These days were few, yet they were always welcome.

A day of respite. A day of when the screaming of agonized ponies are lesser, and the pops of rifle fire are far in-between, distant, like a shooting star kissing one end of the horizon and flickering a goodbye on the other. When the Nightmare and the Daybreaker aren't struggling for control of the skies. When everypony could sit in their positions and just sleep.

A day that a Burnt Sun would not waste, indeed.

In the small crater, one of hundreds scattered on the orange battlefield of clay and mud, positioned behind rows of trenches and the occasional ruined bunker, sat a thirteen year old Burnt Sun greedily chugging his waterskin. Across from him, the camouflaged Chip Baker lay asleep. His chest inflated and deflated, his tipped helmet and goggles dangling off his neck just massaging itself into the mud with each descending breath was nothing unexpected of a stallion exhausted and uncaring of where and how he slept.

Not that Burnt cared. He took a large breath of the toxic air as he nestled the waterskin into a little crevice he dug into the crater. Hooking his forehooves and stretching them above his head, he yawned. No orders and no screams of any contact have raced across his position yet like a tidal wave, so it was assumed to be a good day today.

Metal clanked on metal, and an all-white stallion groaned as he slid down the crater's wall, mud and red clay staining his backside. He slung four tin pots that clanked together loudly, making Chip's leg twitch and a grumble leave his mouth. Albino didn't care, popping one of the tin pot's seals off to give to a hungry Burnt Sun.

With his helmet off, one could finally detail Burnt Sun's features. His eyes seemed to have a gradient to them that Albino could never stop yapping about. Something about auburn transitioning into a golden yellow, which 'looked nice with the auburn mane you were genetically blessed with'. A strong snout, connected to a firm jawline that had speckles of auburn hair peek out, threatening a decent beard one day if it ever decided to blossom.

All in all, even in the middle of the apocalypse, good genetics never seemed to fail to shine. Something a "tortured" Albino complains about being "stripped" of. Something about 'whitecoats' and experiments. He never bothered to listen to the miserable stallion's ramblings. Yet, here he was, delivering food to a weary Burnt and a sleeping Chip like a good friend and teammate would.

He wouldn't trade anything in the world to get rid of these guys. But, that was for later. This was a time to be eager for the news of potentially resting for once since.. maybe a couple years. Years? Has it been that long?

"Blind's talk t' the Commandant passed," Albino said while popping his own tin pot's seal.

Scooping a muddy hoof into the tin pot to eat the oatmeal, Burnt smothered his oatmeal-covered hoof against his mouth, obnoxiously snorting and smacking his lips to grab every last little bit he could. Chip stirred only briefly before turning his head, his red snout being half-buried in clay. Burnt licked his lips as he dug his hoof in again. "Aye? Our relief be arriving?"

"Nay, soon. A fortnight," Albino said.

"Commandant said that a fortnight ago," Burnt whined, shoulders sagging.

"What th' Commandant says is what th' Commandant says." Albino shrugged, motioning an oatmeal-stained hoof towards Chip, "Chip knows."

"Must We be stuck 'ere fer all o' eternity?!" Burnt moaned, his helmet hitting the crater's wall as he leaned his head back to look at the sky.

A smokey, oppressive mixture of red, orange, and yellows stared back at him. Thick, menacing black clouds thumped with sparks of white electricity every now and then, daring any pegasi to take flight to challenge it. Nopony has yet to tame them. Those who have managed to even survive being trapped inside of one during a dogfight between other pegasi and creatures haven't come back the same. It's the same frazzled look, as if their very soul had been struck by it, tainting and corrupting their very fiber of being.

It was the defining feature of being a flight-bound creature that made Burnt lose all jealousy of having wings. What must've it been like when the skies weren't so terrifying? To fly so free without fear of rifle shot, fear of the black clouds, and the nauseating thinning airs that were already so thin on the ground?

That, is what would've made him jealous once upon a time. Now? He pities them. To have your birthright stripped of you and replaced with a skull and crossbones sign every time you volunteer for the aerial divisions; it is nothing short of criminal.

Daybreaker would take the Nightmare's head, and all will be restored. It had to be.

"Aye, We be stuck." Albino tiredly looked over at the exasperated Burnt Sun. He could only shrug at the younger stallion's anger, "Nothin' ta do 'bout it any which way. We built th' hedge fort, We lead th' push."

"Fer how long? How long hast We been here? Th' sands o' th' hedge fort been left o'er yonder many cycles ago! We hast been leadin' this assault fer.. O' Daybreaker's sake, years? When will We be relieved?!" Burnt glared at Albino, smacking the tin pot into the mud.

Chip groaned awake, spitting clay out of his mouth. "Huah? Wassit?"

Albino rolled his eyes. "Thou hast forgotten, Burnt. We don't got what the rest has. We art th' only healthy flocc left. Or so th' word says."

"We care not what th' word says. Th'flocc's lost too many t' keep goin' like this." Burnt said.

"Hah? What?" Chip sat up, wiping at his eyes. His body twitched violently, his left eye shutting tightly with clay seeping out of it, his attention squarely on knocking the clay and mud off his hooves.

"Not ta the Commandant. Th' flocc keeps pushin' on. So shall We, and so shall thee," Albino said.

Burnt shook his head, speaking in a venomous tone to the apathetic Albino. "We.. Thee, an' th' remainder o' us.. art we nary a shred o' tired? We are tired. We are fightin' th' bog, and th' bog is gonna win. We need rest."

"Then thou needs ta dig," Albino grit his teeth.

"Oh, shut up! Thou art both so annoyin'," Chip groaned having finally cleaned his hooves enough to wipe the clay out of his eye. "Commandant hast us stuck 'ere, so we art stuck 'ere. Got it?! Thou hast ruined mine beauty sleep! Again!"

"Nopony asked thee ta get lost in th' dip, Chip," Albino grunted.

"We didn't ask thee fer this annoyin' bitching, did We?" Chip barked, taking one of the two tin pots with bleary vision.

Albino sighed, "Nay."

Chip nodded, flicking a hoof towards the top of the crater while he ate. "Then shut it and look thy sharpest. We can see Blind approaching."

"Gentlecolts, this troop hast orders!" Blind announced, waving them up out of their positions.

Burnt sighed, replacing the waterskin with the tin pot in the crevice as he gathered his gear.

Today was supposed to be a good day.

About 100 meters from their defensive lines, the small team found themselves trudging into a muddy field, complete with days and weeks-old bodies strewn about in various uniforms and fledgling colors, all looted clean and decomposing with the most horrifying stench that only any veteran of warfare could relate to.

Burnt sat as third-stallion back in the spacious single file formation, with Chip at lead, Albino in between them, and Blind Eye in the back. The typical scouting formation they came up with years back when they were finagling team chemistry and tactics with one another, until Chip, the ever talented leader, came up with this.

"Send th' engineers ta lead yer new advance. Top o' th' line thinkin', aye, Alby?" Chip said.

Albino quickly hopped over a sizeable rock, his equipment clanking noisily. His eyes were glued to the formation's right flank, rifle at the ready slung over his withers, pointed out towards the dead land. "Aaaaaye," he droned.

"We hast th' best success. So th' Commandant says," Blind said from the back.

"We can bet th' castle o' the Sisters that be a lie," Albino said.

Burnt harrumphed, looking off towards their left flank with his rifle at the ready. "It be funny chatter fer We art not dead yet."

"Th' colt's cracked th' code," Chip said, his eyes keeping front.

Defilades, craters, destroyed defenses; you name it, this battlefield has it. Though Burnt could only wonder where the rifle fire was, and why it hadn't found them yet. They were pretty far out now, and almost exposed in the open. Were they waiting? Waiting for them to walk into the trap?

"Once we alight th' flare, th' rest'll follow t' the line. Keep sharp," Chip reminded them as he stepped over a uniformed skeleton.

"Cruel Daybreaker.. art they all like this?" Said Albino, delicately side-stepping another skeletal remain.

"Thou art jus' lookin' at th' ones who fell when th' 2nd lost this all the years ago," Blind gravelly said.

Burnt ignored the bodies. He didn't want to see them up close.

Continuing their trek in silence now, save for the squelching of mud beneath their hooves, Burnt continued to look out towards their left flank. Soon, the scattered rows of dead and skeleton lessened, but the chewed up defensive fortifications seemed to thicken. Barbed wire in their miles of rusted ferocity, save for pockets of destroyed and blown apart smithereens remains, alongside curves of sandbags and stone decorated with bodies strewn atop them.

It didn't look like the 2nd put up much of a fight.

The thought terrified him.

"Trench shoul' be not far now." Chip said.

"This be where th' goin' gets tough- Contact!" Albino roared, dropping to a prone.

"Contact - Contact - Contact!" The other three said in a butchered chorus, finding defensive positions. Chip dove behind a sandbag fortification, half-assembled with straggling bags thrown about the mud. Blind fell next to a thick formation of wooden logs that resembled an asterisk if you were a writer. Burnt found himself leaning against a small mound of clay and mud, aiming towards their right flank where Albino was watching.

"Where? Where?!" Chip said, adjusting some of the sandbags to poke his rifle through.

Albino didn't respond, instead he crawled like a madpony to a small crater, disappearing with a splash of water and mud before surfacing out from the pocket in the ground with his rifle shouldered out towards a formation of barbed wire, destroyed but still looking like springs that tried to escape a socket.

"In- In the wire! Two, nay- nay, three! Three Lunarists!" Albino said, briefly unshouldering his rifle to point anxiously towards his call out.

The sandbags that concealed Chip from Burnt's view rustled. The barrel of the rifle was swinging left and right in tight, frantic motions. Blind pushed himself up, hoof locked around one of the wooden logs poking out into the sky to look. Albino just stood stock still, aiming with a stillness not seen from Burnt in a while.

Silence.

Then, Chip called out with an annoyed twinge to his voice. "Alby, thou art a moron! Those be dead ones!"

"Nay! Nay, the- they moved! We swear!" Albino jerked his rifle forward, eyes wide as he stared out at the barbed wire.

A couple of sandbags fell to the mud and clay as Chip's head appeared over the fortification, stepping out from behind it. "Geddup, all o' ye. Alby's hast it wrong."

Blind looked towards Chip, then did a quick doubletake to the three bodies hanging like chandeliers from the springy wires. Satisfied, his ear flicked before coming out from the asterisk wooden thing that Burnt couldn't name, walking by Burnt to help him up before they both trotted with their hearts thumping in their ears past the stock-still Albino.

"Th- They art not movin'?" Albino mumbled, eyes blinking as if clearing himself from a fog. He released a loud, startling breath he did not know he held, quickly regaining air to calm himself down. He pulled himself from the crater, looking out towards the three unmoving bodies.

"Art thou comin' with, Alby?" Chip said, swallowing a thick glob of phlegm down his throat, hiding his rapid breathing with slow, controlled breaths.

Albino whipped his head at Chip, then slowly back out towards the barbed wire angels. His ears turned and rotated like saucers, before he slowly nodded. "Aye... Aye."

A small little basket of leaves, branches and a little loose-fitted twine that took a couple hours to make with just one hoof and half of another had found Burnt constantly pouring basket-loads of water over his head and into his eye and mouth holes to help him try and wrestle the rusted helmet off of his head. So far, little results have come from this experiment.

"Damn it all!" He groaned, holding a section of his head where he felt the smaller helmet dig into the sides of his head. He groaned, banging on the aching sides that gave a weird relief whenever he said.

"Gedditoff gedditoff!" Burnt whined, wrestling the helmet back and forth before the piercing pain caused him to fall on his back, arm splayed out and the other wrapped up and curled to his chest, looking to the sky.

He grit his teeth. It hurt so, so bad. He had to sit still, let it pass, let it go. Let it pass. Let it go. This was all he had to do before he could start again, because if he kept going now, he might actually try to blow his head off with his rifle. He didn't want to. He had to keep going, for them and for everypony else who he left behind in this cursed journey to freedom.

Good thoughts. He had to keep good thoughts. His breathing was heavy, panicked, in pain, whatever one can call it. It needed to slow down, and slow down as fast as possible. Ironic. It would make him laugh if he wasn't groaning in pain right now. Good thoughts. The sky? The sky. There's something different about it.

The sky was so nice here. He had to think about it or else the aching in his skull would drive him insane. Good thoughts. Good sky. Sky is blue. The sky is blue. He's never seen a blue sky before. Matter of fact, he's never seen a yellow sun. Granted, you can't really 'look' at the sun, but every time he's caught glimpses of it through the black clouds, it always had a foreboding red twinge to it, like a sunset that refused to die.

Yet, it's such a warm yellow. The outside of it was, anyways. When did it become so.. nice? The clouds.. they're so scattered, so delicate-looking. So.. white. How are clouds white? They aren't meant to be white. The clouds hold so much dark magic and the elements that it's overloaded, oversaturated, looking to release on the first thing that goes near it. Here? It's.. they look so transparent.

Is that cloud making a house? Burnt looked at another formation of clouds. Is that one a train?

"Woah.." Burnt droned, his body relaxing ever so slightly as he watched the clouds slowly drift by. He chuckled when he saw one look like a certain piece of anatomy.. and when another looked like a hat!

Here he laid, watching clouds float him by. If only his team could see him now.

It's so pleasant.. it.. it was so nice. Today, today was a good day.

Author's Note

The first 2022 chapter and it was aight.