegasus leaning halfway through the open living room window. “Spring!” “Heya, Lil’. Didn’t I tell ya you wouldn’t have to be alone any more? Now c’mon, wake everypony up. The night’s still young and we’ve got a whole world to go out and see.” Author's Note The lullaby is to the tune of Emile Pandolfi's rendition of Once Upon a December.
Mare Cognitum, Sea That Has Become Known (Part 1)“Why...why wasn’t it me? Why couldn’t it be me!?” Dust kicked up from the impact of heavy bolts and Scorpion shafts scoured his eyes, making the scene around him all the more difficult to see. It didn’t matter; the images had already been branded into his mind. His horn sputtered and died. The fractured shards of his defensive field scattered and vanished into the air, letting the sounds of battle enter what had been a protective barrier not ten seconds ago. There were screams in the distance. Metal crashing against metal, shrieks of pain and barking laughter, the thick, heavy splatter of fresh blood spraying over the rocks. He shouldn’t be conscious, he realized. That kind of magical overload that had splintered his barrier and ripped the power straight out of his skull should have killed him, or at least knocked him out until another could come finish the job. But instead he was here among the land of the living, watching his friend’s life spill out into the dirt and the dust and the carnage of the battlefield. A final shudder shook him to his core and forced him to the ground. Whether it was from the loss of adrenaline, the damage done to his horn, or the bodies laying next to him, he couldn’t tell. It didn’t really matter, did it?. The bastard komvsvoda was already moving towards him, lifting that damned repeater ballista into the air, bringing the stock down with a sharp cra- “Alright, let’s hear it, Boots.” Sergeant Birch Nut fiddled with the enchanted helmet that rested around his horn; the stupid thing never seemed to fit right. “Roger that, Sergeant. Okay, as of zero-seven-hundred hours this morning, our battalion's been on high alert due to repeated probing maneuvers made by griffon hostiles along the border between here, here...” he paused to adjust the map in his telekinetic grip, “...And here.” “Yeah,” barked a voice from the rear of the transport, “We know. That’s the reason we got pulled out of chow and stuffed in a shoebox to fly all the way out to Goddess-knows-where. Get to it, Boots.” Birch glared at the unicorn who had interrupted, boring a hole in him from six paces away. “That’s enough, Snap. I’m sorry the BC specifically decided to ruin your day with a frag-o. Private Bootshine, please continue.” The guardspony nodded and lifted a second map in the confines of the troop carrier, highlighting a mountain range just between the borders of the Griffon Empire and the land of Equestria. “Right. Anyway, our squad is making for this location to try and scope out whatever featherhead activity’s popping off. We’re not there to start a fight, guys - Celestia knows we’re not equipped to fight a Griffon platoon off - so watch your six and keep your heads on a swivel. That high in the mountains is beaky’s home turf. They find us, we’re gonna be sent home in a box.” Bootshine rolled up the pair of maps and stuffed them away in his saddlebags. As he finished, his green eyes - the only part of a guardspony’s hide that wasn’t enchanted to look uniform - turned to the sergeant. “Cut-and-dry, guys. We get in, perform recon for our area, and send off a message to higher on what we find. Then we get the heck home. Bootshine, Snap, you’re with me. Rubble and Sledge, you fall under Sergeant Cliff Jumper. Don’t try to be heroes; you know how he gets.” Cliff grinned and finished attaching his saber to his side. “Didn’t you hear, Birch? We’re all heroes. Just ask any filly in Canterlot.” The six guardsponies checked their gear as the transport rattled in the wind, going over each other and making sure everything was in place. Snap helped Boots adjust the straps on his saddlebags while Birch moved towards the sliding doors of their flying coffin. With a burst of magic the doors opened, giving the sergeant a full view of the Blue Mountains beneath them. If they were blue before, they sure didn’t show it: from the soldiers’ position above the foot of the mountains, everything was dirt and rock. Gemstones were hidden far beneath the rocks’ roots, but everything above ground had been burnt to cinders centuries ago by a long-forgotten dragon migration. Nothing was left to grow back. Pegasi to his left and right fought to stabilize the transport in the howling wind as they soared for higher ground, though they had the easier job among the Flight Squad - two heavy draft fliers were anchored to the front of the armored vehicle, hauling it forward and hurtling at ever greater speeds towards their destination. In the distance, Birch could see a similar transport moving towards the same location. Another team of six pegasi hauled the elongated, enclosed chariot, and another squad of unicorn and earth pony guards waited inside for the call to hit the ground running. “No, genius. Look. Secure it like this.” Private Snap Freeze grunted as he cinched the heavy leather buckles anchoring Bootshine’s combat load to his sides. The pair of saddlebags were packed full of medical equipment, maps and assorted gear that made Boots appear twice his actual size. Tying off a quick knot to make sure his partner’s saber would stay flush with his gear, Snap stepped back to admire his work. “Yep. That oughta do it. How does it feel?” “Can’t...really breathe...my hooves feel numb...” To his credit, Bootshine didn’t drop under the weight of his ruck. On the other hand, he didn’t look ready to scale a mountain. “Rub some dirt on it. You’ll be fine.” Birch chuckled and removed his helmet, running a hoof through his close-cropped mane as the armor’s latent magics faded and his coat reverted back to its normal tan. His two soldiers were each other’s foil as much as they were friends - quick to lash out at each other during bouts of boredom, but even faster to cooperate when given a task to complete. Boots had just finished his training as a member of the Light Arcane Infantry not two months ago, but he’d already proven himself resourceful and adaptable under the constant pressure of garrison life this close to the border. Snap, on the other hand, had already been serving for nearly a year. Still green compared to the other guardsponies on board, but clever enough to stand side-by-side with the more experienced unicorns and outshine them whenever he saw an opportunity. “Come on, Snap, give him a hoof with some of that crap. Can’t expect one pony to hike up a mountain carrying his own weight in gear unless you plan to roll him back down when we’re done.” Snap groaned and began transferring a few of the bundles of equipment from his friend’s packs to his own. “Sure thing, Sarge. Don’t worry, Bootlick, mama’s ever-lovin’ blue-eyed Snap will carry all the stuff that’s too heavy for your dainty little hooves.” “I told you to stop calling me that, you ass.” “Tough nuts. You’re the eff-en-gee now, not me. You’ll grin and bear it. That light enough for you?” “Oh, yeah. That’s much better. Thanks...Sugarsnap.” A chorus of snickers surrounded the red-faced private as he latched his saddlebags shut and shoved Bootshine back onto the bench. “Oh, okay, yeah, buck you, Boots. How’d you even hear that?” Bootshine rolled his eyes and settled back into the bench, stretching his legs out beneath him. “You leave your mail lying open on your desk, you moron. I get to read everything your marefriend has to say to her little Cheesy Freeze.” “I swear to Celestia I will crawl down your throat and violate your soul if you say another one of those stupid nicknames out loud.” The roar of the wind through the open bay door punctuated the otherwise silent interior of the chariot. Convinced he’d ended the argument, Snap spun around and began trotting back to his seat before the whisper reached his ears. “...Snapple.” “I am going to MURDER you, Boots!” The two unicorns crashed into each other and rolled to the metal floor. Boots couldn’t stop laughing; Snap was trying his best to make him. Birch tossed the two of them back into their respective seats with a lazy glimmer of magic before Snap could finish an impressive guillotine clench on his younger companion. “Time for you two chuckleheads to sit down and shut up,” he grumbled, “We’re almost there. Try not to crash the bus while we’re in it.” In truth, he was trying not to laugh. Not that they needed to know that. Across the chariot, Sledge and Rubble glanced at each other before turning their attention to the lounging Cliff. “Hey...hey, Sarge. Give us our bits back; they didn’t finish the fight.” Sledge flexed his considerable bulk in agitation while he and his teammate waited on their leader’s response. “Sorry, don’t know what you’re talkin’ about. Gambling’s against regulation in the Guard, boys. Were you two gambling? I sure hope you weren’t. Schucks.” He grinned beneath the cold glare of his helmet. “Besides, I bet on Birch.” Birch smiled in spite of himself and leaned through the open door again, relishing in the feel of the wind whistling over him. The rocky ground soared beneath him, blending into a blur of gray and brown as their team of pegasi shuttled them onwards. The pegasus directly to his left unhooked a hoof from his support harness and pointed towards a thick outcropping of stone far below. “Sergeant! At our 10, take a look. Ground level.” Birch levitated a pair of binoculars from his saddlebag and stretched out into the wind. The soldier’s hoof pointed him towards a large cluster of boulders that had fallen from a higher outcropping in the rock. As his lenses focused, he could just barely see a pair of thick, black feathers drift to the dust beneath the stones. “Cliff, buckle up back there. Got a possible hosti-” The craft groaned and tilted wickedly to the left, cutting off his order. Birch flailed his hooves and caught himself on the door before he fell out. With a grunt, he pushed himself back inside the chariot... ...And stared into the dead eyes of the pegasus he had just spoken to. His body hung limply in the harness, wings swinging as the wind thrashed them in the chariot’s downward arc. Three tightly-grouped crossbow bolts rose from the back of the dead colt’s neck. Oh, Goddesses... “Shields up-!” Birch’s own magic joined with his soldiers’, raising a powerful field of energy around the chariot fast enough to stop the massive Scorpion bolt that blazed towards them from a hidden launcher. He remembered screaming as the maliciously sharp tip of the missile lodged partway through his shield, cracking it with a sound like bursting china. The world around him was fire and blood and shrapnel and death. Birch was sprinting when he came to, and he screamed again in mid-stride as the pain began to sink in. His right hindleg was gouged deeply by a pair of smaller bolts that had passed clean through the muscle. The griffon above him loosed another furious burst of rounds that scattered wide to his left as he tucked and rolled out of the way. Orange flame and energy crackled over his horn as he rose, gripping the enemy’s thick leather barding with his telekinesis and dragging the creature out of the sky with a burst of power. The griffon hit the dirt like a meteor, crushing one wing and bending the other at an awkward angle in the crash. Even with his wounds, he tried to grasp for the axe slung over his shoulder before Birch could close the gap and finish him off. There was a quick scream, and a bubbling gasp for air. Birch trotted up to the corpse and pulled his saber free from the griffon’s tattered neck. Funny, they always seemed to forget about the telekinesis. “Sergeant!” Snap’s voice reached him from across the battlefield where the private was weaving his way through a barrage from two more skybound griffon soldiers. They both carried brand-new repeating crossbows, launching dozens of penetrating metal bolts in quick succession under the energy of enchanted gemstones. Birch was hurting. He was tired. He was drained from the pain dealt with the backlash from the penetrator bolt that had struck his shield...but his soldiers didn’t need him exhausted and blind with pain. He shelved away the cold ache that had begun to creep from the tip of his horn and the burning agony in his leg. The first griffon fell lifeless to the ground, clutching the huge bolt that had speared him through the chest. The second had time to dodge Birch’s other Scorpion round he had pulled from the wreckage of their partner chariot, but fell shrieking as a flurry of ice shards sliced the flesh from his body. “You...you okay, Snap?” Birch staggered for a few steps before gritting his teeth and standing as tall as he could manage. In the distance, he could hear another pony screaming. A pair of pegasi dodged and juked in the air above, flying circles around the larger griffon soldiers and slashing at them with blades hidden in their wingtips. “...Never better, sergeant.” Snap Freeze was shaking as exhaustion threatened to overcome adrenaline. His armor was smeared with fresh blood. Birch tried not to think about how much of it could be his. “Thanks for the assist, by the way.” “Think I’d leave one of mine behind?” Birch clapped his soldier around his neck, wincing softly as he put pressure on his bad leg. “Where’s Boots? Did you two send that report up?” He didn’t bother adding the fact that none of them were likely to make it home if they didn’t. “Sent it by flame just a few minutes ago before those bastards dropped on us. They...they got Boots pretty bad, sergeant. Bolt caught one of his bottles, and...just look...” The two guardsponies trotted behind the pile of boulders that Snap had been guarding. The same pile that Birch had spied up in the sky...what, ten minutes ago? Fifteen? He couldn’t tell. Private Bootshine was stretched out in the dust under as much cover as Snap could find, the left side of his body covered in horrible burns where his liquid flame had detonated. Four crossbow bolts were lodged deeply into his chest and belly. “H-hey, Sergeant. Did you...did you find them?” His voice was strained and raspy, and his throat gurgled with each breath. One of the missiles had punctured a lung. Kneeling down, Birch kicked his soldier’s discarded armor to the side and started inspecting the wounds. “Cliff’s fine, and he’s got Rubble and Sledge with him. They’re moving to our position right now, buddy.” Boots didn’t need to know about how the griffons had opened Sledge from stomach to sternum, or how Cliff had shielded Rubble with his body while the enemy poured a deluge of fire into them. “Good, good. I was-” he coughed up pink foam, the blood already seeping into his airway. “...Was hoping they made it through alright. Never got to meet Rubble’s cousin, heh-heh. She’s supposed to be pretty cute.” Snap jumped to his hooves and poured energy into his horn, striking a griffon out of the sky above them with icicles formed from the air. It looked like more were on their way down the mountain. “I tell you what, Boots; we get you home and I’ll teach you all about how to wine and dine her. Hell, I’ll get the two of you tickets to the next Wonderbolts show. Got a buddy of mine on the tech team for their act.” He hated lying more than he hated airshows. “You’re gonna be fine, pal. How do you feel?” Boots smiled beneath him, coughing lightly and cringing as his blackened flesh split with each breath. “Can’t breathe that well, my hooves are a little numb. Snap put his shit back in my packs again, didn’t he...?” His sentence tapered off as his breaths became shorter and more painful. “C’mon, Boots, stay with me. Relief team’s just a hop, skip, and a jump away from here and we’ll get you home. Just...just keep talking, alright? How many hooves am I holding up?” “Just...one,” the private chuckled before wheezing and gasping for fresh air. “Great. You’ve learned to count. Who’s the current ruler of Equestria?” The soldier in his hooves was fading fast, he hadn’t trained in healing spells, and Snap was yelling at him. “Hrrk...it’s a...a diarchy, sergeant. Celestia and L-Luna...they share the throne.” “You’re too smart for your own damn good, Boots. Hey, keep looking at me.” Birch gently shook his soldier’s hoof. “Focus. If you could get the hell out of here and be anything, do anything, what would you choose?” Somewhere in his failing body, Boots found the strength to return the grip around his hoof. He drew his leader closer, choking the words out through a mouth stained with blood. “I think I’d...want to be you...Birch.” Look, dad! I’m just like you! The image of his son wearing his ceremonial helmet came without warning. It had been only a few months ago, before Birch had been sent forward to the border with his troops. Hazel had surprised him in the living room of their apartment as he returned home from shift, having buckled the heavy golden helmet around his chin. The enchantments worked into the metal had turned the colt’s dark hair and mane to the stark colors of the Guard, and his smile had reached all the way to his eyes for the first time since his mother had passed. Grunting angrily, Birch forced the picture from his mind and tried to focus on the soldier in front of him. “C’mon, Boots, y’know you can do better than-” Boots’ eyes were distant, staring at a horizon that only he could see. The pink flecks of spittle around his mouth had already begun to dry. He had died smiling, at least. Sergeant Birch closed his soldier’s eyes for the last time and staggered to his hooves. A griffon chanced a fly-by. It crashed to the ground with the shattered blade of a Sergeant’s saber in its chest. Dimly, Birch could see that Snap was struggling against another enemy. Through the taste of blood and dust and ash, he could feel himself screaming as he charged. Griffon armor was designed to protect the more vital organs in the chest cavity and offered little in the way of protection below the belly. A magically-charged unicorn horn could cut through the barding and soft tissue as if it was butter. Birch did just that, bellowing in rage until Snap forced the creature’s corpse off the tip of his horn and brought him back to the waking world. “Sarge...Sergeant Birch. SERGEANT!” “WHAT!?” Birch rounded on the smaller unicorn, ready to stab him, bite him, kick him to death - and everything faded when he saw the tears in the Guard’s eyes. “We need you here, Sergeant. We can take Boots home...but we need you here for a little longer. Okay?” Wiping his eyes, Snap grunted and started tugging a pair of barbs from his left foreleg. As much as he wanted to scream and cry and hate until he died, Birch forced himself to remain with the ponies that relied on him. He wheezed softly and brushed a hoof across his face, smearing the sticky mess of blood that had poured out of the griffon. “Yeah. Okay.” In the distance he heard the crackle of magically-enhanced gemstones feeding power into machinery. The wind whistled as he raised his eyes towards the direction of the sound, spying a heavily-armored griffon komvsvoda with a truly massive weapon in his claws. Something hot and wet splattered across the side of his muzzle. Snap stared at him in shock as he gasped through the hole torn in his throat. “Why...why wasn’t it me? Why couldn’t it be me!?” Dust kicked up from the impact of heavy bolts and Scorpion shafts scoured his eyes, making the scene around him all the more difficult to see. It didn’t matter; the images had already been branded into his mind. His horn sputtered and died. The fractured shards of his defensive field scattered and vanished into the air, letting the sounds of battle enter what had been a protective barrier not ten seconds ago. There were screams in the distance. Metal crashing against metal, shrieks of pain and barking laughter, the thick, heavy splatter of fresh blood spraying over the rocks. He shouldn’t be conscious, he realized. That kind of magical overload that had splintered his barrier and ripped the power straight out of his skull should have killed him, or at least knocked him out until another could come finish the job. But instead he was here among the land of the living, watching his friend’s life spill out into the dirt and the dust and the carnage of the battlefield. A final shudder shook him to his core and forced him to the ground. Whether it was from the loss of adrenaline, the damage done to his horn, or the bodies laying next to him, he couldn’t tell. It didn’t really matter, did it?. The bastard komvsvoda was already moving towards him, lifting that damned repeater ballista into the air, bringing the stock down with a sharp cra- Author's Note Oh man, conflict! But what does it mean!? It took a while to get this up. This chapter was actually turning out to be around 6,000-7,000 words, so I decided to split it in half for you guys. How's Birch gonna tie into the Midnight Gardens crew? What does any of this have to do with Moonbutt? Find out in the next episode. I'm in Afghanistan and I ain't gotta explain shit.
Mare Cognitum, Sea That Has Become Known (Part 2)Spring Showers flitted from foal to foal, offering encouragement to one and advice to another. The children of Midnight Gardens, Princess Luna’s adopted wards, were stretched out across the summit of a grassy hill under the soft moonlight. Under Spring’s guidance, each foal was busy practicing… well, whatever they felt like. “Okay, looks like the dream fabric’s pretty loose. So anyway, guys, a long time ago, Luna made something really special for everypony. She called it the Dreamscape! Now, everypony knows who the two Royal Sisters are, right?” The children gathered around him looked up for a moment and nodded. “Well duh, Spring! Auntie Luna’s the Princess of the Night, and her big sister Celestia is the Princess of the Sun! Just ‘cuz we’re orphans doesn’t mean we never got to go to school.” Paint Petal flapped her orange wings in agitation as she buried her nose in the canvas under her hooves.. Spring laughed. “Who told you guys you were orphans? As long as you’ve got family, you’re no orphans in my book. Remember that. You’ve each got a brother or a sister to your left and your right, and Luna’s always got an eye on you. Now where was I?” “Oh, uh…” Lily waved a hoof in the air, looking up from her project. “The Dreamscape and the Royal Sisters?” “Yeah. So like I was saying, there’s the Royal Sisters, right? Celestia is the Princess of the Sun. In the grand scheme of the cosmos, she’s got dominion over the physical world. The birds, the bees, and the apple trees - if it lives and it breathes, she’s the one responsible for its protection. And, in a couple’a cases, even its creation.” He paused for a moment to rub a hoof against his chin. “Luna, on the other hoof, is a horse of a different color. The Princess of the Night has dominion over the, uh… the metaphysical world.” Doodle raised a hoof. “What the heck is that? What’s the difference between something… meta-fiscal and, like, animals and trees and stuff?” The rest of the gathered foals nodded in agreement. “Right, right. That’s a lot of syllables. Sorry. Hmmm…” He landed in the gently-swaying grass and fell to his haunches, considering how to explain. “Well… let’s look at it like this. Luna’s supposed to take care of things that we might not be able to see, or hear, or even feel. Stuff that’s beyond what we can sense. Celestia builds, fixes, and harmonizes things that we’d say exist. But only Luna can change those things’ essence, the stuff that makes them what they are. Are you guys pickin’ up what I’m puttin’ down?” He was met with unanimously blank stares. “Okay, okay. This stuff might be a little over your grade level. How ‘bout this: Luna takes care of things like a pony’s heart. Her mind, her soul, and especially,” he added, “her dreams.” Sapphire nodded, her blue mane bouncing around Shale’s hooves as he played with it on her back. “Alright, that makes more sense. So… the Dreamscape?” “Right! Luna’s greatest gift to ponykind. Heck, not even just ponykind - she made it for all the races of our world to enjoy together. “The Dreamscape was something that Luna worked on for hundreds of years, way before any of us were ever born. It was a world dictated by thought, where essence was at its most malleable and existence was always alterable! She made an entire universe where there used to be nothin’ but a blank slate - a true infinitely-expanding universe, without the dumb laws that govern the plane we live in.” He stopped. Yep, lost them again. Sighing softly, he calmed down and brushed his mane back a bit with a hoof. “Every dream you’ve ever had? It’s a piece of her puzzle. When you fall asleep, deep asleep, sometimes you can find a way back into the world that Luna made for all of us.” “But… why can’t I remember some of my dreams when I wake up? And what about the bad dreams? Nightmares? Did Auntie Luna make those, too?” Hazel stood up from where he’d been sitting and trotted towards the pegasus colt. “No! No way! Not even close!” Spring’s rebuttal was frantic. “What Luna worked on for all those years was perfect. A world that you visit when you’re asleep, where anything is possible if you can just imagine it? She never wanted it to be dangerous, or scary. It was a place to relax, to rest, to think and draw and paint and sing and create! But… just as she put the finishing touches on it, the whole thing broke. It was the Nightmare that did it, not her.” “Auntie Luna had a nightmare?” Lily shivered. She didn’t like nightmares very much. Spring shook his head and stared at the horizon, trying to compose his thoughts. “It wasn’t a nightmare, Lil’. We’re talking The Nightmare. The very first one. Luna had worked too long, too hard. She stretched herself pretty thin trying to build her vision of perfection for everypony to enjoy… and another part of her took advantage of her weakness.” “The thing she’d spent so much time honing and shaping, down to the last tiny detail… The Nightmare shattered it in an instant.” He raised his eyes to the group that had now gathered around him in a loose circle. “Whenever you have a happy dream, that’s just a little piece of Luna’s gift that you’ve managed to latch onto. When you have a nightmare… well, that’s a part of her that was never supposed to see the moonlight.” Shale slipped off of Sapphire’s back and rolled to face up at Spring. “Dream!” He waggled his hooves, wanting to take a ride. “Heh, that’s right, squirt.” Spring lifted Shale up onto his shoulders, flapping a few feet above the ground to the colt’s delight. “Broken or not, we can still have some good dreams together.” From a grove of trees at the base of the hill, a tiny blue bat fluttered its way up to the crest and flew in a tight circle around Spring’s head. Shale swung at it, nearly losing his balance before Spring nudged him back up. The animal gave a quiet screech before continuing off down the opposite side. “Alright, alright; that’s a story for another night. I’ve gotta get going. Make sure you all keep practicing what I’ve been showing you! And don’t forget to show Luna everything you’ve done so far. I know she’ll be proud of you guys.” He set Shale down in the grass, rubbing his mane and blowing a raspberry at the foal before lifting off again. “Hazel, you’re comin’ with me. We’ve got an appointment to keep.” The little unicorn colt frowned. “We do?” “Yup,” Spring nodded. “C’mon. I’m gonna introduce you to another friend of mine. Like a sister to me, really. She’s got something to show you. Now let’s go!” He turned in a neat backflip, coasting down towards the bank of thick trees the bat had emerged from. Shrugging to his brothers and sisters, Hazel took off down the hill at a quick trot to keep up with his feathery blue friend. The cramped cab of the transport always smelled funny. Birch was busy fiddling with his signature golden helmet of the Guard, doing his best to resist throwing the massive metal doors open and letting the slipstream clear the stench out. Looking around the cab, he took a moment to reflect on the squad he was traveling with. Near the back was the team of earth ponies - Sledge and Rubble, two nearly identical slabs of muscle that kept trading glances. Looked like they were trying to decide which of them would be responsible for waking their team leader up once they reached their destination. The Guardspony in question, Sergeant Cliff Jumper, took up nearly an entire bench himself as he reclined for a quick nap. Birch was always amazed that the stallion he had trained and fought alongside had never lost his ability to nap anywhere. Sitting in the middle of the transport was Snap Freeze, the gifted arcanist that had been in Birch’s team since he’d been promoted to the position. He was fiddling lazily with his saddlebags and watching his teammate struggle towards the front end of the cab. Snap’s companion, Bootshine, was stuck unfurling a series of maps and notes for the mission brief. He was still pretty fresh, but Birch felt confident in the kid. He’d given him the responsibility of passing on their orders to the rest of the soldiers in the bay. And sitting directly next to him was… “Soldier. What’s your name?” A pretty young unicorn mare, lean and toned from months of difficult training, sat next to Birch. Her blue mane spilled out from the rear of her helmet. As the transport jolted through a quick bout of turbulence, Birch could have sworn he saw her mane turn from the standard blue to a strange mix of brown and orange. Huh, he thought. That’s way too long to be in regs. Gonna have to check the enchantment on that helm, too. “I asked you what your name is, private.” He glared at her from under the brim of his headgear. The unicorn turned towards him and stuttered, nearly banging her head on the armor plate behind her. “Oh, sorry about that, sergeant. My name’s Autumn Winds! Don’t you remember me?” He couldn’t say that he did… though her name was beginning to sound increasingly familiar. “I transferred to your unit just two weeks ago, so we haven’t had a chance to run a mission together yet. Do, uh… do you mind introducing me to the rest of the guys?” Birch rubbed the back of his neck. Yeah, she might as well get the ins-and-outs of the squad. “Okay. Hey, let’s hear it, Boots.” Bootshine nodded and began relaying the brief to the rest of the cab. “Alright, Autumn. The greenhorn reading off our mission plan for the day is Bootshine. He’s still a little scrawny, but he’s smart as all hell. Good guy to keep around.” Autumn nodded as he continued. “The unicorn that looks bored out of his mind right there, that’s Snap Freeze. He might not look like it, but he’s a pretty good spellslinger. He and Boots work pretty well together, even if the two of ‘em get on each other’s nerves every now and then. Mine, too. Speaking of which…” He waved at Snap, getting his attention. The Guardspony had been harassing the private up front. “That’s enough, Snap. I’m sorry the BC specifically decided to ruin your day with a frag-o. Private Bootshine, please continue. So, where was I… oh, right. The bump on the log over there, sleeping on the bench, that’s Sergeant Cliff Jumper. He’s in charge of the earth pony chuckleheads in the back. He’s got a sick kind of humor, so try to steer clear of him until you get to know him a little better. “The two brick walls up against the back of the cab, that’s Sledge and Rubble. Hardly ever see one without the other. I wouldn’t call ‘em the brightest matches in the box, but they’re strong as hell and great at what they do.” He finished up, tapping his new team member on the helmet. “That just leaves you, kid. What’s your story?” Autumn shrugged. “What do you want to know?” “Well,” Birch continued, “The usual. Where you’re from, what you did before you joined the Guard, do you have any family, et cetera, et cetera. Come on, Autumn, you’re a blank slate. Give me something to work with.” He chuckled and moved to give her helmet another flick. Autumn’s white hoof moved to smack his out of the way before he could knock her upside the head, earning another laugh from the larger stallion. The roll of her eyes contrasted with the slight dimples forming at the corners of her mouth. “Fine. Since you’re so interested. I grew up in Yoke Province, about a day’s walk north from Canterlot.” “Wait, Yoke?” The name seemed off, and Birch prided himself on his grasp of geography around the kingdom. Moving from place to place, assignment after assignment, gave him a good lay of the land after his last few years with the Guard. “You mean New Yoke, right?” New Yoke was one of the fastest-growing cities in Equestria. While it didn’t have the architectural brilliance of Fillydelphia or match the booming trade market of Manehatten, New Yoke had become a cultural icon for artists of all races and creeds over the past decade. Griffons, minotaurs, immigrants from the Zebrican city-states, and even a few of the friendlier changelings and diamond dogs had started taking up residence in the sprawling melting pot. The bustling city now boasted the largest multicultural population in Equestria. “Oh! Right. Right,” Autumn groaned. “New Yoke. Memorial Grove, and all that.” A rising commotion picked up from the front of the cab; Boots and Snap were about to start a fight over nicknames or something equally stupid. Hell, sometimes they didn’t even need a reason. One argument in particular over the proper polishing technique for a breastplate had left the better part of a dining facility scarred by magical flame and shards of eldritch ice. Birch groaned and shook his head. “You really care about them, don’t you?” The sergeant turned to find Autumn looking at him with something like admiration in her eyes. “Haven’t got much of a choice, the way I see it. But yeah, I do.” He smiled as he watched the two soldiers bicker. “A squad’s like a family, Autumn. You can’t always choose ‘em, but you can always find something to love about them. These guys… I wouldn’t want anypony else to be out here, watching my back for me.” Birch paused to wipe a tear out of the corner of his eye. That was strange. Why would he be crying? “That’s sweet, sergeant. I knew I had you pegged right from the start. I’m glad I could be here with all of you.” Autumn kicked her hooves out in front of her as Birch stood up to throw the bay door open. “Yeah,” he agreed. “Welcome to the family, kid.” Outside, the pegasus flight crew was busy beating their wings in perfect sync with one another. Peering through the rushing wind, Birch could see the two heavy draft pegasi pulling their transport forward as the mountainside rolled away far beneath them. He almost jumped when he felt a hoof come to rest on his shoulder. “Sergeant… before we start, I need you to understand something, okay?” Autumn pulled him away from the horizon and stared straight into his eyes. “Sure, Autumn. What do you want?” She held her breath for a moment before drawing him into an awkward hug. “It’s not your fault.” The soft thwip-thwip-thwip caught Birch’s attention even as the sudden physical contact made his hair bristle. He looked back outside to see one of his flight crew hanging lifelessly from his harness, riddled with crossbow bolts. Realization sparked as he threw Autumn away from him and spun to face the rest of his squad. “Shields up—!” “Hey, don’t worry about it, bud. You’re doing a great job. I know I didn’t get a proper shield working my first try, either.” Birch scratched at his chin for a moment, reflecting on his first magic lessons. “I think I actually set my teacher’s mane on fire when I tried, heh heh.” Shifting awkwardly in the silence, Birch tried again to get his son’s attention. Hazel sat in the grass next to him, his eyes looking into the distance of the New Yoke public park and seeing nothing. Even three months after his wife Cotton had passed, Birch felt like he was losing ground against the tide that threatened to carry his son away. Hazel rarely spoke these days. When he did, his quiet voice carried the undertones of shell-shock the stallion had seen many of his coworkers struggle with. There was no sense of wonder or excitement behind the colt’s eyes anymore. “Hey, pal, come on. Climb on my back. I want to show you something.” Lowering himself to the ground, Birch shifted as his son stepped over his tan withers and gripped a hoofful of his close-cropped blond mane. “Do you know why I decided to join the Guard, son?” He trotted briskly from the edge of the park towards the center, bringing them closer to the heart of the New Yoke metropolis. “When I was about your age, I heard a story. It was about a lot of very brave ponies that lived a long, long time ago. Way before your mother and I were even born. “These ponies, they lived during a time when they had to fight every day just to survive. Sometimes they would get hurt, and sometimes… well, sometimes they would die fighting. Or even worse, live after somepony they loved died instead.” The scattered groups of tourists and visitors began to thin as Birch walked towards a tall, white statue in the center of the park. From the base to the tip, it was at least eighty hoofstrides tall, soaring over many of the smaller buildings that skirted the edges of the park off in the distance. “Do you know why they kept fighting, even after all the suffering they had to live through, to grow up in? Why they chose not to just lay down and let the struggle of survival roll over them?” Hazel grunted noncommittally on his back, just enough to show that he was listening. “Each of them found something,” Birch continued, “something worth fighting for. I’ve heard a lot of soldiers talk about how they’d be willing to die for something. Not a whole lot of them think about what it takes to live for something, though.” The pair stopped in front of the statue, a monument carved out of a single, massive piece of marble that stood proud hundreds of years after its creation. Atop a raised pedestal, a larger-than-life group of pony soldiers kept a silent vigil as they watched the sunset each evening. Birch set his son down gently in the grass before the monument, smiling as he saw the colt’s eyes widen. “This is a memorial, Hazel. It was built to honor the sacrifices made by ponies that fought and died for what they believed in, and for the ponies they cared about. A long time ago during the war between Nightmare Moon and Princess Celestia, there was a fortress here that fought off Nightmare Moon’s armies. A lot of ponies died here… but they did so knowing that somepony else would be safe. When I was a colt, just like you, my dad took me here and told me the story of the monument. Do you want to hear it?” Hazel just nodded, enraptured with the statue before him. “The earth pony,” Birch began, “ torch in hoof and sword at his side, symbolizes the perseverance of the Solar soldiers and militia members that joined in the final assault on their gates. The pegasus, wings spread above her companions, embodies the vigilance with which they protected their friends and families. Finally, the unicorn, horn and scroll held high, leaves us all with their story.” He pointed at the marble scroll with a hoof, drawing Hazel close as he read. “Here did we fight to the last Against the curs’d Dreaming tide. Our spirit did ne’er waver Neither did our light falter. May the darkness remember Our strength til’ the end And tremble.” Wriggling free from his father’s side, Hazel trotted closer to the monument and stared up at the soldiers that - one thousand years ago - had pushed through their own pain and suffering to fight for those close to them. Resting a hoof on the polished stone, he choked a bit before speaking for the first time that day: “I think... I know what I wanna be, dad.” The last few trickles of blood seeped down Boots’ hooves and fell to the dusty ground. Birch held his soldier’s charred body against his chest, rocking quietly in the dirt and lost in his own mind. I think I’d… want to be you… Birch. “You could’ve been so much more, kid,” he whispered. “You, Sledge, Rubble… none of you had the chance.” The sound of hooves behind him shook him from his thoughts for a brief second. “It’s not your fault, Birch.” Autumn sat down next to him. The sounds of battle, shrieking metal and screams of agony, seemed to fade into the distance as she looked at the broken body in his hooves. His muscles tensed and shook inside his skin as rage started to cloud his vision. “No?” He spat. “Not my bucking fault?” He set Boots’ body down carefully, rising to his hooves and bristling with anger. He was angry at the griffons for killing his squad. Angry at Autumn for telling him he couldn’t have stopped it. Angry at himself. The battlefield came rushing back like a freight train, tearing into his senses and washing his field of view in crimson. Snap Freeze was still locked in combat with a black-feathered griffon scout, dodging her shots and parrying her claws with the fading light of his horn. His hooves were carrying him forward at bone-crushing speed, the dozen cuts and wounds he’d already suffered screaming at him in a symphony of pain. He couldn’t feel a thing. “NOT MY FAULT!?” The griffon screeched as Birch’s horn pierced straight through her armor, doubling over him and falling limp as the unicorn gave his neck a sudden twist. Keratin scraped away from the tip of his horn against his enemy’s spine. “They died because of me!” The creature’s limp body rose up into the air, suspended magically by his telekinesis before slamming into the ground with a heavy crunch. “They trusted me to protect them!” Crunch. “I should’ve been there! I should have been killed instead!” Crunch. “Why can’t I die?” Snap tried to lay his hoof on the sergeant’s shoulder, only to have it thrown back in his face. Birch wheezed as the glow above his helmet diminished. The battered body of the griffon fell to the earth, wings twisted awkwardly and blood pooling beneath her armor. He collapsed under the weight of his own fatigue, sobbing fitfully into his hooves. The ocean of rage inside him had cooled, replaced by an expanding flood of anguish. A faint cloud of dust kicked up and tickled his nose. He lifted his head silently, finding a pair of white hooves dominating his field of view. Autumn stood above him, shaking visibly but still managing to crack a smile. “Please get up, sergeant. We’re… we’re not done yet. There’s still so much left to do. So many more ponies you need to save. Please.” Birch found himself dragged back to his hooves, surrounded by the tan-tinted field of magic spreading from Autumn’s horn. She reached for him with a trembling hoof, steadying him as he stood up straight. “It’s going to be hard. I didn’t know how hard it was going to be, but I knew when I met you that you were going to make it through this. You just need to remember. Why you fight, who you fight for… please remember, Birch.” “Sergeant!” Snap shook Birch’s shoulder, drawing him out of his daze and bringing him back to the battle at hoof. Griffon corpses dotted the mountainside, mingling with broken bits of pegasus light armor and his fallen comrades. The sergeant’s jaw worked wordlessly, trying to catch up with his mind. He turned to his soldier, shaking his head as he muttered to himself. “I… I need to remember…?” Birch grunted, pressing an armor-sheathed hoof against his eyes as a sharp pain pierced through his skull. He’d been here before. He wasn’t supposed to be here. There was somepony waiting for him— “Look, dad! I’m just like you!” Birch dropped his hoof to the carpet and boggled at the sight of his son, prancing around their living room in a gold-plated ceremonial helmet. The metal caught the midday sun through the window perfectly, gleaming bright against Hazel’s scarlet coat and the white, enchanted hair beneath the helm. He tried to speak, reaching awkwardly towards the colt with a shaking, bleeding hoof. Blood. He was still covered in a sticky mess of red, some of it undoubtedly his. Hazel giggled as a single drop fell from the end of Birch’s hoof and stained the tan carpet a dark brown. “Do you think I could be a soldier some day too, dad? You could teach me how to do all those cool moves and spells and stuff!” Hazel jumped up to a chair at the lacquered dining room table, face puffing with effort as he charged a miniscule bolt of light at the tip of his horn. “See? I’ve been practicing!” The battered Guardspony gritted his teeth and smiled through his injuries, content to just watch his son try increasingly awkward and dangerous feats of magical ability. He took a deep breath, stretching his aching limbs and feeling more at ease than he had in… how long had it been? Weeks? Months? Hazel managed to conjure a flickering, half-solid shield spell around himself before magical backlash scorched the tip of his horn, knocking him backwards and into the splayed claws of a dead griffon. What…? “Hazel, get away from there!” He almost shrieked as he moved, scooping his son out of the clutches of the battle-scarred corpse that rested across the small coffee table in the middle of his living room. “How… what!?” “What’s wrong, dad? I’m fine. Still trying to get the hang of it, heh. Sorry if I scared you.” He chuckled and hopped out of his father’s hooves, trotting over to the couch and sitting next to the body of a pegasus with a railroad track of crossbow bolts from flank to face. A two-meter-long Scorpion bolt ripped through the drywall above Hazel’s head and buried itself in the center of a family photo on the opposite wall. Small bits of debris and flecks of paint settled to the floor in a thick cloud, dusting over the foal’s coat like snowflakes. Outside the apartment, Birch could hear the faint noises and commands of a fire team loading another missile into their siege weapon. “Hazel… I need to remember. I need to remember my son. Let me have my son!” “Fight it, Birch! These are your memories, your dreams. Pick yourself up and focus!” Autumn burst into the apartment behind him, tumbling in a heap as she tried to dodge a griffon scimitar. Her armor was scarred and burnt in several places, showing the wear of the battle that continued to rage outside the borders of Birch’s concentration. A wicked, curved piece of forged steel swung into the room after Autumn, wielded with terrible precision by a wounded and bloodthirsty griffon. The door frame buckled and split at the sides as the creature forced his considerable bulk through the entrance. His wings unfurled with a crack of lightning, the bladed tips tearing deep gouges in the battered wood. Unlike the concealed, spring-loaded blades the pegasi guards fit their primaries with, these were massive implements of deathly sharp metal. Birch moved quickly, putting himself between the gigantic mass of muscle and his son. Ignoring the pain settling deep into his skull, he lifted the table from the dining room and threw it with a blast of telekinesis. The heavy wood collided with the griffon, knocking him to the floor and buying Birch the few seconds he needed to rush to the couch and pick his son up in his hooves. Angry roars and screeches rose from under the splintered table, drawing Birch’s attention even as he cradled Hazel against his chest and wheezed in pain and fatigue. The spear-tipped bolt embedded in the wall above the couch, heavier than the table had been, tore itself out in a field of weak, flickering magic. Birch heard the griffon smash his way out of his prison. Heard him stand up, growl in irritation, and flick the tips of his wingblades together to test their edge. He heard his enemy move, and he spun to meet him. There was a splatter of fresh blood, a deep gurgle through a pierced windpipe, and a strangled gasp from Autumn across the room. “S… srrrgnk…” Snap’s tear-filled eyes locked with his sergeant’s. Birch gaped, horrified, as the young unicorn looked down to see the wooden shaft of the bolt emerging from his throat. Another choked mewl crept out of his mouth before his body collapsed, dragging the spike to the blood-stained carpet with him. The transport rocked in the buffeting wind. Birch fiddled absentmindedly with his helmet, ignoring the sick, coppery stink of the bay. It smells like blood, he mused as he struggled. Death and decay. A rather attractive mare wearing dented, blackened armor sobbed quietly on the bench next to him. Her mane spilled out of her helmet through a wide split up the back, blue one second, and a shifting, stuttering mess of orange and brown the next. Orange and brown… like a pile of fallen leaves. I like it, Birch thought. He smiled and cleaned the fresh streaks of blood from his saber. They would be there soon. He wasn’t sure where, he realized. But he maintained a positive attitude about it and agreed with himself; yes, of course, they’d reach their destination in no time at all. “How… how long have you b-been doing this to yourself?” Wiping her tears away with a bloody hoof, the mare beside him tilted awkwardly with the turbulence. A smear of red stood out on her miserable face like a splash of paint on an empty canvas. “What? Oh, uh, are you one of mine? Sorry about that, soldier, my mind gets away from me sometimes—” Birch stopped mid-sentence, pausing to see Bootshine begin his brief. The private flipped through a few pages of notes before staring directly at his sergeant. “He’s moving again. Queue up the methohexital, please. Quickly.” His carefully-written annotations skittered around the diagrams and maps next to him like a swarm of angry ants. They usually didn’t do that. “Look at me, Birch!” He felt a hoof on his face. As he turned, a pair of bright green eyes filled his vision. Or were they blue? It was hard to tell. “Did I… Get your name, private?” He wasn’t sure he had seen her before. Was she new? “Don’t forget again, dammit! Focus! You can’t die here, not like this!” Cliff Jumper stirred from his bench, rubbing at a knot in his back. “Get more alfentanil. Double the dosage.” “Heart rate is dropping,” Sledge groaned from the back. Dozens of crossbow bolts erupted from under the stallion’s skin as he wiped his nose. A strong pair of hooves gripped Birch by his helmet, dragging him forward. He found himself trapped face-to-face with the mystery mare, her expression shifting from hurt to horrified to absolutely livid. “Stop it! Do you have any idea what you’re doing to yourself? I tried easing you out of it, Birch, I’ve been trying for days. But if you keep this up, you are going to die!” She shouted at him, shaking the helmet around his head and breaking into a new fit of tears. “You didn’t kill them! You don’t deserve this… this poison… and you damn well didn’t leave your son all alone just to die here and never come home!” “My… my son?” His head swam with flickering beats of memory. Hazel nuzzling his chest, barely three weeks old. His first few awkward steps across the den floor. A single marble, suspended perfectly in the air next to Hazel’s proud, beaming face and gently glowing horn. A double-bladed griffon battleaxe, buried in Rubble’s body. The crackling feeling of Boots’ burnt skin against his hooves, like a scorched sheet of parchment. The scent of blood. Blood. So much blood— “Dad…?” Birch’s eyes refocused. The one word seemed to echo around the interior of the cab, simultaneously whispered in his ear and shouted from outside the transport’s thick ballistic armor. He tore himself away from the stunned mare beside him and followed the sound of his son’s voice. “Daddy!” All around him, Birch’s world shattered into a million blood-stained shards of glass. “Dad… I found you. I finally found you. You’re… you’re gonna be okay.” A small, lanky bundle of red gripped Birch’s chest as he came to. The unicorn groaned as he rolled from his back to his side. His world swam around him when he made the movement. Wherever he was, he must have had a hell of a time getting there. As his eyes focused, he realized that he had no idea where, in fact, he was. A blank, warm whiteness stretched around him in all directions. The light seemed to come from every direction at once, leaving him with no shadows and no landmarks to judge distance. He reached down with a foreleg to find his hoof come to rest on a black mane just below his chin. “Hazel? Is… is that you?” Blinking through a haze of tears, Hazel looked up at him and buried his face into the stallion’s chest again. “It’s me, dad. I’m here. You’re gonna be okay,” he repeated. The colt pressed up against him was warm, and he could feel the burning heat from the child’s teary eyes as they rubbed into his coat. He was with his son again. “Goddesses… it is you,” he breathed. Part shocked and part joyful, he threw his forelegs around his son and pulled him even closer. “Is this another dream?” “It is a dream, Birch. But Hazel is here with you, and I guarantee that he is very real.” Out of the stark white landscape, a curiously familiar mare trotted towards Birch and his son. “Autumn!” The mare looked awful; blood ran from the corner of her mouth, and her once-pristine white coat was marred with several burns and cuts. Apparently heedless of her injuries, she walked forward and settled to the ground a short distance away from them. “I’m glad you finally remember me, Birch. I can’t tell you how aggravating it was trying to pull you out of there and having you forget me every time you relapsed.” She smiled warmly as Birch opened and closed his mouth in disbelief. She batted a hoof at him playfully while he fumbled. “Don’t worry about me, I’ve been through worse. I’m really just happy that Hazel here managed to help you when I couldn’t.” “What happened? What did my son do?” Fighting against the slowly-clearing fog that covered his thoughts, Birch began to remember everything since that griffon’s bolter had smashed into his face. Memories of the mission, interspersed with snippets of his life and his family, replayed through his mind in a continuous loop. Throughout them all, Autumn appeared - sometimes on the sidelines, and sometimes directly. “You were hurt badly during your last engagement with the Guard,” Autumn whispered. “Reinforcements found you before you could slip away, but aside from stabilizing your injuries, the medics couldn’t do much for you.” She drew a breath, pushing aside memories of her own. “You’ve been asleep in New Yoke Memorial Hospital for nearly six months,” she continued. “I’ve been trying to bring you back to us for… well, a long time. Much longer in here than it would seem out there. Your dreams and your memories were at war with the rest of you, Birch. We’re both very lucky. If Hazel hadn’t pulled you out of this coma, your mind would have been the end of us both.” Birch swallowed and laid his head on the white, featureless ground beneath him. “How did Hazel find me here in the first place?” “Your son was transferred to the Midnight Gardens home in your absence,” Autumn explained. She ran a hoof through her brown-and-orange mane, letting the blood-matted hair settle against the back of her neck. “The children there have formed a family of their own in place of the ones they’ve lost. And they have been receiving certain lessons from Princess Luna herself, along with a few of her… friends. Including me. Some of these lessons include the ability to shape and channel dreams.” She gestured with a hoof towards Hazel, smiling again as she did so. “Your boy is something of a quick learner. I asked that he be brought here to help me get through to you, but he took control and dispelled your nightmares almost immediately. I didn’t even know he could see what we were doing. “I knew you were a fighter, Birch, and I can see Hazel’s inherited a bit of that as well. He forced his way into a network of memory locks that I couldn’t break over months of work. You should be very proud.” Hazel raised his head and grinned, wiping away his tears and turning towards Autumn. “Dad told me I had to find something to fight for,” he said. His voice wavered as he stood up on his hooves. “And I found it.” Birch rose to his hooves beside him, suddenly feeling very weak and almost painfully tired. Despite his exhaustion, he felt… whole. The colt at his side awakened something that had almost died with him half a year ago. “Thank you, Hazel. You saved my life, son. And even if I don’t completely understand how… well, I’m still damn proud of what you did.” He tousled the colt’s mane and turned to the mare in front of them. “And thanks to you too, Autumn. I’m sorry I put you through the trouble—” “Oh, hush,” she nickered. “It’s my job, and seeing the two of you together was worth fighting for.” Autumn rose to her feet and smirked at Birch’s sheepish grin. Hazel mirrored it almost perfectly. Turning on her hoof, the mare began to march off into the white landscape, fading slowly as she moved. “Hey—wait! I still don’t even know who the hell you are! And what are we supposed to do now?” Birch called out after the unicorn before she completely disappeared. “You’ve had a long enough nap, Sergeant Birch Nut,” her voice called out from every corner of the landscape. I think it’s high time you woke up.” Author's Note Thanks to Skeeter the Lurker and Death the Kid for pre-reading and editing, respectively. BADA-BING
Mare Imbrium, Sea of ShowersThe skies over Manehatten weren’t known for being the clearest, or the prettiest, or even the easiest to inspect in the first place – a towering, jumbled skyline of rooftops blocked most of the view from street level. Tonight’s brief glimpses of the cloud cover were worse than usual. Dark shapes hovered above the layer of smoke and smog from the city, grinding against each other in the night air and blocking even the light of Princess Luna’s moon from breaking through. A misty, acrid rain began to fall from the shifting mess high above even the weather ponies’ normal routes. The miserable drizzle soaked every pony shuffling across the crowded streets below, and any sense of discomfort was both ignored by busy office pawns and lost in the din of the construction crews’ constant bellowing. Somepony, somewhere, had said that Manehatten would continue to rise forever. The peaks of its skyscrapers would grow higher and higher, and the unstoppable ocean of bits swapped between hooves would swell in the greatest localized economy Equestria had ever known. Not even the capital city of Canterlot could match the gleaming spires of the Big Apple’s industrial and corporate sectors. As beautiful as the Royal Princesses’ home was, it was still the same old Canterlot…and Manehatten changed on a daily basis as the main hub of commerce, trade, power, and greed. Manehatten was many things Canterlot couldn’t claim to be. The sleepless labyrinth of districts and complexes was hectic, rather than merely busy. It was ambitious, not serene. The city was vicious. The city was unforgiving. And the city was definitely not fair. In the back alleys and the damp shipyards, ponies continued to breathe and work and sweat and starve, with or without the attention of the nobles and the bit-tossing fatcats that rarely deigned to travel below the umpteenth floors of their various studios and boardrooms. The ground level was for peasants, and peasants lived and died there. The Royal Guard’s presence this far from the capital was slim, and there were no princesses nearby to cast a kind eye on the lives of their subjects. Curled up under a few scraps of tarp and a haphazard pile of cardboard, one little pink pegasus filly desperately wished that there were. “Five seconds, blank flank. Five more seconds an’ I’ll just beat it outta you.” Outside the relative protection of the lean-to, a scrappy young earth colt snorted in agitation. On his pale green flank was a series of thin scars – whatever his cutie mark had been, he either hadn’t been happy with it or the local color had found it amusing to carve away his dreams after a fight. Beside him stood another filly, this one hardly older than the child trying to back deeper into the heap of trash. Her pretty orange face might have been prettier without the bruise around her left eye. Or the cut above her lip. Or the cigarette burn on the tip of her horn. The cutie mark above her leg showed three fallen rose petals, arranged in a simple triangle. Her gaze drifted indifferently over the whimpering pegasus as her sneer split the cut open again. “He means it, you know. Just give him the food.” “Four...” “C’mon, runt, we’re giving you an offer here.” “Three…” “Just give us the damn food, you stupid waste of wings!” Squealing in fear, the pegasus retreated against the brick wall her hideaway was built against. “Please, stop! This is all I’ve found for two days!” Sagging under the weight of the rain, her cardboard roof ripped with the sudden movement and collapsed in on itself, covering the filly in wet sheets of paper and plastic. Snorting in agitation, the unicorn lit her injured horn with a dim flicker of orange magic and began tearing the filly’s home to shreds. Pieces of rain-slick garbage came apart easily under the glow of unicorn energy. Weeping openly without the meager protection of her roof, the little pegasus never even saw the blow coming. The dull crunch of the colt’s hoof as it pounded her into the concrete was the greatest pain she’d ever known in her short life. The second kick was worse. Magic fields relieved the filly of her half-eaten stash while the green colt pummeled her. “Cinder, quit it. We’re done. All she had was a few pieces of rotten old fruit, anyway.” Wiping the rainwater from her tangled brown mane, the little unicorn took a greedy bite from an apple. She spat it out almost as quickly. “Eugh. I hate apples.” Bruised, battered, and beaten, the pegasus watched as the older foals stomped her remaining food into a pulpy pile of mush on the asphalt before trotting deeper into the alley. Deeper into the city. Even at her young age, she knew that the city wasn’t fair. Her wings flapped feebly as she crawled back to the brick wall and hugged against it, drawing a sheet of tarp over her body to protect herself from the rain. A thin trail of blood and pink feathers spread behind her before being washed into the gutter by the increasing downpour. On a cold, wet night in the city, what was there left to do but cry? Lily Breeze woke up to the pitter-patter of rainfall on her tarp and rosy fur. The asphalt was wet and the sky was still dark, but she felt warmer than she had in days. Her stomach rumbled uncomfortably as she thought about the last of her food that had already been washed away by rainwater. Occupied by the aching of her bruises and her belly, she didn’t even notice the blue-furred foal soundly asleep against her side until he yawned and blinked awake. Filly and colt stared at each other for a few seconds before screaming simultaneously. “What do you want!? Stay back!” Lily fluttered her wings wildly as she backed into the wall of the alley, scattering her tarp and the few bits of her cardboard fort as her pale blue eyes widened in shock. Too many encounters with the other ponies who skulked in the back alleys of Manehatten had taught her quickly that strangers rarely, if ever, had anything pleasant to share in their company. “Woah, hey! Hold on a sec! I’m not trying to hurt you or anything, I just wanted to get out of the rain! I was just trotting by and I saw your tarp there, and I figured, hey, she’s not using all of it, and…well…” Rubbing the last of the sleep and rainwater from his eyes, the colt looked at his confused bunkmate. Dark spots had begun to form on her face, stomach, and legs from the beating she’d endured earlier, and her small wings were missing patches of feathers. Even without the obvious signs of injury, she looked like she was on the verge of collapse. Her chest heaved with stifled sobs and her eyes searched for escape avenues. She wrapped her wings around herself protectively as she shuddered against the dirty bricks. Chancing a step closer to the injured filly, the foal cleared his throat before starting over. “Had a rough night, huh, kid?” The only response he received was a quiet murmur under an outstretched wing. “…I’m Spring Showers. Sorry I scared you.” Spreading her feathers a bit, the filly peeked at him from under a curtain of pink. “Say, are you hungry? I’ve got a little food I snatched from a couple of hoity-toity types earlier. You can have some if you want.” Reaching under his wing, Spring pulled out a rumpled paper sack and laid it on the street in front of him. Lily’s stomach betrayed her with a loud groan as soon as she smelled the telltale citrus scent of fresh oranges lilting from the bag. The young pegasus pulled her wings to her sides as she leaned away from the wall to savor the smell. “Um…I’m a little hungry. You’re…just giving it to me?” When was the last time somepony had offered her food? “Well, not all of it, kid. I’m a little hungry, too.” Spring laughed and upended the bag, letting four ripe oranges and a single, beautifully red apple roll into the rain. “Besides, you look like you could use a bite to eat. Tell you what; you tell me your name, too, and you can have two of these oranges and half of this apple.” “The people at the orphanage called me Lily. Lily Breeze. Are you sure…?” She half-extended a hoof for an orange, still unsure about the generous offering from a strange colt. “Well, jeez, Lily, you want me to peel it for you, too? Here, lemme show you.” He smiled and stuck his tongue out in mock concentration, biting into a fruit’s thick skin and scraping some of it away with his hoof. “Here you go, fresh off the branch. Try ‘em, I had one earlier. I’m not really a big fan of those frou-frou stuffy nobleponies, but they sure know how to pick good eats. And I don’t think they’ll miss them – they owned the fruit stand. And the city block it was on.” Lily giggled a bit as she took the sweet-smelling treat from his hoof. “You know,” he continued, “You kinda remind me of a pink party pony I met once when you do that.” Breaking from her delicious mouthful of citrus just long enough to give him a curious glance, Lily gulped down the first bite of the kindest gift she could remember. “Do what?” “Smile.” Spring flashed her a grin of his own before digging greedily into his meal.
Mare Tranquilitatis, Sea of TranquilitySpring trotted alongside Lily as the two foals crept through the back alleys of Manehattan’s busy streets. The colt chatted amiably to her as they walked, raising her spirits bit by bit while they traveled around dumpsters and over discarded bags of trash that littered the narrow roads. It was still raining, but neither of the children seemed to care. The raindrops weren’t of the same harsh, abrasive nature as they had been earlier - instead, they fell lightly and slowly, misting Lily and her new friend and washing away the filth of the street that had matted their manes. Friend...she could call him that, right? He was the nicest pony that she had met in all of Manehattan. Lily ruffled her feathers as she thought about the reason he was walking at her side instead of flying. After they had finished eating the spread he had found, he invited her to go “crusading” with him around town. Once he had finally convinced her enough, he leaped into the air and began flying ahead...but Lily couldn’t even make it off the ground with her injured wings. The pain in her limbs and the embarrassment of being a grounded pegasus forced her to bite back tears as she did her best to keep up with the talkative foal. And that’s when a funny thing happened. Spring had actually dropped to his hooves and began to walk beside her instead. “It’s alright,” she muttered. “I don’t mind if you’d rather fly.” “Nah. The stupid rain’s getting my feathers all wet. I think I’ll walk.” Spring’s smile was infectious, passing from his face to Lily’s before she could notice. They crossed a final, bustling street and passed through a wrought-iron gate that marked the entrance to the city park. On either side of the gate, the Royal Sisters gazed down at them from a pair of pedestals that had been raised with the park’s grand re-opening nearly six weeks prior. Wild Chaos magic had nearly destroyed the attraction during Discord’s short-lived rule, but at the city’s request, Princesses Celestia and Luna had made a generous donation that helped restore the area’s grassy hills and quiet ponds. In the distance, Lily could see a large jungle-gym with a trio of slides that seemed to shine in whatever moonlight slipped through the clouds. The slides spiraled down from a tower in the middle, the tallest point of the gym’s maze of rails and fun toys. Children were always playing here whenever she passed the park during the day, running around the playground and starting games of Bunnies and Manticores as their parents looked on from the sidelines. She had been down the slides once before, but a nasty-looking police pony had chased her back to the entrance. He had bellowed as she ran about making sure the “trash” stayed outside the gate. “Thank you,” she caught herself saying. Spring stopped long enough to give her a playful nudge on the shoulder. “For what? That awesome stash of fruit I nabbed? It was nothin’! We’re just both lucky that the guy I swiped it from wasn’t buying alfalfa for dinner or something. Blech.” He stuck his tongue out and blew a raspberry. Lily couldn’t help but giggle. “Well, that too. But thank you for...just being here.” Spring flicked her with a wingtip and chuckled. “Sheesh, Lily. You don’t have to thank me for that.” Even as he smiled, his eyes darkened a bit as they paced through the fresh grass in the park lawn. “I’ve been there, too...I was all alone for years, with nopony around to share apples or oranges with. Ponies need somepony else to cheer them up when they’re sad, right? It’s not good to be alone all the time.” The jungle-gym rose ahead of their path, all ropes and planks and brightly-colored paint subdued by the night. Spring skipped ahead of his partner and took to the air, soaring above the tower on the gym’s tallest platform. With a beat of his wings, the colt alighted on the tip of the toy tower’s spire, balancing on his left forehoof. “Don’t you worry ‘bout a thing. You’re one pony that’s not gonna have to be alone any more. Besides, I need someone to show off to all the time! Now c’mon!” He swooped back down to the playground and picked the filly off of her hooves even as she laughed, grunting in exertion as the two lifted into the air. “Jeez, I think I gave you too much fruit.” The pink pegasus fluttered her wings by force of habit as they rose, wincing softly at the pain. Even as she gritted her teeth, she was surprised to find that the pain was duller than it had been half an hour ago. It was quietly fading into the background with each breath she took. She could even fully extend her wings with some effort. Beating at the air, she helped Spring lift her to the tower as much as she could. He set her down on the tower’s spire and hovered nearby, panting heavily. “Sorry.” She appreciated the help, but she wasn’t comfortable making the colt work so hard. “Don’t,” he wheezed, “...sweat it.” He did his best to smile as he gulped for air a few more times. Lily watched as he flew back around the spire and landed on the other side of the roof to rest his wings. The gentle rainfall made the tiles slick with water, but a rail that encircled the structure’s tip gave the two foals something to lean on without fear of falling. Up here, high above the rest of the park and listening to the rain’s gentle pitter-patter on the soft earth, Lily felt more comfortable than she had ever been. The nighttime shroud acted like a thick, warm blanket over Manehatten’s usually bright and hectic nightlife. It reminded her of a time when she could always go to bed safe and warm; a time that seemed impossibly far in the past. Manehatten Memorial Park was strangely quiet, even for this time of night, and the delicate sounds of individual raindrops rolling from the tree canopy to the carefully-trimmed grass below began a simple melody. Every light breeze through the branches sang a different note in what was quickly becoming Lily’s personal lullaby. “Hey, Lil’, hold on a sec,” Spring nudged her shoulder and momentarily broke the spell. “I wanted to show you something.” He scooted over beside her and leaned back against the roof, laying comfortably against the damp tower. “It’s been a long time since anypony has ever seen something like this. I used to do this kind of thing all the time, back when I was a lot younger.” He stared into the cloudy sky, looking for something that Lily couldn’t understand. “I used to think that nopony cared enough to be my friend. Like there wasn’t a single pony in the world that would ever try to get to know me. And you know what? I fooled myself for a long time.” “Spring, are you okay?” Lily flicked a tear away from her friend’s eye with a wingtip. His voice had begun to change, maintaining the same pitch of a foal but sounding somehow infinitely older. He shook his head and smiled, raising his hooves above his head towards the sky. “I’m a lot better now than I ever was. Thanks for asking, though. Besides, I’m here for you, remember? So before we start the show, I just wanted to tell you: you’re never alone, Lily. Even when you feel like you don’t have anypony around to help you, when nopony cares about you - you’re never alone. So be brave. Go out there and look for your friends. They’re easier to find than you’d think,” he chuckled. Rising to his hooves, Spring balanced himself with his wings and looked to the clouds. Through the darkness in the sky and the rain falling from it came a single, hazy beam of light. The bright shaft began to expand towards the north and south, splitting the curtain and pouring out across the city. As the clouds above began to spread away from the light, Lily could begin to see something massive hiding behind them. The full moon had never looked so big. Spring weaved his hooves through the air like a conductor lifting an orchestra to its crescendo. Wind forced the remaining clouds from the sky, dissipating them in smoky streams and spirals through the night. As she watched, captivated, Lily could hear the music again - rising from the grass and the trees and booming with the background din of the rain. The moon covered Manehattan in a pale, warm light, and the music sang about that. Years of filth and anguish was washed from the streets and the buildings of the city, and the music sang about that. Spring settled down beside Lily and watched the same filth and anguish trickle away from her into the night, and the music sang about that too. “It’s a moonshower, when the clouds go away and the rain still falls under the moonlight. Manehattan hasn’t seen one in a pretty long time, I bet. What do you think?” His voice was distorted under the symphony that played around the foals. “It’s beautiful. How did you...?” “Don’t worry about it, Lil’. You can do all sorts of fun stuff in a dream.” The crescendo hit, the music soared, and Lily felt herself drifting off to sleep under the light of the moon. “Augh!” The unfamiliar feeling of vertigo came to a crashing halt as Lily landed on the hardwood floor. She craned her head around to see where she had dropped from and found herself prone beside a simple wooden bed. The thick blue blanket had completely wrapped around her hindquarters as she fell from the mattress, and she quickly kicked the sheet away from her while she stumbled to her hooves. Wherever she was, it definitely wasn’t where she remembered going to sleep. Her cardboard-and-tarp fort was nowhere to be seen. In fact, she couldn’t recognize anything about the room she was in. To her left was a row of four beds, three of them neatly made with simple wool blankets and white pillows. The walls were painted in a warm yellow that matched the sunlight beaming through a large window behind her. To her right was a door that led deeper into the building. Lily smoothed out her feathers that had been tussled by her drop from the bed. As she ran her hooves from joint to wingtip, she noticed that the pain that had nearly crippled her last night was completely gone. Not a single part of her body was hurt, ignoring the fact that nearly every inch of her had been pummeled only hours prior. What was going on? Before the filly could continue her investigation, the room’s door banged open to let a white-maned unicorn mare rush in and scoop her up in a cloud of magic. “No, no, no, no. What are you doing out of bed, silly filly? I swear, you show up here this morning the sorriest sight I’ve ever seen and you’re already trying to break out of the place. Lie down, dear.” The bright-orange field surrounding Lily’s body dissipated, dropping her back into the soft bed as the mare sidled up alongside her. “Goodness. What were you thinking?” “Please don’t hurt me, ma’am!” Lily squealed and tried to scoot off the mattress again, only to be snagged with a firm hoof and deposited right back where she started. The mare laughed as she began poking and prodding at her, testing Lily’s joints and inspecting her as thoroughly as she could. “Hurt you? Please, dear. I’m trying to help. When we found you I didn’t think you could be hurt any worse than you were. I just need to make sure you’re alright before we let you get up. Besides - do I look like the type of pony who creeps around harming helpless little fillies?” Pausing her frantic escape attempts, Lily took a moment to see who was actually handling her. The hooves busy spreading her wings and ruffling through her hair were a soft yellow, much like the color of the walls around her. Her white mane was styled into a series of light curls that framed the sunset hue of her eyes, and on her flank was a yellow-and-orange flower with a single dewdrop on its petals. “It’s a daffodil, dear. That’s my favorite flower. And you can call me Morning Dew.” Dew smiled again as she caught Lily examining her cutie mark. “I can tell you how I got it sometime, if you’d like. But before we do that, can I ask your name, dear? I’m sure everypony here would like to know who the cute new filly is.” The question startled Lily - hadn’t somepony else just asked her the same thing? Bits and pieces of her dream were floating to the forefront of her mind like bubbles breaking the surface of a pond. Among them were the memories of a young pegasus who had helped her when she needed it and learned her name in return. “It’s Lily Breeze. Um, ma’am,” She added quickly, almost having forgotten her manners. “Thank you for helping me.” “You’re very welcome, Lily. You’re lucky that whoever found you brought you here.” “Um,” she rubbed softly at her wings, a nervous habit that had formed years ago. “Where exactly is ‘here,’ ma’am? You’re very nice, but I don’t really know who you are or where I am.” “I already told you my name, dear. I’m Morning Dew! And I’m one of the caretakers here at Moonlight Gardens. We try to make a new home for little colts and fillies like yourself that need a helping hoof. Now, can I ask you what happened last night?” Morning Dew seemed to be finished in her evaluation, giving Lily a bit of space and opting to begin gathering up the blanket that had been dragged to the floor. “I, um...I was trying to find a place to sleep last night, ma’am, and some other foals came along and took my food. They weren’t very nice about it.” She gently rubbed at her eye where a large bruise had quickly formed after the colt’s swift kick. It wasn’t sore any more. “I see. I’m sorry, Lily. Sometimes this city can be cruel...especially to children. But why were you out in the streets all by yourself? Aren’t your mother and father worried about you?” The filly shook her head; no. “Do you have any family to worry about you, dear?” Another shake. No. “Well,” Dew climbed onto the bed and wrapped a hoof around Lily’s shoulders, drawing her close. She smelled like wet grass and fresh peaches. “I wouldn’t be so sure of that, dear. You’re welcome to join our family. There’s quite a few new brothers and sisters downstairs that are looking forward to meeting you. What do you think?” “I think I’d like that, Miss Dew.” After declaring her (miraculously) fit as a fiddle, Morning Dew had helped Lily finish making her bed and began to show her around the building. As they trotted from room to room, Dew acted the part of the informal tour guide and explained what she knew about the home itself. “Moonlight Gardens has been around for awhile now, dear. About twenty or so years ago, when I was a filly your age, the royal family began building new orphanages and homes all around Equestria. This particular building was dedicated by the Princess herself to the memory of her sister, who everypony at the time believed was to be forever lost inside Nightmare Moon. We know better now, don’t we?” A wry smile slipped across her face as she led Lily down a staircase to the ground level. “She actually found the dedication pretty silly when she began coming here herself.” Outside the window at the end of the stairs, Lily could see the skyscrapers of Manehattan stretching high and doing their best to block out the sun. Somehow, wherever the ponies traveled throughout the building, the light still seemed to be able to find every window. In all of the hustle and bustle of the city, Moonlight Gardens always managed to remain the island in the storm. This orphanage was a far cry from what Lily had come to associate the word with. She had been passed between a few others around the city before running away and living off the streets. As difficult as life was by herself, she still preferred it to the dark, unkempt buildings and short-tempered matrons that seemed to be the divine rule among Manehattan’s social services. She had been running from bullies and dodging horrible old social workers as long as she could remember. Even as the filly thought about how peaceful her new home appeared compared to the rest of Manehattan itself, one question bounced around her mind like a parasprite trying to force its way out of a bag. “Miss Dew, Princess Luna comes here?” Her pink wings started buzzing in nervousness - and eagerness. A real princess! “She certainly does, dear; I believe she’s due for a visit today, believe it or not. The children love spending time with her. Would you like to meet the Princess?” Did she really want to? What if she was scary, like the stories some of the older foals at her last “home” described her as? What if she chased after the children and gobbled them up, one by one? Was that Morning Dew’s plan? Did she gather up colts and fillies just to feed her mistress? ...Be brave. Go out and look for your friends. “Yes, ma’am.” She could be brave. Besides, Miss Dew didn’t seem anything like the caretakers she had met before. “Wonderful, dear. Now, I bet you’re hungry...” The pair reached the dining area of the first floor, passing several paintings that looked like they had been done with a child’s hoof. Little crafts and pieces of art almost littered the shelves and bookcases that they walked by, a testament to the hobbies of the foals that had come and gone. As Lily was ushered into the dining room, a voice cried out in mock horror from the breakfast table: “Look out!” SPLAT A single pancake arced high above the five foals seated at the table, landing neatly on Lily’s face. Her wings spread out in shock as syrup began to drip off of her nose. “Children...” “Sorry, Miss Dew!” A chorus of voices spoke up from the table as a magical haze lifted the flapjack off of Lily’s snout and deposited it on an empty plate. Morning Dew sighed and reached for a napkin, dabbing the syrup away. “Now who, pray tell, threw it this time?” She finished wiping the syrup off of Lily as a sheepish-looking brown earth colt lifted his hoof in the air. “Of course. Doodle, apologize. You scared the poor girl.” “...Sorry. I kinda slipped, heh-heh. Uh, do ya want some pancakes?” Lily blushed, embarrassed not ten seconds into her first meeting with Moonlight Gardens’ resident foals. “I’m sure she would. This is Lily Breeze, everypony. Why don’t you all introduce yourselves while I get you some juice?” Dew trotted to the kitchen, leaving Lily alone in the presence of four pairs of wide eyes and one filly who was asleep at the table. Doodle broke the silence by clearing his throat before running a hoof through his short, tan mane. “Hi, Lily. I’m, uh...Snickerdoodle. Just call me Doodle. Please.” He coughed and bumped the pegasus filly snoozing in her chair next to him. Her green eyes shot open and she fumbled with her mane for a second, trying to get the shock of orange hair under control. “Whuzzat? Oh, hi. My name’s Paint Petal. Sorry, I didn’t get too much sleep last night. I’m still a little tired...” She yawned loudly to confirm the fact. To her right, a slightly older unicorn with a sparkling gem on her turquoise flank balanced a young earth pony on her lap, feeding him bites of pancake in between his swipes at the levitating fork. “I’m Sapphire Spark, Lily. This is my little brother Shale.” The grey-coated foal in her hooves squirmed and reached for the fork again as Sapphire floated it away. “Gimme!” “No. Eat your breakfast, squirt.” She skillfully speared another bite of pancake and guided the fork into Shale’s mouth, ignoring his attempts to break free. Sapphire gestured with the utensil towards another unicorn across the table, wrapping her hoof tighter around her brother. “That’s Hazel. He’s pretty new, too.” The scarlet colt she pointed at shifted uncomfortably under Lily’s gaze and kept his light brown eyes firmly glued to the floor. Lily assumed he was a shy as she was. She stepped towards the table and climbed into a chair, regarding each of the children around her. She still wasn’t completely comfortable with all of the new ponies, but they seemed really nice. “It’s nice to meet all of you. Thanks for welcoming me.” She smiled at her new...friends? They’re easier to find than you think. “Can we be friends?”
