Rainbow sat up and stretched her good wing. She sighed, looking at the sunlight streaming in through the window. This was the only day of the year that she let go of her strict sleep schedule. An experienced equine general, no matter how much she had done or how late she had stayed up the previous day, could decide on a time to wake up, and generally wake up within half an hour of that time. But, as she did every year, last night she decided just to wake up when she was done sleeping.
"But Rainbow! I want to fight!"
"No! It's not safe!"
"You've said before that 'The right thing to do is not always the safest, but we must do it anyway"
"Damn. Alright, you can enlist on your 18th! Just promise me that you'll take care of yourself!"
"I promise!"
As she trotted off, her parents walked up to Rainbow.
"Please take care of her!"
"I'll do my best, but she's not a little filly anymore. She's almost 18. She is, for all definitions aside from the legal, an adult."
She stood fully, allowing the blanket to slide off of her paralyzed wing. She walked up to the mirror, trying to decide how to style her blonde mane. She had dyed it shortly after her return, rejecting the fame (and infamy) her role had provided her. It was something she was neither proud of nor ashamed of. It was simply past. She had learned from the war that sometimes, the past is best left in the past. Except on today. That was different.
"I've been assigned to the twelfth regiment!"
"That's a good post!" Inwardly, Rainbow sighed with relief. The twelfth was in her group. She could keep them out of serious combat.
"When do you leave?"
"Next week. I can't wait!"
Rainbow smiled at her eagerness. She genuinely wanted to do the most she could for her country.
She, carefully, painted over her cutie marks, hiding the last vestiges of her identity. Anonymity was a luxury that, today, she was willing to indulge in. She smiled a weak smile as she looked in the mirror. Now she was merely a wounded veteran. There were so many of them that none would think twice about her.
Rainbow felt her heart soar with self pride as the equestrian flag was raised over the Great gate. Gryphonstone had three walls, none of which had ever been breached. Until today. It was a much needed victory, following that tragedy at Stony Creek.
She grabbed the picnic basket and placed it on her back. She had a supreme sense of balance, an odd thing for a pegasi with a dead wing. She could carry the basket on her back to where she needed to go.
"Sir, you need rest! You shouldn't be putting so much stress on yourself so soon after losing a wing."
"This is my pet project, Gray wing. I need to see it through. Any word on the last holdouts on the wall?"
"They vanished last night. My guess is that they slipped into the city at night. Either that, or they fled north, into the hills."
"Either way, we shouldn't have to worry about them. They are too few to mount a serious counter attack."
She opened the door and walked down the street. The neighborhood was quiet. She could have lived in splendor in the wealthiest part of Canterlot. Instead, she lived in the lower middle class neighborhood. It wasn't glamorous, but it was quiet. And it was close.
Rain hammered the roof of the tent, and thunder cracked overhead. Rainbow looked over the map of the city in the valley below. One of her lieutenants walked up.
"Sir! We have cleared the rubble from the great gate of the first wall. If we keep pressure like this up, we should be able to force a retreat of enemy forces to behind the city's walls."
"Very good. Prepare the battering rams. We should be able to take down the inner gates more easily than the great gate. And send the twelfth to do rear guard, it's about time for somepony to relive the eight."
As he left, Rainbow looked back over the map of the city. All was going well, but a wise strategist once said, don't sit to victory feast until the last enemy surrenders. A single success by the enemy could still turn the tide...
The gate to the graveyard screeched open, hinges rusty from half a decade of rain. Rainbow passed row after row of headstones, honoring those who lived in Canterlot and Ponyville, but were buried far from their home. Those who had died in the war.
Rainbow was shaken from her sleep by Gray wing.
"Sir! Sir! The twelfth regiment was attacked! They're reporting heavy casualties!"
Rainbow leapt from the cot, galloping at full speed down hill...
Rainbow stopped in front of a headstone and sat the basket down. She pulled out a picnic blanket, but nothing more. Instead, she simply sat down, looking at the headstone...
Rainbow hurried through the medic's tent, overflowing with casualties from the battle. All over were injured ponies, but she couldn't find the one she was looking for. Then, she glimpsed an orange wing. She ran forward to see her adoptive sister in awful shape. One eye was bandaged over, as was her front left leg. She was coated in blood an mud. But she was smiling, albeit weakly.
"Finally got some action. Just like you, sis..."
A nurse tapped Rainbow on the shoulder.
"Uh, Sir, we were about to send somepony to get you. We pulled out most of the arrow heads, but the one that pierced her left shoulder is still in and we believe that the wound is fatal. She's got a couple of hours, at most."
Rainbow broke into tears.
"Damn it! Why you! First Twi, Then you!"
She laid on the ground, sobbing into the blanket.
Rainbow grasped Scootaloo's hoof, refusing to let go. Her breaths were ragged, the short space between them an agonizing eternity. It wouldn't be long now, her mind told her. Each breath was weaker, each space longer.
It was still all to painful when it came. The last exhale. The world around Rainbow fell away. She had seen much loss as a general, but this was the first time in the war that she shed tears.
Some time had passed before Rainbow quit crying. She slowly got up, and reached into the basket, pulling out a fresh bouquet of flowers. She laid them in front of the grave, and got up. As she prepared to leave, she whispered to the stone.
"Happy birthday, sis."
She began to hum an old draconic funeral dirge, and if there had been any to watch her pass, they would have seen an orange pegasus walking next to her.
