[EaW]Hell of Stalliongrad

“Three hundred,” Victor said, “Three fucking hundred and forty-three civilians were executed in 991 just on the streets.” Victor made a relatively big sip out of his cup. “I haven’t even smoked before I came to the Princessyn. And only after a year of being there I had two or three cigars a day. What to say about drinking? Slavponians surely had a good stoli.” Victor started to think, he still remembered that white mare on the railway station. The first minutes of him being there and he witnessed two ponies dead. Like it foreshadowed all the death and chaos that followed later. It was hard four years.

Victor almost felt like home there, even though he never knew the true feeling of home. Jumping around Equestria every few years and sometimes even months left a mark on him. He never got a true friend, he got delayed with getting his special mark. He got one when he was only sixteen which is extremely late compared to his peers. He’s special mark was a palm branch wrapped around a dagger. As his grandfather Alexei Key once told him, ‘You are a special pony, Vicy. It took you so many years to get it, and trust me, it was totally worth it. Your cutiemark is full of victory spirit and fear. Use your talent right, as nothing can stop a pony who was born to win.’ Victor asked him then, ‘Win in what?’, and he didn’t get an answer, he only was ordered to wait patiently for his moment. Victor hoped that Princessyn was his moment, but no. It was his greatest lose. He had to wait for his moment, and he didn’t even know what was it. Sometimes he wondered if he went the right way if he should have gone to the academy and become an officer, come to Princessyn, take three bullets and come out with the side led by retreating losers.

“Did you get close to your soldiers?” the voice asked.

“The first rule of the army is not to get close to anypony,” Victor said, it was something that every soldier has gone through, “I had to learn it hard way. But before I understood it…” Victor stunned, he doesn’t want to remember it, them, Ray, and even this bastard Major. As he said, he had to learn it hard way.

He understands that he is showing his weaknesses straight away to that fucking white mare. She seems not stupid enough to see that as well and crush him whenever she needs that. The light was still uncomfortable. At least the chair was good. And whiskey was alright too. Sometimes he has been forgetting that he was kidnapped.

“You are asking some strange and unrelated shit, ma’am.” Victor objected showing his annoyance; he was tired already. He was annoyed, no, he was fucking frustrated, as much when he had to go through all shit of his life at once. “You are just wasting our time.”

“Time, is irrelevant, especially for me, trust me, lieutenant.” The mare said, what the fuck did she mean Victor wondered. “And we have a lot of time, lieutenant.” The voice has answered as she was trying to repeat the same tone the Victor has expressed to her a second earlier. She might have not enjoyed it too. Well, she already made it clear earlier who is boss here. Victors ears still hurt. “We’ve been sitting here already for a few hours, so many more are forward. And I need to have a full image about your past, personality, dreams and loses, your spirits and… yourself of course.”

Victor sighed, he understood once again, he is fucked. “If we are gonna be here for a while, at least you should turn off that fucking light until my eyeballs dissolve completely, so at least I’ll be able to aim later?” Victor said, he was annoyed and seemed to start to lose his temper again.

“I am afraid I can’t,” the voice said as she disappointed in Victor, “I can’t let you see who I am yet.” Seemed like an unfair deal, she gets to know everything about Victor, but she wants to keep herself as shadowed as a white cat in the light.

“How can I at least be sure,” Victor started, “That you are not one of the enemies of the state. Are you a goddamn Commie?”

The silence has followed. Perhaps she was thinking about something, or perhaps she has already loaded her Colt M911 and was aiming right into his head, Celestia knows what the hell she is doing right now.

Victor took another small sip out of his whiskey glass and said, “If you want to know who I am, I’ll tell you, I am a soldier. And the Princessyn showed me, that there is no right or… wrong for a soldier. This fucker Steel Stallion who says that the world should burn in the Red flame of the proletariat or this bitch on the throne Celestia who is a goddess herself and raises the sun and the moon, saying about harmony. We have the biggest military in the world doing nothing. Or even Changeling’s who are killing only to survive but everyone hates them. These are realities in which we all are living. None of them is right, they have just happened to be suitable for those who live there. They are encouraged by their ideas, ponies by Celestia, changeling by survival, communists by equality and they all want to push their ideas further abroad. That’s what soldiers are for, right? To go and fuck the enemy in the ass and put the Blue-white flag with two alicorns somewhere high in every enemy city. But once they get to the battlefield, nopony gives a fuck about what are you following and respect, I didn’t. I wanted them to shoot, they shot. Some deserted, some betrayed us. But I still was shooting. All I wanted is a victory. Celestia damn me, my name is Victory. And we almost got it, me and another 10 thousand soldiers in the city, we could have been victorious. But it wasn’t even a week until Celestia finally woke up and withdrew all the troops from the region. She explained it with not wasting more pony lives. But she missed a part that she has already wasted all the souls that died before. All my soldiers had so much hatred for Red’s that they wanted to give their lives to finish them. But no, we haven’t achieved it. Furthermore, now we have that communist fanatics who will want more than some crappy city and they will get more.” Victor stopped, he got tired of talking, he was saying it leaving so little time to breathe, “And what the harmony has brought us to, creating more chaos in the country, a rise of the new political system in oppose to ours. Am I still loyal to Celestia? Yes. And if she will say to kill an innocent, I will kill it, if she will say to conquer the whole goddamn Equus, I will conquer it, if she will say to put the weapon down, I will put it down, if she will say to drink with her, I will drink with her, she will say to bang her, well you know. But it doesn’t mean I respect her, I just have principles, and I want our country to win, no matter what for we are fighting.”

“Peace lieutenant,” The voice tried to calm down Victor, “Peace.”

“Celestia damn me if I’ll ever be in peace.” Victor annoyingly said. “My demons will always follow me, until I die, or get new ones. Who cares?” He wasn’t a good person, he understood it. But nopony forced him to be one. And the light, fucking light, Victor wished that the light will go fuck itself already. He sipped another time from the glass to discover that it was already empty.

“You are right, you are in a frustrating situation indeed. I can’t look at the pain you are in. But I have to.” The voice talked. It sounded kind, nice, but it sounded annoying already. This voice, he never heard it before, at least that’s what Victor thought. He was exhausted and may not have thought clearly. “I owe you an apology for that, lieutenant.”

“Uh, the least you own me right now,” Victor said, “Is the new glass of whiskey.” He pulled out his yellow wing holding an empty glass. Then he saw a yellow aura appear again in the place where mare has been pouring the drinks before and the bottle of whiskey appeared in front of him, pouring the liquid into his glass. “Thank you, ma’am.” Then the bottle levitated the direction of the light and disappeared in there.

“Alright, let’s go with the 9th of January 993.” the voice said, and made the white light softer, but not like he could see the mare, “However, I see that you’ve got into some kind of incident right before that date.”

“Straight to the climax, huh? Yeah, some shit happened right before the Bloody Sunday, it cost Ray an eye.” Victor said. Well, the 9th of January is one of the most influential reasons for starting the bloody riots in 994. There was a lot of ponies walking on the Celestial Square with the statue right in the center of all the crap that happened then. “Listen then.”

That evening on 7th January I was sitting over a lot of documents that stockpiled over the last few months. That was field reports, incident reports, orders from the HQ and other shit that I had to deal with. I tried to prevent any civilian killing and shooting. I made it pretty clear to my soldiers about doing that crap. Well, it cost me 10 soldier casualties, in just one year. Major was really mad at me for that.

Every time I looked at the numbers, I felt something strange in my chest. I just didn’t understand. I am trying to save the lives of civilians and I am paying other lives for that, the lives of ponies who go under my command. I took a folder with my wing from behind and put it on the table in front of me. ‘MAGIC LEAP’ it was saying with capital letters on the front. Magic Leap was my Platoon Sergeant, well trained, disciplined, always helped me with watching over my rifle squads and organization in the platoon. He was ambushed and blown up in a truck by some anarchy gang in the western Princessyn a week ago. It wasn’t our region of operation of the city, but I sent him and one of the other squads to secure cargo delivery to another military base in the west, to Prohods, a village with airfield outside the city, important strategic point. Everypony in the convoy was dead, there were thirteen of good and already hard-tempered soldiers. They took more than thirty of anarchist gang members. At least I am glad that they took a fight and didn’t let those bastards to take cargo. I expected to meet new sergeant E7 Seargeant tomorrow, as well as the new rifle squad.

Sun Dawn died there too; she was a leader of the Charlie rifle squad. I liked her, maybe even too much. Combat enthusiastic and she loves explosions and a brilliant mechanic. I would say she was my type. I can’t think of her this way now; I am left only with soldier respect for her and grief that I’ve lost such a brilliant and loyal soldier that day.

And I wasn’t the only one who was pissed with the lost of Magic Leap and Sun Dawn. Major flared himself up and broke my favorite pipe that I bought only six months ago. It was a good pipe, it cost me at least twenty Bits. I am still not sure why exactly did he blew up into my room, just to give me hard time because he feels like it, or to give me a lesson on something that I don’t understand. He really hated me. I was thinking of going to Colonel Moon Joy and asking for moving to the other battalion and base. Like Saint Petershoof or back in normal and peaceful Equestria like Cloudsdale or Baltimare.

So, as my pipe got broken and thrown from the window on the moon, one of my soldiers, Dust Pusher was his name, gave me a couple of good cigars that he had brought with himself from Acornage. I immediately got addicted to them and had one or two cigars a day. Well, I tried to do it in private, as I didn’t want to depict too rich in front of my soldiers and civilians.

I took one of the cigars out, cut the edge off, and lighted it up with a candle that stood on my table. Some duchebag cut off the power for the whole goddamn military base. Celestia damn this outdated shitty place which has been last updated in the early 50s or so. That is before I was born. The only thing that has been changed is the new gas heat system, to sustain the winters. As it was independent of the electrical power, at least we could enjoy the warmth.

I was leaning back with hooves on the table looking at the window beside me, breathing in and out the smoke from a cigar between my feathers. It was Friday at 6 p.m., so I had a free evening forward. Fuck the documents. I was just left with myself. I didn’t even know what to think about. But I wanted to think. There wasn’t much to cheer me up though. Two of my friends were dead. And two dozen soldiers have already lost their life. Their souls were sitting on my back since the first death. I was stuck there for Celestia knows how long. Well, if she at least knew about all that crap maybe then she would know. And my command officer hates me as much as I hate him now.

My eyes caught an envelope lying under my dirk. Even though I wasn’t in the navy, I got it as a present on my 27th birthday from my godfather, my father’s friend, Sea Mustang, he is a Rear Admiral in the fleet. I got up and moved the envelope with my hoof to myself. I read on the front side ‘To 1st Lieutenant Victory Alexander Key.’ There was an address, the name of the unit and date, on the top-left corner I read: ‘From Alexander Alexei Key, Cloudsdale Governor,’ and an address, ‘Cloudsdale, Cloudsdale Parliament House.’ The envelope was from my father. I’ve been wondering what it was about, in the middle of the winter, post office fees and prices were higher than Canterlot’s mountain.

I put my cigar into the teeth and picked up a paper-knife. As I flipped the envelope, I saw a little blood on the edge of the paper you mean to close with. Poor father, he will never learn that he shouldn’t slide the paper on his tongue. I wondered if he had any of it left. I carefully cut through the top and took out the letter itself. When I unfolded it, I moved the candle a little closer and started to read:

Dear son, Victor,

I am writing to you with bad news. They might get shocking for you. The winter in Cloudsdale didn’t make it easy on everypony. Your mother has scared the whole house when she started to wet cough. But you know her, she is a strong mare. Next morning, she was playing with your niece in snow. On Hearth's Warming Eve, the family has gathered at our place, even your cousin Night Fog from Trottingham came. He made a long boat trip to Manehattan because he was afraid of going through the Princessyn. I think you know better than any of us do why. I’ll take a chance to say, that I respect government secrecy policy. Even I know some government secrets that will go with me at one point. But total cut off of the whole region to keep something in. That’s extreme. And even my position doesn’t allow me to look at what’s going on in there. So I hope that you are well there.

And that’s the shame they haven’t let you out to visit your family back home. Your mother is worried about you and her parents. Do us a favor, look after them, or move them away from the city, if there is still one. I also worry about you, son. I know you don’t hear it a lot from me, but just know it. And I am not sure if they allow you to send letters but send us one if you get a chance.

I’ve been on a meeting with Princess and other high-ranking members of the government. The crisis is tearing our nation apart. The Applelouse was threatening to start to fight over their independence from the monarchy if they won’t get protection from the Buffalos and get enough crops to feed themselves. It is all crazy. I know you never were into politics, but I’ve always raised you to see a bigger picture. And this is the time to understand what the hell is going on in our nation. Crisis, riots, Princessyn, outdated military, monarchy, corruption, industries are taking over the land. We all are going to break apart like the Griffon Empire once did.

There is one last thing that I have to tell you. It is Rose. We have invited Drop family over the Hearth Warming party, as they are not rich, and Rose is very special to you. Only her father and her sister showed up. Rose is sick, heavily. It is grippe, son. I offered my help with her treatment, which was taken very happily. But unfortunately, the illness took over her, before the doctors could even try. I don’t know if she will make it. I’m sorry, son. I will still try everything to help her for you.

Every member of our Key family is sending you a warm ‘hi’, to keep you safe in the horrible frost of Severnaya.

With love and respect,

Your dearest father and friend, Alexander Key.

‘Mother of Sweet Celestia!’ I thought that moment, I couldn’t believe. My jar wasn’t so opened since the Cloudsdale academy and my cigar was lying on the wood floor ever since I read Rose’s name. To say that I was just shocked is too say nothing. I was fucking horrified. Rose was the most special to me since high school. I was visiting her every summer before 991 when I got to Princessyn. And I’ve seen her as healthy as the bull. How could she die? She couldn’t die. Oh, holy Alicorn-sisters, what had you done? I just didn’t know what to think.

I was outrageous, I was so frustrated. Just why? I kept staring at the letter. I kept sitting for a while, until I found myself sitting in a chair, with tears gathering under my eyes. A few have already dropped from my cheeks on the paper. I couldn’t move. I’ve been kept in a chair by some strange force. I was paralyzed from shock. I couldn’t comprehend that Rose might have been dead by then. The date on the envelope said that it was two weeks ago. But if it was as bad as father described, should have I left her behind then?

I’ve already lost, Leap, Dawn, Rose. Who is the fucking next? Ray? He is the only one who was still with me. We were friends. We knew each other. He couldn’t just be taken away from me.

At that moment I finally woke up. I could finally move and hold myself together, I folded the paper and put it into the pocket inside my uniform jacket. I thought to go out that evening. I took my black coat, upped my fur collar, put my officer hat on with Equestrian emblem. After I picked up my cigar from the floor, which surprisingly was still burning and taking a long and deep shot of smoke I walked out of my room. I haven’t forgotten about the letter; I just didn’t want to think much about it.

I headed for Ray’s room. I wanted to see what he was up to. And maybe at least he will be able to cheer me up. His room was opened, and I confidently walked in. Only now I realized that I’ve forgotten my knife and a holster. Didn’t put much attention into this.

“Victor!” Ray happily exclaimed, “I was just thinking about you.”

“Yeah me too, kinda.” Well, kind of, I’ve been thinking about a lot then. Ray stood up and dressed up for outside. He wore the same overcoat as me covering his whole body from the neck to his special mark with grain and hoe. “Where are you dressing up like this?”

Ray stunned and looked at me, then gave me a grin, “Are you serious? I thought we are going to the pub tonight, we are doing it every Friday, Vic.” Ray explained. I was so exhausted and frustrated that I’ve totally forgotten about it.

“Sorry Ray,” I said and put my cigar back into my mouth, “I had a long day.”

“I didn’t hear anything bad today,” Ray said and used his magic to put a scarf on.

“Nah, it is more of a personal thing.” I said, I wasn’t used to sharing personal problems with other ponies, Ray knew it, he also knew that I have to be drunk as fuck to tell them, so he wouldn’t bother me with that now, I remembered about my holster, “I’ve forgotten something in my room, let’s meet outside in five min.”

“The soldier without a gun is as useless as a gun without you,” Ray shouted looking into the mirror and checking his long black mane as I’ve already walked out the door. Didn’t expect that he would notice, smart-ass.

As I took my holster I headed to the entrance into the building. As I walked past Ray’s room it was already closed. But the main surprise awaited me on the stairs, as I met major.

“Halt! Where are you going?” he said giving me his best look, “Getting drunk again, huh?”

“Apparently I am sir,” I said without regret, “I had a long day, sir.”

“You had indeed, twelve soldiers, Vic, twelve!” Major said trying to make me bad, again. I had a feeling that he will do it every time he meets me. And we have to meet a lot.

“It was thirteen, sir,” I corrected him, “However it is not my fault, it is the fault of themselves and the driver for picking the wrong route.”

“They are your responsibility, slav,” Major said again, “I don’t want any other of my soldiers die because of your stupid orders. They are soldiers, they don’t just stand in the middle of the street for scenery, they need to control streets, otherwise, they are an easy target for anypony. Understand that! Now go, your stupid friend is waiting for you in a Jeep.” He said and continued to walk up the stairs.

I walked out of the building and saw Ray straight away standing near the green car, already covered in snow and started. The lights have been lightning snowflakes blown by the wind to the side.

“Take your time Vic, but it took long enough for you already,” Ray shouted to me as I’ve flown towards him and landed right into the passenger seat through the opened window. “Yeah right, what the doors are for?” He asked me sarcastically.

“Sorry, I’ve bumped into major on the stairs, Celestia damn him!” I’ve explained myself to Ray as he opened the car door and sat down into the driver seat. He didn’t wait long to start the car and drive. He was holding the wheel with magic; his right hoof was on gears and left hoof out the window catching snow and wind. It was dark already; we could see only ten meters forward with far lights on. It has been an hour and a half to get to the Princessyn from Dubrovka, so we silently drove there.