EPILOGUE: The War of Falling Feathers

“The war is over, but it would appear that the war was just the prologue t’ another bloody chapter in Equestrian history...”

The hours it took for a search and rescue party to arrive were immeasurable and filled with pain. Every breath was agony and every small movement elicited tears from my eyes, but finally Daisy gave a whoop of joy, leaping into the air and waving her hooves.

Medics using words like “You’re going to be all right,” and “Just hang in there, buddy,” hopped out of the rumbling vertibuck with stretchers and saline bags. They gave the alicorn’s body a wide berth, keeping their shocked expressions and quiet voices professional.

I couldn’t help but whimper as they got me on a stretcher and bore me back to the vertibuck. A sweet smell filled my sinuses as they strapped a mask over my face and my demons let me sleep dreamlessly for some unknown time.

When I awoke I was undressed but clean, laying on a somewhat stiff cot. Fresh bandages wrapped my chest and a simple cast immobilized my wing. A pair of uncomfortable catheters carried away waste and an IV line fed fluids into my foreleg. Seeing my own limb shot a flash of memory into my head, the alicorn’s horn flashing as Whisper’s knee bent sickeningly.

Sitting up sparked pain in my chest and a soft wheeze from my lips so I turned my head about, wincing at my stiff shoulder and neck. Pegasi filled the cots around me, but from where I lay I couldn’t see if Whisper was one of them.

White cloud-fabric of the medical tent rustled around me, tugged gently by the wind and I managed to sleep once more. The demons I’d met below ensured it was a restless sleep.

Alarmed voices stole me from my nightmares. From what I could piece together from them either balefire bombs or megaspells or something was tearing open the cloud cover. Anywhere from twenty to twenty three to upwards of fifty such events were taking place right now! None of them were nearby, but regardless we were being evacuated.

The dull thumping of a Raptor’s propellers made the medical tent ripple like the prelude to a storm as everypony was carted out with all possible haste. Sunlight struck my face as I was carried out on my cot. I caught a glimpse of the Raptor’s name: Cassiopeia before its empty hangar swallowed me up, a cacophony of quiet voices echoing in the wide space.

The Raptor took off without incident some time later, the floor tilting slightly and vibrating even as the hangar doors groaned shut. The soft lights of the hangar faded to darkness above me.

The hospital bed I woke up in was mine for the next six weeks. Metal rods were required to fix the shattered bones in my wing and I wouldn’t be able to fly with it for months if I was lucky. A radio on my bedside table and the orderlies were my only source of news, helping me piece together the terrible events that had transpired after our escape into the clouds. The Overcast had been destroyed, the survivors scattered or dead, no wonder I hadn’t heard from my chain of command.

A few days in a card arrived from my parents, worried sick and terrified after they’d heard my ship had gone down. They wished for nothing more than to come and visit, but a travel ban was in effect due to what the airwaves were calling megaspell attacks. I wrote back a quick letter, assuring them that I was fine, not to worry.

The end of the first two weeks brought the bitter start of the civil war, the War of Falling Feathers as some romantic coined it. The Raptor Cassiopeia came up on the radio, either destroyed or captured by Dashites, but I couldn’t remember why its name was familiar to me. Whatever the case, I wanted out of my bed, to stop the rebel Dashites from overturning our government.

But it was more complicated than that.

At the end of week four my surgery was finished and physical therapy was getting my wing muscles back into shape. While I was doing this, the Story of the Lightbringer caught onto our airwaves, courtesy of the ground-pounders below. The talking heads on the radio either discredited it or used it to demean the Enclave’s lying government. Some of the orderlies started giving me reproachful looks and no one thanked me for my service anymore.

Tight control of the airwaves meant I didn’t get more than snippets of the unedited story, but what I overheard made me hope it was propaganda bullshit. My hopes weren’t helped by the reactions of my fellow pegasi out on the streets.

A local news station was attacked when it tried to rebroadcast the story with live commentary demeaning and poking holes in it and riots roared outside the window. The hospital went on lockdown, but the mob wasn’t interested in raiding the place. The local garrison was called in, but when they were ordered to fire on the mob, they turned on each other instead. The survivors joined the mob as it marched off towards the government buildings.

I wasn’t sure what to think about it all, but the idea of burning rebels out of the sky had lost some of its appeal.

What if the Lightbringer was right to do what she did? What did it mean if the government had lied to us for the past two centuries? Did I stay loyal to my oath of service, follow the orders of the High Council and those appointed over me? But what if I had been in the garrison when they were ordered to fire on civilians? Could I have done that? Would I have? Was that what was right? Or was the Lightbringer right to tear down the clouds and give the sun back to the ponies below? But if she was right then what had Masher and Breeze and all the rest died for!? They had to have died for something, damnit! My thoughts chilled to the answer to that final question, and I tried not to think about it...

These thoughts and others like them joined forces with my demons to keep me awake most nights. Sitting at the window, I stared up at the star-speckled sky, wondering what it might’ve been like to have grown up without it.

Chief Whisper found me at the end of the fifth week. Sheer joy flooded my mind when the orderly let her into my room, glaring pointedly at my injured wing when I rushed over to embrace her. She smiled and returned the hug, her hoof pulling me in tight like I might float away.

My joy faded as I took a moment to actually look at her haggard face.

She looked even more at odds with what was happening in the streets than I was. Her short mane hadn’t been cut in some time and her black service uniform needed some ironing. Her wounded foreleg was still in a light cast, but she wore it well. I patted the bed beside me, but she hesitated a moment and then took the lone chair in the room.

When I gave her a pout she didn’t seem to see it, fiddling around with her cap in her forehooves. She had something she needed to say, so I swallowed my words and let her say it.

“Daisy went over after the rebel’s first broadcast.” Her voice was quiet now and she struggled to look at me. “She left me a note. I was so…angry when I read it, I wanted to fly out there and find her and wring her stupid neck and brand her flanks myself…” she trailed off, but I could tell she wasn’t finished. “She stole...she took the Nimbus; amazing that they managed to fix that bird up.” She smiled, a mixture of nostalgia and grief. I was right there with her. “But then the Lightbringer’s story…” she cast a glance to the closed door of my room. “I’m terrified that she’s right!”

“Daisy?” I queried.

“Daisy, too, I guess, but the Lightbringer, Littlepip or whatever her real name is…” Whisper had trouble returning my gaze, her hooves were starting to tremble and she set her cap down on a table beside her. “But if she is...fuck, Skiff! All this time...”

“Whisper…” she didn’t berate me for not using her rank. I thought about how to console her, what I could say to bring the normally stalwart Chief back. But it took me too long to find the words and she started up again.

“They pinned a medal on me,” she jabbed a hoof into her breast like the idea of it was akin to being shot, “the Shooting Star,” my eyes shot wide at that and I held back an impressed whistle, “for ‘gloriously leading two skytank teams and inflicting heavy enemy casualties before returning our vessel to the clouds!’” her voice had a mocking edge as she recited the words, “But if the Lightbringer’s right? Skiff, we’re the villains! We didn’t win the war against the wasteland! I just...I got...Masher and Breeze...killed for nothing! And they pinned a fucking medal on me like that’s supposed to make everything right! Like it’s some sort of fucking consolation prize!” some of her usual volume and rage returned as she glared down at her hooves.

“Chief…” I tried again, but she turned away as if she was embarrassed by the word. It gave me time to think over what I wanted to say, shooting down most of my options. ‘It’s not your fault.’ ‘Don’t blame yourself.’ ‘We did the best we could.’ ‘They didn’t die for nothing.’ “I miss them.” the words and the tears came unbidden and Whisper nodded and wiped her nose on the back of her sleeve.

The mare struggled with her next words, looking between me, her hooves, and the room. Then her gaze fixed on me and I was back in the bushes as one of Red Eye’s soldiers was preparing to rape Daisy. Whisper wasn’t going to order me to do something that would probably get me killed.

“Skiff, I didn’t just come here to say hello...I came here to say...” she hung her head and I watched the gears turning there for a moment. When she looked up her eyes were filled with determination, “Daisy needs a tank crew...”

My eyes went wide, darting to the door for fear of someone hearing her say the words that would get her branded. Me, too, if I didn’t report her.

“Just hear me out, okay?” She caught my weary expression, guilt flooding her features. “Nothing can make what we did below the clouds right, nothing can bring Masher or Breeze back, or Fluff or her crew, the Overcast, the Stratos...but that doesn’t mean I can’t do the right thing now.” She sat up straight in her chair. “I’ll love you regardless of whether or not you come with me, but I...I need to do this, Skiff! And I don’t want to do it alone...”

“Whisper.” She froze as I spoke her name, her eyes locking onto my own. There was terror in there, and hurt, but it all evaporated into a smile when I spoke. “We’re still gonna need a BaWS gunner.”

She tried to stifle a sharp sob of joy and then her lips were against mine, pressing me gently back into the bed. I glanced past her face to the door, not caring that it was unlocked, it would take too much time and I was already stiff as a board.

And we had five weeks of fraternization to catch up on.

The end.

Author's Note

I started writing this story back in 2014 as a one-shot inspired by one of the Fallout: Equestria group projects from around that time. No idea what became of that group project, but after some lovely feedback from my editors, I decided to break the one-shot into the first two chapters and then write the last two to finish things up and turn it into a short story.

I largely forgot about this story until only recently, focusing on another Fallout side-fic of mine instead. It feels weird now that this one is done, but fear not because while the story of Sky Skiff and Wind Whisper is over for now, they will appear again in an upcoming story: The War of Falling Feathers, which will cover the events of the Enclave civil war. Knowing my track record, it may be some time before that one comes out, so stay tuned!