A Pony Worth Fighting For
Spitfire sat behind her desk, filling out paperwork. Troop movements, scouting reports, logistics, it all came across her desk, and it would never end. Not until the war was over, one way or the other. She pulled a file, checked the clock on the wall, and announced, “Supply drop should be arriving soon. Any volunteers to go meet it?”
She glanced out across the other officers in the room, but she knew she wouldn’t have to wait long.
“I’ll do it,” Soarin spoke up. “Usual place, right?”
Spitfire nodded, and Soarin gave a salute and flew out the door. Spitfire didn’t let him see her smile. It was nice to know that there were still bright spots out here for some ponies, at least.
Soarin skimmed just above the trees, keeping a low profile. There were sure to be advance scouts for Sombra’s forces in the area, just as there were Equestrian spies watching the Crystal Empire’s movements, and he didn’t want to give them something to track. The less they knew, the better.
He landed after only a short flight in a small clearing, surrounded on two sides with impenetrable trees. It wasn’t long before the sound of wagons reached him, and the caravan came into view. Four large carts, pulled by earth ponies and guarded by a dozen soldiers. As they came to a stop, the sole unicorn pulling the front cart unhooked himself and stepped up to Soarin.
“Hey Joe,” Soarin greeted him with a smile. “What’ve you got for us?”
Pony Joe smiled back at him. “Ah, Soarin. Stuck with the grunt work again, I see.”
Soarin shifted slightly, his wings rustling. “I, ah, I don’t really mind it,” he muttered. “Somepony’s gotta make sure you get here in one piece, after all.”
“Glad you’re looking out for us,” Joe said, a hint of a laugh in his voice. “We’ve got mostly rations in this shipment. Another two weeks’ supply, as well as additional ammunition and a few other odds and ends. Whatever I could get my hooves on, really. Supply’s scarce, but if anypony deserves a few comforts from home, it’s you.” He reached into his saddlebags, pulling out a clipboard. “Here’s the full manifest, if you’d like to review.”
Soarin waved the paper away. “You know you don’t have to do that,” he said quietly. “Everypony’s doing their part. We’re not more important just because we’re on the front.”
“Horseapples,” Joe said pleasantly. “You’re Equestria’s finest, and I won’t hear otherwise.”
There was a moment of silence as Soarin tried and failed to come up with a way to object to that without actually objecting to it. But before he could, Joe spoke up again, somewhat more hesitantly.
“Besides, I, uh, packed a little something special for you,” Joe said, with an awkward cough. “That is, for, uh… the officers. I mean, if you want to share it. It’s just some sweets, nothing fancy, but I know you don’t have much in the way of baked goods out here… I mean, nopony does anymore, but I got ahold of some flour and I figured…” he trailed off, looking away in embarrassment. “I’m rambling, aren’t I?”
Soarin looked down at the ground to try to hide his blush, but he wasn’t particularly successful. “I’m sure it’ll be great. Fantastic, even. I haven’t had a donut in… I mean, I’m sure everypony will love them…”
There was a moment of awkward silence, before one of the guards shouted, “Get a room!”
Soarin’s head snapped up. “Who said that? Speak up, private, so I can tan your hide so hard you won’t sit straight for a week!” He stepped forward, a glare on his features, but he was no drill sergeant, and the guards snapped to attention as one and said nothing.
After a moment, he heard soft snickering from behind him, and whirled to see Joe unable to keep a straight face. If anything, his glare only made the donut pony laugh harder.
“Ah, cut ‘em some slack,” Joe said easily. “They’ve been marching all day, no need to make it any harder for ‘em.” He controlled his laughter, and then gave Soarin a level stare. “Besides, they weren’t wrong, were they?”
“You shouldn’t encourage that,” Soarin huffed, but already his glare was losing the fight against his smile. “And we shouldn’t discuss such things in public. It’s… unprofessional.”
Joe grinned. “Good thing I’m a civilian, then,” he countered. “I’ll go get your donuts.”
Soarin tried to find something to say to that, but the words stuck in his chest and he just watched the other pony go. And then tore his gaze away from his very well-muscled flank. “Get these carts unloaded!” he snapped out to the rest of the caravan. “On the double!”
There was a chorus of soft grumblings, but they got to work.
Some days, the war felt interminable. Even with the entire populace serving the war effort, Sombra had an army that didn’t need sleep, didn’t know fear, and grew with every pony they captured, civilian or not. Equestria had to train its soldiers, and intimately felt every loss. Sombra’s army was seemingly endless, and it made most ponies sick to know they were fighting innocents, enslaved against their will.
In those conditions, any piece of light felt like a blazing sunbeam. Soarin knew he wasn’t fooling anypony by volunteering to meet Joe’s shipments whenever they arrived, but any time he could spend with him was a blessing. Sometimes they even got a moment to themselves to talk, to discuss anything but the endless war. They’d initially bonded over a mutual love of food, but it had grown into something more. Joe was hardworking, generous, easy to talk to. He made Soarin laugh, and that was priceless beyond words.
So when the day came that he went to meet the caravan and it failed to arrive, it felt like rot tearing through his insides.
“What do you mean, there’s nothing we can do?” Soarin demanded.
“Exactly that,” Spitfire said levelly. “We’re cut off. This new encampment is between us and base camp, and they’re heavily staffed with spellcasters. We lost two scouts just locating it, so I am not prepared to try to fly our whole unit over it. We sit tight until we get backup or orders to the contrary.”
“That could take weeks!” Soarin argued. “Without a supply line, we’ll start feeling the effects of rationing long before then. Our best bet is to strike now, before our soldiers are fighting on empty stomachs.”
“We’ve got a few days yet before that’ll be a concern, and Celestia will know we’ve been cut off as soon as we fail to report—”
“And what about the caravan?” Soarin interrupted. “If they were captured, how long before they’re shipped back to the Crystal Empire and controlled? How long until we’re fighting against a dozen of our own? They don’t have a few days, Captain!”
Spitfire frowned. For that, she didn’t have an answer.
Soarin paced outside the command tent, wings unfurled in agitation. His entire body practically vibrated, demanding that he do something, anything, other than stand around.
Fleetfoot stepped out of the tent behind him, taking one look and then coming over. “Hey man, you okay?”
Soarin whirled around. “No, I’m not okay! Why would I be okay?”
Fleetfoot took a step back, repulsed by the sheer force of his words. “I… I guess that was kinda a stupid thing to ask,” she said awkwardly. “I just… look, we’re gonna do everything we can. We’ll get them back.”
“Don’t say that,” Soarin growled. “Not when Spitfire is just gonna sit on her flank, not when they could already be… not when it could already be too late.”
Fleetfoot hesitated, and then nodded slowly. Instead of responding, she stepped forward and simply sat nearby. At first, Soarin ignored her, still pacing because he had to be moving, had to feel like he was doing something. But finally, he slowed, sagged, and then collapsed next to Fleetfoot. She silently draped a wing over him.
“What if he’s gone?” Soarin whispered. “What if we can’t get him back?”
Fleetfoot considered that. “We’ll make Sombra pay,” she finally said. “For him and every other pony he took from us. That’s all we can do, sometimes.”
“I can’t,” Soarin said, his voice raspy as he tried to maintain his composure. “I needed… something to look forward to. Something to show me that there was more than just… this. Something real.”
Fleetfoot didn’t have a response to that. So she laid there, and held him, and pretended not to notice how his body shook.
Joe glared at his captors. “You’ll regret this,” he growled, in the best tough-guy voice he could muster. “You’ve ticked off the wrong ponies.”
His guards didn’t answer. He wasn’t even sure they could hear him, behind the helmets and the glowing green eyes.
He and the rest of the caravan—what was left of it, anyway—were tied up in what passed for a camp among Sombra’s army. A few makeshift barricades and patrolling soldiers was all that differentiated it from any other patch of forest.
Joe had already tested the rope binding his hooves together and found it to be quite secure. That didn’t stop him from tugging on it every now and then. An escape attempt was a terrible, probably suicidal idea, but it was still preferable to the other alternative, the one every pony had nightmares about: to be forced to fight for Sombra.
He could tell it was what the others were all thinking about by the looks in their eyes. “Hey,” he said with more bravado than he felt. “Chin up. We’ll get out of this. Rescue is surely on the way already.”
He got a few half smiles, but nopony really seemed convinced. Instead, Burning Heart sidled up to him. They’d put an inhibitor ring on her horn, but if anything she seemed more mad than scared. “First chance I get, I’m overloading this thing,” she whispered, with a flick of her head. “I’m not letting them drag me back to be enslaved. Might take a few with me, too. Be ready to run. You won’t get a better distraction.”
Joe shook his head. “No need to be so drastic, I would hope. They haven’t tried to move us yet.”
“You have a better idea?”
“Not at the moment, but—” Joe paused, ears perking up. “Did you hear that?”
A guard at the edge of the clearing raised a horn and blasted out a loud, low note that suddenly turned into a gurgle as an arrow soared out of the trees and lodged in his chest. And then a wave of ponies swooped out of the forest, and pandemonium broke out.
Joe spun, and bucked as hard as he could. Even with his back legs hobbled together, it was enough to lay the nearest Crystal Empire soldier out cold. “Get these off me!” he hissed at Burning Heart, and she wasted no time in tearing into the ropes with her teeth.
“Joe!” a voice called through the fray, and suddenly Soarin was there, in full Wonderbolt colors. “Thank Celestia, you’re all right.”
“Not yet I ain’t, but good to see you too. You got something for her horn?”
Soarin nodded, took out a heavy knife, and after a moment of prying, broke the lock on Burning Heart’s inhibitor. She wasted no time in running into the fray, her horn a blaze of fire.
“She’ll be fine,” Joe noted, before waving a hoof at the knife. “You got one of those for me? Soarin?”
Instead of answering, Soarin stepped forward and kissed him. It was forceful, desperate, but over too soon. “Sorry,” Soarin whispered. “I should have done that a long time ago, and I was afraid I was going to lose my chance.”
Joe took a moment to remember how to breathe. Finally he managed, “Oh. Well, I guess we’d better get out of this scrape alive, then.”
Soarin gave him the knife with a smile. “That sounds like a fantastic idea.”
