Twenty-four hours ago, Private Cobalt Shield had been listening to an inspirational speech from General Nickel Plated.
It had been a really great speech, about how what they were doing was important for Equestria, how sacrificing their time and safety meant others could live in peace.

He was trying to recall the exact words the General had used, because they’d made him feel brave and proud, and both bravery and pride were in short supply right now, pulling a cargo wagon through ice-cold mud halfway up his fetlocks. They were part of a convoy of a half-dozen bringing food and clean water to the front.

“Do you see anything?” he asked the soldier next to him, shouting to be heard over the driving rain and distant crash of thunder. They’d sent a team of pegasi to clear the skies and they hadn’t come back.

He couldn’t remember the name of the stallion he was sharing the trench with. If he could see his cutie mark, maybe it would have jogged his memory, but the armor they were wearing - piecemeal junk that was half surplus from centuries ago and half forged quickly and poorly in factories out of recycled scrap - covered the red stallion’s flank, even if the rest was clearly uncomfortably tight.

“Nope,” the big stallion said, peering into the dark. Cobalt could barely even see the path ahead of them, a narrow pass through the hills. Lightning flashed, the scraggly trees on the ridges looking like stretched-out shadows of arcane horrors for a nightmarish moment.

“I didn’t sign up for this,” Cobalt muttered, not even able to hear himself over the rain pattering on his ill-fitting helmet like a kettle drum. "I'm not even supposed to be here today! I was supposed to be in logistics!"

The other stallion might have murmured something in reply.

"Well, I thought it meant paperwork, not heavy lifting," Cobalt retorted.

Lightning flashed again, and one of the bedraggled trees was gone. Cobalt would have slowed to look, if he wasn’t lashed to a wagon with another pony, if he wasn’t part of a convoy packed close together on the road and stopping meant wagons crashing into each other, if he could have seen anything anyway.

It occurred to him, not for the first time, that this was a bad place to be if the enemy was planning an ambush.

The wagon ahead of them drifted to the side, wheels wobbling.

“Did the Lieutenant call for a break?” Cobalt asked. Maybe he’d missed it.

“Nope,” the other stallion said. He sounded worried.

“Go around them and see if they’re okay?” Cobalt suggested. It was the only thing they could do without stopping, untying their yokes, and delaying things even further.

The big red stallion nodded, and they leaned, fighting the wagon through the mud. Usually the lightest wagon would go first, the others following in its ruts like a train following tracks. Trying to pull through the mud without that path was ten times harder and fifty times as annoying, armored shoes slipping in the uneven terrain and every step a struggle to make sure they didn’t come to a full stop and get stuck.

“Give us some light up here!” Cobalt yelled back. A unicorn somewhere down the line sent up a flare, a twinkling star against the grey clouds.

They came around to the front of the other wagon, and Cobalt felt his bowels loosen.

The ponies that had been pulling it were twitching in their harnesses, legs spasming in pure automatic reflex. Blood spurted into the dark from their necks, which ended abruptly in a ragged edge where their heads should have been.

“Oh buck me,” Cobalt swore. He went pale, not that it was easy to tell under the mud. “WE’RE UNDER ATTACK!” He screamed.

Something stepped into the circle of light from the flare, inertia carrying Cobalt towards it even as he tried to skid to a stop.

It was huge, with an elongated, skull-like face and iron horns filed to a razor-sharp edge.

Cobalt struggled with the harness, trying to undo the knots.

A massive metal blade scythed down and smashed through the wood between him and the other stallion. The wagon’s front axle decided to become a fulcrum as it was slammed down into the mud, the rear of the wagon rose into the air. Cobalt struggled, snapping what remained of his restraints and scrabbling to the side, narrowly avoiding being crushed as the wagon came crashing down.

Cobalt’s spear was on the wagon, where it wouldn’t get in the way. If he had a few minutes he might have been able to salvage it.

He didn’t have a few minutes.

He drew his backup knife, holding it between his teeth.

The looming monster looked at him with corpse candle eyes.

Cobalt dropped the knife and it vanished into the mud, sucked down never to be seen again. He scrambled through the muck, throwing himself behind what was left of the convoy, little more than a chest-high wall of weather-worn planks. He looked up the hill, trying to find a path to escape.

A monster peered down at him from the top of the hill, a draconian head on a long neck. A second head joined it, spitting a barbed spike that narrowly missed his head. He flinched and shielded his face.

Something slammed into the mud in front of him.

He looked through his hooves, expecting some new horror, and was almost blinded by acid-green light. A half-dozen spikes made of bone entwined with steel barbs were suspended in the air over him, vibrating and barely held back by unstable magic.

"Control, I'm on scene." It was a mare's voice, and when Cobalt's eyes got used to the glare and he was able to see again, he saw it came from the armored form above him, shielding him with steel wings spread wide, feathers blued around the edges from some terrible heat.

"Who are you?" Cobalt whispered.

He couldn't see the mare's face, hidden behind a heavy visor. She flapped her wings, and the spikes tumbled down to the ground, released from her magical grip.

"I know it's dangerous!" the mare snapped, speaking to the air. "You're the one who was giving me grief about abusing the test subjects! I'm running in minimum gain mode. My body should last longer than the batteries."

The monster roared. The armored mare's dark glass visor turned to Cobalt.

"Stay here," she ordered, this time actually speaking to him.

He nodded, and she jumped into the air with a burst of magic that left the mud sizzling and bubbling in its wake. Cobalt covered his head and waited for the noises to stop.

The wagon shifted behind him, and he jumped.

"Are you still alive?" the mare asked. She sounded exhausted, with an edge of pain in her voice.

Cobalt nodded and looked up.

"Good," the mare said. She touched a release on the side of her helmet and the visor popped open with a hiss, revealing a lavender unicorn that had to have been a decade younger than he was. She coughed, blood flecking her lips.

"Are you hurt?" Cobalt asked, worried.

She tapped the side of her helmet, and a tiny red symbol flashed in front of her eyes. "Mm. If I'm reading the sensors correctly, I'm having a heart attack."

“Hey, hey! We have another one alive!”

Cobalt opened his eyes, wincing at the sunlight.

A pony was standing over him, trying to pull him up out of the mud.

Cobalt took his hoof, standing up on shaking legs.

“Hold,” said a voice, clear and resonant.

Cobalt looked up to see her, the sun at her back, shining through her mane.

"What happened here?" Princess Celestia asked.

Cobalt looked around them, at the huge inequine claw-marks in the mud.

He tried to speak, his mouth suddenly dry. Celestia nodded to one of the gold-armored guards at her side, and a canteen was pressed against his lips. He greedily lapped at it, clearing the dust and dried mud from his lips.

"There was an attack," Cobalt croaked. "Monsters. I've never seen anything like them."

"And then?" Celestia asked.

"She was like an angel," Cobalt whispered. He took another long drink. "She saved me and vanished."

"Is that so?" Princess Celestia asked. "I'd like to hear about this 'angel'."

Author's Note

It's been more than half a decade since the war really started and we still don't see an end to it.

When the Empire first appeared, we were told Princess Cadance would have the situation resolved within a week. Then a month. Then she was back in Canterlot and the EUP was mobilized. We were told they'd be back home before Hearth's Warming.

My draft notice came two years later. It was after the mess in Manehattan. That was when ponies started to realize we might be on the losing side of things.

Somepony told me once that the average pony just wants for tomorrow to be basically the same as yesterday. It seemed like overnight we lost that kind of hope. War wasn't something far away, it was right here.

I don't know if there's anything waiting for me back home. Nopony had been buying quills, much less sofas. I didn't want this war. I'm no soldier. When it's over, though, how do we go back to the way it was?

- Fragment from a journal