Ode to Our Grand Victory!
Natural Brush slowly sighed to the nearby window, with a cloud of fine mist attaching itself on the pane. Outside, a tempest was roaring. He really wasn't in the mood.
It had been a month since the "special military operation" took place. The glorious enlightened leader (tzar) of Lushyard, Gladmint Bulletin, announced his initiation of a special military operation upon a neighbouring country called Oaklane just several weeks ago. Bulletin claimed that there was terrorism worming inside Oaklane, so an "anti-terrorist operation" is needed to keep dangers at bay. Also, Bulletin addressed "the uncontrolled infestation" of the New Equestrian Treaty Organization. As such, an act of self-defence was required.
Undoubtedly, his henchponies, aka the Gramline, voiced their support to Bulletin greatly as usual. Under Bulletin's orders, the Gramline forced all news outlets to only deliver "delightful news" to the common ponies, and anypony expressing opposition would face jail time and a large sum of fine. Access to foreign news outlets and several foreign social media was blocked by Lushkomnadzor, making obtaining rational knowledge more and more difficult.
But there was a catch: to let their propaganda spread further, a large number of artists were required for things from simple sketches to complex illustrations. Some artists were even given specific tasks to complete.
Using something called "encrypted proxy", Natural Brush was able to get around state censorship. Before this whole affair, he was a freelance artist taking commissions worldwide. After Bulletin initiated the war, other countries were sanctioning Lushyard like crazy. His payment account on Hay Bale was frozen, his credit card on Fastercard was suspended. He might get his hooves on those fancy cryptocurrencies, but those had values fluctuate greatly every second.
In short, unless provide illustrations for propaganda, his living would soon become a problem. He knew better, but he had no choice.
He reeled a nearby handle, closing the curtains. Deciding it wasn't time for any illustration, he dumped himself onto the bed, letting the warmness cover him up. His snores could be heard within mere minutes.
After several hours of sleeping, he woke up groggily. Holding a hoof to his forehead, he slowly went to open the curtains up. Looking outside, he found that the tempest had stopped, leaving tiny pools of water here and there. Trees were still dripping water down.
"Vrrrrr..." As if on cue, his phone vibrated.
He slowly trotted to the phone, eyeing it with his eyelids battling each other. Upon checking the number, he picked the receiver up warily.
"Greetings, Mr Fierce Liqour."
"Greetings, Mr Natural Brush. Your last works yielded great results. I assume you are ready for another task?" The phone speaker relayed an emotionless voice.
"Umm... Yes?" He replied with a clear grimace on his face, but left his tone unchanged.
"Good. We'll be celebrating our grand victory upon the current special military operation soon. You are required to have a painting for this event finished before the end of this week."
"Can I take a break this time?"
"Mr Brush, this is an assignment, a demand, an order, not a request. If you don't finish it on time, you'll be declared treason and receive lovely labour and meals in prison. Did I make myself clear?" The temperature in this room suddenly dropped several degrees.
"... yes..." Said Natural feebly.
"I CANNOT HEAR YOU! DID I MAKE MYSELF CLEAR?!"
"YES! CRYSTAL CLEAR, SIR!" Shouted Natural.
"Good. I'll let some one meet you at the Gramline HQ." The Gramline guy hung up.
"Gestapo." Natural Brush slammed the receiver back into the groove, cursing.
So how was he going to do it? He stared at the gloomy ceiling, wanting an answer. After somepony knew for how long, an idea sneakily crept into his mind. With a brush and a palette covered in his white aura, under the gloomy glow of a nearby lamp, another piece of pure white canvas started to slowly meet its doom.
Several days later, his work was ready to be presented. Carefully covering the painting up, he lifted it out of his apartment and headed towards the heavily guarded Gramlines' HQ. "Passing by those bastards is really some achievement," he whispers to himself.
Upon reaching the HQ, a sturdy grey stallion with sunglasses could be seen outside the gate. Said stallion grabbed the painting, and lifted it on his back without a word.
They soon arrived at the city hall. The hall was already filled with ponies, waiting for the ceremony to start. The duo entered backstage, hoofing over the covered painting to Fierce Liquor.
Fierce Liquor floated the painting to the backdrop of the stage, himself standing beside a microphone. He lifted both his hooves up, standing not unlike a bipedal. One hoof grabbed the cover cloth, the other on the microphone. Clearing his throat, he spoke into the said microphone, this time surprisingly emotional.
"Fillies and gentlecolts, welcome to the celebration of the grand triumph of our leader. For this celebration, we present you our gift, 'Mr Bulletin Achieved Grand Victory on the Special Military Operation against NETO', to our greatest leader!"
With a pull on the cover, the work by Natural Brush could be seen by everypony in the hall. Instead of cheers, the hall gasped, then donned to a near-perfect silence, with occasional murmurs. A confused Fierce Liquor turned around, then took the whole painting in in surprise.
The painting portraited a bedroom with a large window in a luxurious hotel. An unknown stallion and a mare can be seen on a red bed, clearly hugging and smooching with each other, both wearing blush on their faces. The stallion has his member inside the mare, with strings of white cum leaking to the bed. Outside the bedroom, a battlefield could be seen, with corpses of troops piling around. A vivid Oaklanian flag could be clearly seen waving in the background.
Fierce Liquor turned to Natural Brush, glaring at him furiously, with some jets of smoke visible torrenting from his head.
"WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?!" He demanded.
"This is what you asked me to draw!"
"Then who is this mare?!"
"Wife of Mr Bulletin."
"This stallion?!"
"Secretary of Mr Bulletin."
"Piles of dead troops?! Which army do they belong to?"
"Our troop, from our army, sir."
"Where are NETO's troops?"
"They haven't been dispatched yet."
"Then where is our leader Mr Bulletin?!!"
"Mr Bulletin achieved victory on the special military operation against NETO."
Author's Note
Idea of this story (or if I really later released more chapters, this chapter) was sparked while I was reading a tweet retweeted by slicedlime. With some other fitting jokes in mind, I got to working.
This story brought some new characters, but they are very unlikely to be used again. Especially Natural Brush, a temporary OC based on several anti-war Russian artists I follow. I will not provide their names for obvious reasons. I want to shine light on the situation of the anti-war Russian bronies brought by some ridiculous sanctions: they didn't start it, they don't want it, but they have no power to stop it, so stop making them suffer.
Since the mentions were made easy to comprehend once you pronounce them out, I won't provide a list here. Also, the "sex" tag was added because of that smooching part. Removing that part greatly dampens the humour it brings.
As some of you may notice, Natural Brush used something called an "encrypted proxy" rather than a VPN. This is because I personally do not recommend anyone to use VPNs circumventing censorship, for various security reasons not suitable to explain here, let alone potentially allowing those pesky VPN companies to profit. Encrypted proxies like Shadowsocks, V2Ray and Trojan do exist in real life, and they are specifically designed to counter state censorship. Raising awareness to these programs are kind of a side effect.
Huge thanks to everyone gave proofreads to this short story! (Names are redacted for privacy)