“So, uh, yeah, I guess that’s it for the tour, really!” Sunburst said, standing awkwardly in the open doorway. “Once again, it’s truly an honor to have you both as visiting lecturers for this week, and I’m so sorry that we couldn’t get you separate rooms! With all the new boarding students, and this being so last-minute, we only had a single one to spare.”
Flash Magnus barked a laugh. “Ha, I once spent six moons living in a ditch dug into the side of a mountain with forty other stallions!” With the elbow of a foreleg, he poked the side of the enormous stallion standing next to him.” A week sleeping in the same room with my good buddy Rockhoof here sounds like a dream compared to that!”
Sunburst laughed nervously. “Hahaha yeah, that would be a dream, wouldn’t it?” he blurted out, before quickly continuing, “I mean, I”m sure you two have a lot of catching up to do, so I should really get off to do some Vice Headmare business! I mean, so uh, bye, then!”
Sunburst nodded to Flash and gave Rockhoof the briefest of eye contact-avoiding glances before trotting off in a way that was obviously trying to seem more in a hurry than he actually was.
Flash and Rockhoof looked at each other for a moment in silence, their faces still. With a mutual understanding, Flash reached out with a hoof and swung the door closed. A split-second after it shut, they both burst into the widest of smiles.
“Ah, ain’t you a sight for sore eyes! C’mhere!”
Rockhoof opened his forelegs wide and wrapped them around the pegasus, who embraced him in return, both squeezing tight before letting each other go, and sizing each other up.
“Ah, the lad was right, we do have a lot of catching up to do! Look at you! Adapting to modern pony ways well, I see!”
Flash laughed uproariously at that. “Ah, yeah, I guess it would seem that way!”
Indeed, in the modern fashion, Flash Magnus was naked from nose to tail, no longer wearing any of the armor he had returned from Limbo with, save for the polished silver greave that he still wore on his left hoof. He flashed Rockhoof a smile.
“And you look just the same as you ever did!”
“Aye,” Rockhoof agreed, looking down at the tunic and hoofwraps that he'd always worn since he was a colt. “Naepony’s worn the clothing of the islands for centuries. I cannae very well let it die out.”
Flash lifted the greave on his left hoof with a sad smile. “I understand that.”
Their eyes met for a split-second before Magnus turned away.
“You know, that Sunburst is sweet on you, you know.”
Rockhoof raised an eyebrow at him.
“Hmm? The lad?”
“Yeah! You didn’t notice?”
Rockhoof shook his head. “Nae, not really. He’s far too much of a wee’un for me tae even be noticin’ such things.“
Flash barked a laugh. “How old do you think he is? You know that he’s second-in-command of this entire school, right? He’s thirty-five years old!”
Rockhoof raised both eyebrows. “Really? The lad’s so fresh-faced and has such an innocent air about him, that’s hard tae believe!” He shook his head. “But that does make sense. Modern ponies seem so much younger than they oughtae be.”
They do, don’t they?” Magnus smiled. “But still, you should think about it! Looks like he’s been pining after you for a while.“
Rockhoof looked deep in thought for a few moments, before resolutely shaking his head.
“Nae, I cannae imagine it. The idea don’t feel right.”
“Yeah, I’d bet.” Magnus gave him a look of understanding. “You left someone behind when we all went into Limbo, didn’t you?”
Rockhoof blinked at him. “Dinnae we all?”
“Yeah, but you know what I mean! I mean, we never really talked about that kind of thing, even with everything we shared with each other over the years.”
Rockhoof considered this.
“Aye, you’re right, I suppose we never did.” A pause. “An’ I dinnae if I want to start talkin’ about that right now.”
“Ah, you don’t have to, Rockhoof! I mean, I’m the one who brought it up.” Magnus sighed. “I… I left the Royal Guard.”
“What?” Rockhoof frowned. “You seemed right at home there the last time I saw ye!”
“Oh, I tried to be, I really did! ‘Once a soldier, always a soldier’, right?” Magnus flashed that cocky smile. “But, well, it didn’t turn out that way, and, that’s why I’m here! Trying to find something else to do with my life, and I figured I’d start with where you found yours. I… I never told you much about the Royal Legion, right? I mean, I talked about it to you and the other Pillars, but in the way I would to any other civilian.”
Rockhoof shook his head. “I dinnae think I understand. What could be so different between the two? Even your uniforms were practically the same!”
“Well, it was pretty obvious from the beginning that things were different, when I saw that mares and stallions were serving on the same units.”
Rockhoof puzzled. “That dinnae seem so strange ta me. The Mighty Helm always had both.“
“The Mighty Helm was a defensive unit. Just like the Royal Guard is. It’s a job. You do it, and then you go home to your family. But the Royal Legion wasn’t like that! We were an expeditionary force! Sent to faraway lands to spend entire moons on campaign and in the field. And you did it all with your echelon, the same unit of thirty to fifty stallions, instead of getting assigned to this unit and that like you do today. Can you imagine that? Twenty years of seeing the same stallions, day in and day out, marching and living and fighting together? Knowing each other to the deepest depths, trusting each other with our very lives? Can you imagine what kind of bond that forms?”
Rockhoof shook his head. “I suppose I cannae.”
“We called each other brothers. Brothers of battle, because we were like family, you know? But we were so much more than that.”
Magnus held up the greave covering his left hoof.
“This was what marked a new legionnaire after passing his initiation. From then on, he was to keep it on at all times, when marching, flying, or fighting. He could only ever take it off when his echelon made camp in the evening, because that was the only time he was ever truly home, resting among his brothers.”
He stared at his hoof, tears forming in his eyes.
“I loved them, Rockhoof. We all loved each other. Because that’s what it took to get through those cold nights and uncertain futures. That was the trade we made. That was what it took to go off to faraway lands to die for Equestria! We risked and sacrificed our blood and lives, and in return we got a kind of love that could only exist in that place that melds the passions of life and death. A love that knew the very bodies that each of our lives depended upon. A love that knew how to properly mourn the ones we lost.”
Magnus’s breath hitched.
“And it’s great that the ponies of today live in a time of peace where they no longer need such things. But I can’t help but think that we lost something beautiful along the way.”
Rockhoof looked at him and smiled, an understanding sadness in his eyes..He reached out with a massive hoof, and gently touched it to the surface of the greave.
“Travelin’ tae faraway lands tae fight for Equestria, trustin’ each other with our very lives. Don’t that sound familiar now?”
Magnus blinked away his tears with a soft smile of his own, looking into Rockhoof’s eyes. “It does a bit, doesn’t it?”
“Yea,” Rockhoof agreed. And gently, ever so gently, he pushed up against the greave, slowly peeling it off of Magnus’s hoof until it fell, clattering, onto the ground.
Magnus’s hoof was exposed.
Rockhoof touched his own to it, nail against nail, the flesh of their frogs feeling each other.
Their eyes met, holding each other’s gazes for a few silent, fascinated moments, seeing in each other the shared sorrow for a long-lost world.
And their lips met as they mourned it together.
