Chapter Two: Spread Thin

From the Journal of Maple Sugar: 05 May 1012

Just got to my unit assignment, and I have to say that it’s been the single most terrifying experience of my life.

I guess to clear things up if somepony that isn’t me reads this in the future: I volunteered for service, so I was assigned to a special unit. Apparently volunteers are such a minority that they get pushed into the ‘special’ assignments first. The unit I was assigned to is 3rd Battalion, 4th Mountain Regiment. Part of the Mountaineers’ Corps.

On to the terrifying part. I met them at Mead Lake after the retreat from Tall Tale, and the unit was absolutely decimated. The ponies looked utterly exhausted. They were missing gear and many of them didn’t pay mind to us new recruits that were set to replace the ponies who they’d lost.

On a positive note, I was kept on a team with two of the ponies I met in mountaineering training in Canterlot.

Masterful Stroke is an artist from Baltimare. She volunteered because of the offered hazard pay for volunteers to these special units. Incentive to go to dangerous assignments and what not. She had some debt from her art schooling days she wanted to pay off, and since it was either volunteer or wait to get conscripted, she said she’d rather just take the risk than live in squalor and fear of the war finding her.

She was pretty dour at the start of training. She used to be kind of a defeatist, but over the couple months we were in Canterlot I think her confidence went up a bit. She’s a pretty good climber, better than I am for sure, but she’s small and can’t shoot too well.

The other pony I know on my team is Spirited Inferno. She’s always been basically the opposite of how Stroke started out. Quite the energetic and optimistic one, who volunteered because she was feeling patriotic and wanted to win the war against the ‘evil bugs’. She came from Canterlot, so I think she’s had a dislike of them ever since the first invasion when she was a filly. She’s a much better shot than Stroke, but I dare say she’s going to have to be attached at the hip to somepony when she’s climbing. Still, a very pleasant mare.

I didn’t know much about our team leader when we got here. We’d been told his name was Warrant Officer First Class Soft Landing. Old school soldier from even before the first Changeling invasion of Canterlot all those years ago. Apparently he’s one of the better known climbers in the Corps, so he sounds like the rather… Ideal soldier in the context of a mountaineer.

We met him, and he’s… Not what I expected. First thing, he definitely sounded more intimidating than he looks. He’s short, almost a full head shorter than me standing at about the height of Inferno. He sounds like what city ponies like us imagine when they hear about a country farm pony, especially the accent. Comes from a large family in southern Equestria, with a twin sister and eight younger siblings. Enlisted at sixteen almost twenty years ago since the pay of a Royal Guard back in the day was better than a farmhoof.

He’s also… Well, we knew he was pretty old, but come to find out he looks closer to my dad’s age than mine. He’s got some grey coming into his mane, though I’d bet it’s from the stress of fighting less than his age. He was really nice to us too, brought the three of us into the tent he’d been occupying alone and told us to make ourselves at home. We introduced ourselves to him, and him to us, and then he just started going on like we’d always been there.

All in all, today has been a mixed bag for our first day. There’s the omnipresent dread that we’ll have to fight the Changelings soon, but I definitely expected our team leader to be much scarier and harsher than he was.

I guess we’ll see how it pans out. We were just told that we’ll be moving off to dig into the pass between the Ruby Mountains and Twilight Range. Changelings are rolling into the heartland apparently, so we have to make sure they don’t come spilling through the mountains too.

09 December, 1015

After twenty minutes of trekking through the snowstorm atop the rocky glacial slope of Dragon Mountain, the pair of ponies spotted their first sign of life on the slope. Soft stopped Sugar, and motioned for him to stay low to the ground as he motioned to a dim light moving in the darkness somewhat closeby. The sniper motioned to his partner that he should stay put, tapping the younger pony’s weapon to indicate that he should be ready for anything.

Sugar dropped to his belly, raising his weapon to track the movements of the light while his friend set off into the storm. The white clad pony began to fade from view quickly as he got deeper into the snowstorm. The only signs of where he’d gone were some rapidly fading hoof prints in the shallow powder and the line that tethered the pair that he could follow if worse came to worst.

Visibility was shot. What would normally be a relatively wide open space on the side of the mountain hemmed in by dark rock formations was now a small bubble of stark white surroundings that ended not with the defined barriers of the mountain but instead the dark uncertainty of the night.

After a few seconds of futilely trying to track the line as it moved in the snow, the light began to behave erratically before it disappeared entirely a moment later. About a minute later, Sugar noticed Soft coming out of the snowstorm. The smaller pony had a streak of green blood smeared across his right sleeve where he had likely stomped the bug to death.

Soft took a moment to wind in some of the tether onto his belt while Sugar stood back up from the snow. After a quick check of their equipment, the two set off once more. It had become somewhat routine to sneak through the enemy’s lines in the night like this, which was made much easier by the heavy weather that made visibility nearly zero.

The pair of ponies proceeded, and after a couple hundred meters of harrowingly slow progress through the relatively even ground of the snow-blanketed ice sheet they found themselves pressed up against a jagged outcropping of rocks. The particular set of rocks appeared to hang over them slightly and give them slight reprieve from the worst of the wind and snowfall.

After creeping to the edge of the rocks somewhat downslope, Soft peeked around the corner into a much more open tract of land. The older pony moved back into cover after he had surveyed the area, leaning over just beside Sugar’s face to speak over the weather. “Alright, the worst part is coming Sugar. Can’t see nothin’ out there, so we’re going to have to be ready for a scrap.”

Soft referred to the tract of land that made up the Changelings’ most used path up onto this glacial flat. It was the gentlest slope in the gap that bridged Dragon Mountain and Serpents’ Summit to the southwest. It was the Changelings’ preferred ascent because it was perfect for hauling heavier equipment to their trenches as well as being in defilade from the Equestrian guns at Fire Base Griffon higher on the mountain.

Sugar nodded in response to the officer before following the earth pony back into the storm as they did their best to hurry across the open ground. Sugar’s head scanned quickly across their surroundings, not spotting the faintest trace of light sources on the slope that would normally indicate patrols or troops moving up the slope. They were probably delaying movement until the weather subsided, which Sugar decided was well enough since it made this already awful traverse somewhat less stressful.

The pair moved as quickly as the snow and their tired bodies would allow. Sugar’s heart hammered in his chest as they ran, and after he began to feel as though they were making good progress he was yanked to a halt by Soft. The older pony frantically motioned for him to get down into the snow as Sugar’s eyes caught sight of what his partner had noticed.

Through the storm, a flickering light was beginning to become visible through the darkness. It was rapidly followed by more lights as the pegasus ducked into the snow with his partner. The snow here was only a couple dozen centimeters deep, which was enough to give reasonable cover but not nearly enough to cover their entire forms. Sugar’s goggles-covered eyes peeked out from the snow to track the lights as they began to come closer and closer.

The pony’s heart hammered in his ears as the lights began to get near enough to make out the uniformed figures of Changelings trudging through the snow. The dark uniforms of the Changelings were quite good at making them hard to see in the night, though their white helmets caught the light of the lanterns that they carried quite well. Sugar struggled to stave off the unavoidable feeling of creeping panic he felt approaching, the fact that he didn’t have his weapon ready for a fight not helping matters much.

Just as it seemed as though the bugs might get close enough to step on the ponies, the leader turned them back in the other direction to avoid the steeper parts of the slope. Sugar’s body began to shake as the bugs turned away without noticing at all, but he didn’t move a muscle as the bugs’ light faded into the darkness once more.

It was some ten minutes before Soft gave a tug on the line, indicating that the two should carry on once more. Neither stallion dared speak for the moment, the fear of the moment gone and both eager to get as far away from that particular spot as quickly as possible.

Translated From the Post-War Interview of Nepidae About His Time in the Ruby Mountains: 05 January 1044

Interviewer: “You were a part of the Fifth Mountain Division during your service, correct?”

Nepidae: “That is correct. I served with the Mountaineers from the end of 1014 until the end of the war.”

Interviewer: “This means that you were present for the Ruby Mountains campaign then. Is there anything you can tell us about this part of the war?”

Nepidae: “I distinctly remember that the first year was brutal, just like on the ground everywhere else. As we pushed the ponies up the slopes of the mountains, things began to go wrong almost immediately. Our lack of high ground meant we could be bombarded with impunity, so we suffered greatly getting onto the slopes. We were attacking the north face at this point, which was the most heavily defended approach to the mountain.

“That campaign was much less… Urgent. We fought for a year in the mountains in a frozen imitation of our brothers and sisters on the trench lines in the Equestrian heartland. When 1014 rolled around, they had the infantry take our places on the line and moved us to the west to take part in the offensive. We didn’t actively fight until we reached the foothills of the Ruby Mountains. Then, it was all about capturing the railroad bridges that connected our main army group and the south. Of course, by the time we’d fought our way there, they’d been smashed to pieces.

“The 24th and 39th Divisions handled the lower elevations, but were similarly not able to capture the rail tunnel we needed before it was destroyed. I was part of the group who had to dislodge the ponies from the mountains. We hoped we may be able to be done with the campaign before winter, but they had prepared their defenses well. We struggled for territory, and managed to capture a couple of the lower summits before October. All in all it was just like the rest of the war, just uphill.”

Interviewer: “That is when winter sets in at the higher elevations. Could you tell me what the fighting that winter was like?”

Nepidae: “I… Would rather not talk much about the personal aspects of it, but it was horrible. Most of the time we were trying not to freeze to death. Every night spent living in constant fear that a pony might sneak into your trench and stab you to death in your sleep.

“We went up there and tried to fight the war like an army. They were like savage beasts, willing to do anything to survive. There was a constant paranoia that one might be watching you no matter where you were. I recall one night, there was a bad storm. I was on patrol with my best friend, we were split up when I split from our route to check for a noise I thought I heard on the wind.

“When I came back, he was gone. His head smashed in by a tool when I was less than a dozen meters away. Never saw a hint of the pony who did it except a couple of hoof prints that got blown over in snow in minutes.

“It’s strange. Changelings are the ones who are supposed to be able to hide in plain sight. It’s our natural advantage, to blend in with the ponies and not have them notice a thing. It was frankly terrifying to have those tables turned on us, and have them show us absolutely no mercy. We grew up being told the ponies were pushovers not meant for war. That couldn’t be further from the truth.

“Most ‘lings developed a distinct sense of fatalism up there. All of us knew we were there only to die, and we were simply counting the days until our name was drawn from the hat. I distinctly remember feeling so empty during those times, not knowing any meaning to life but to die meaninglessly on some frozen rock in a place I didn’t care about. My best friend died, and I didn’t properly process that until well after I’d been captured.

“That’s all I really care to say about the fighting there.”

Interviewer: “Thank you so much, Nepidae. Your insights paint quite a darker picture of the conflict than we’ve heard before. Now, if you’re still willing, I’d like to move on to life as a prisoner of war…”

Once the war was over, Nepidae decided he'd be moving as far away from snow as possible. While snow wasn’t by any means an unusual occurrence back home in the hive of Gorak. Although a small hive, its position at the foot of the towering mountains of the Whitehooves meant that many a Changeling from Gorak was conscripted into the mountain battalions of the Alpenjager during the leadup to the Olenian War.

Nepidae was among the drones that had been conscripted and taught to fight in the mountains. His home was a frigid wasteland, but nothing compared to the hellscape that found its way to these towering peaks in central Equestria. During training the Whitehooves exposed him to high elevation, but they’d have never been able to prepare him for the nightmare that was the Equestrian weather.

At home, the weather was mostly a wild thing. Sure, there were little bits and pieces of magic that came from the hives but there was no fine control like in Equestria. If there was one thing that no amount of training the officers back in Vesalipolis cooked up before the war could emulate, it was the absolutely terrific weather events that occurred in Equestria when the pegasi didn’t have control.

Some of the drones were even talking of rumors that Equestria was throwing these storms at us intentionally, but certainly the ponies that Changelings had been told about all through the years wouldn’t dare to subject their own to something this cruel, right..? Then again, all the drones had been led to believe that the pony was a weak creature with no willpower to fight a war. They are soft creatures, ones who only know friendship and happiness and would crumble under the immense shock and terror of the Changeling invasion.

Yet now… Nepidae could think about nothing other than how fake it all was. How foolish they’d been to think that after Olenia, this war was a foregone conclusion. The ponies… They weren’t anything like what they’d been told. Certainly the first few months had seemed to prove the Queen’s words prophetic. The army made staggering gains, capturing Tall Tale before winter being the crowning achievement of 1011. Yet the next year, the war ground down to be a little slower, but the ‘lings still held out hope glorious victory was but a skip away.

Yet the ponies never gave up. With every day that passed, it seemed Nepidae was faced not by the caricatured creatures sold to him on propaganda reels and magazines. In the mountains of Equestria he was faced by savage beasts, no better than wild predators. Creatures who lurked just out of sight and longed for the moment that their prey let their guard down.

Two years now he’d been in the mountains, pushing ever steadily forward through the Equestrian defenses. The Unicorn Mountains had been a laughable excuse of an operation, with the disorganized ponies breaking in short order under the early offensive. There had only been mere glimpses of the monsters that would reveal themselves, but Nepidae recalled an encounter with a tan pony in the foothills outside of Woodsville during the Tall Tale Campaign. That pony had cut down several of his squad as they patrolled the forest before smashing Nep himself over the head and disappearing into the night.

Then he’d been full of fear, and when he awoke he’d been full of a mixture of terror and sorrow. He’d tried his best to bring his dying comrades back to their lines to get treated, but it was futile. He’d been hardly able to keep himself together at that time as he tried in vein to salvage some good from the situation.

That encounter was a bit reminiscent of where Nepidae stood now, looking over the body of his best friend, the only sign of the one who’d done it a few rapidly fading hoofprints in the snow.

As Meridia bled into the snow atop the glacial ice cap on the hellscape that bore the name Dragon Mountain, Nep stared down at the body. The chitin of the dead ‘ling’s head smashed in by a pony’s hoof. Nep wondered why he wasn’t shedding a tear at the sight before him, why he felt completely empty at the sight of Meridia simply gone mere minutes after having a friendly chat about their upcoming rotation off the ice caps.

Nep had stepped away for less than ten minutes to investigate a slope they’d thought the ponies might be using to sneak through the lines in the night. They’d split up so Meridia could check further down the slope, since visibility was so poor. They’d shared a laugh as they split, the thought of a warm night in the foothills so close bringing some measure of happiness to the joyless existence on the mountain.

Now, there was nothing. Not a single tangible feeling that Nepidae could find within him. After two absolutely brutal years of fighting in these Ruby Mountains for such little gain, he couldn’t find anything other than a sigh. During these years, countless friends, acquaintances and comrades had been mercilessly eaten alive by the indescribably inhospitable battlefields of the mountains. Now, after so long and so many dead, even Meridia’s death seemed like just another name on the list for Nep. A list that was rapidly approaching his own name.

That was probably the biggest tragedy of this entire ordeal to Nepidae. It felt like he was losing his connection to existence as a whole, unable to feel, unable to experience anything of meaning in life. They came here for glory, and all they’d received was meaningless death for absolutely no gain. Suffering for the sake of suffering, with no end in sight. The only thing to keep them company in this frigid wasteland are apex predators who wish nothing more than the complete eradication of Changeling kind.

Faced with all that, what meaning was there to life, but death?

From the Journal of Maple Sugar: November 05, 1015

We buried Inferno today as best we could in the snow outside. We’re all still torn up over losing her yesterday, but Soft is taking it exceptionally badly. Guy geared up this morning immediately after we said our goodbyes, ready to take off to the mountaintop without saying a word to us. We managed to set him straight and get him to wait for us before setting off from FB Griffon.

Fucked up part is that we’re not even close to done with this climb. I’m writing this from our midpoint camp, 3,684 meters above sea level. Tomorrow, we’ll finish the climb up to OP Zebra. It’s only around four hundred meters up from here, but it’s the worst climb on the mountain. I’ll be leading tomorrow, Soft is too shaken up from Inferno to put him on the lead. We’ll have to fight him over whether he should climb alone, but if we managed to get through to him today we’ll be fine.

I’m worried about him. We’re all taking it hard, she was a sister to us, but he can’t get over that it happened while she was tethered to him. To him, he let one of his little siblings die on his watch. It’s tragic that it happened to her, but it’s bad luck. We’re at war, stuck in a frozen shithole with just enough shitty supplies to survive, and he still thinks he can control everything to protect us.

Stroke and I have decided to look out for him too. Not that he’ll make it easy for us.

10 December, 1015

As midnight came and passed on the slopes of Dragon Mountain, Maple Sugar had decided that he may not ever want to experience the “Lil’ Granny” route, affectionately nicknamed by Soft for the route up to the summit of Little Granite Top that would allow them to cross a narrow ridge over to Dragon Mountain’s south face shoulder where firebase Griffon had been constructed.

Soft had told him prior to setting off on this expedition that this was the shortest route he’d found to get down from summit to the Serpents’ Gap ever since the Changelings had put guns watching the old “Big Eastern” route that they'd used earlier in the winter.

The route coming down had been decidedly easy, he’d decided some two weeks ago when they’d descended from their base at some 3,300 meters down to a more manageable altitude of 2,000 meters. It consisted mostly of just some easier rappelling down the face that didn’t seem too bad when they did it two weeks ago. Of course, Sugar wasn’t completely exhausted then, and in the darkness he didn’t get a good look back at what they’d be climbing up.

Sugar fell over onto his side in exhaustion as Soft dragged him up over the ledge of the wall onto the top of the Little Granite Top’s highest wall. The snow on the ground made quite the comfortable makeshift bed, the pegasus decided as his bare face pressed into the cold surface.. As he lay down, he kept his eyes affixed out over the beautiful early morning scenery from the 3,100 meter elevation that he and his partner now occupied. His gaze wandered out onto the horizon, where the clouds from last night’s storm carried over the Changeling occupied territories. The wind still howled as it blew up the wall and over the two ponies as they rested at the top of the climb.

The storm had passed by the mountain in the pre-dawn hours, making their ascent on the wall possible during the dim hours before sunrise. As the clouds had faded from view, a bright moonlight illuminated the wall and for a fleeting moment he imagined the frozen hellscape they occupied as beautiful. The moonlight reflected off of the icy surfaces on the wall to make the rock wall look as though it was covered in the most precious of crystals.

He almost felt as though he might get trapped into thinking the same thing as he looked down over the mountainous terrain below them. Spread far and wide were shining blankets of snow and ice penetrated by jagged dark rocks, carving intricate patterns through the white scenery below. Smaller peaks crowded around their high perch, spread around like a protective barrier that promised to protect them from the Changeling menace. Sugar sighed longingly as he saw the faintest sight of Ponydale in the distance, small tufts of smoke curling up from a cluster of trees far beyond the towering giants that were the east end of the Ruby Mountains.

Behind him, Sugar could hear the telltale scraping of Soft’s crampons tearing through the ice and grinding on stone as he pulled in their ropes and equipment and packed them away into his saddlebags, thankfully lightened as they consumed supplies during their excursion. Sugar could faintly hear the earth pony muttering to himself over his own labored breathing. Sugar groaned and turned away from the view, carefully pushing himself to his hooves and away from the edge of the rock face.

“How far is the rest camp from here? We’ve got another couple kilometers until we get to the summit, right?” Soft asked tiredly before shaking the loose snow that had blown onto his body back to where it belonged.

Soft continued his task of wrapping ropes and equipment back up into neat bundles that were easily stored away, closing up his saddlebags as he made to respond to Sugar. “It’s probably about two hundred meters further. Just gotta get around one last ledge to get there. After that, it’s a straight shot across the ridge to get over to the shoulder.” He said, securing his bags and latching them tightly. “I left a pair of carabiners on your harness for the ledge. It’s pretty sketchy, but I have protection set to clip onto it.”

Sugar was more than a bit relieved that there would be solid protection for this section of the traverse, since his body was rapidly beginning to understand how terribly exhausting almost two days of constant exertion was. “Sounds good.” Sugar panted out, hoof making its way to his jacket so he could fish around for his water. “Couldn’t come any sooner. I might actually pass out soon.”

Soft looked over with concern through his goggles, before he slung his saddlebags over his back once more and nodded. “Then let’s get you over there. It ain’t the best, but it’s out of the wind so you can get some rest there.”

Sugar nodded, and the two set out to the northeast uphill towards the summit of Little Granite Top. The sunrise was just peeking between the peaks of the Twilight Range to the east, prompting Sugar to pull his dark tinted goggles over his eyes once more to gaze out across the pass.

The Twilight range was much lower than the towering peaks of the Ruby Mountains and especially Dragon Mountain. The peaks weren’t permanently frigid as those of their western sisters, so the dormant husks of trees could be seen scattered about some of the relatively high elevations.

The lower elevations were both a blessing and a curse for the ponies fighting across the pass. In the autumn months Sugar had found himself briefly envious of the warmer temperatures, though he had quickly found that envy burned away when he witnessed the volume of artillery fire that rained down on the defensive positions on the slope. The extreme altitude of Dragon Mountain and her sister peaks made the Equestrian positions at altitude much more secure, as the Changelings could not easily draw heavier guns into range to counter the Equestrian batteries.

On the lower peaks, this was not as much of a problem. Larger volumes of heavy artillery could be drawn well within range of the peaks, and some of the bigger Changeling guns could even reach out to the peaks from beyond the smaller Equestrian guns’ ability to respond from the smaller mountains.

“Do you think they’re doing alright over there, Soft?” Sugar asked, raising his voice to speak over the wind.

“I gotta imagine it’s just like here. Ain’t a good time, but they’re holdin’ out if the artillery strikes over the last week are any indication.” The older pony said, his own head turning to look over the pass. “I heard that they was havin’ problems with avalanches because of the artillery. Lot worse than we’ve got over here. I feel for ‘em.”

“Me too. Just hope they’re keeping going better than we are.” Sugar said dismally. Things were getting close to going from bad to worse atop Dragon Mountain, and as much as he might wish their comrades across the way had it better, that was unlikely. In the last six months all the defenders had been hammered down by the Changelings, with all the defenders pushed back into the mountains. They’d blown up the railroad through the lower mountains as they’d retreated, demolishing the long bridges that weaved through the pass and collapsing several tunnels. Though they no longer had their hooves on the railroad directly, with artillery batteries and observation posts overlooking the pass, they could effectively coordinate raids and strikes on any attempts to build up replacement rails.

Holding in the mountains had proven to be even more brutal than holding the trenches and forts of the lower elevations. Though the terrain was much more treacherous and heavy equipment was effectively non-existent, the Changelings didn’t let that stop them from keeping up their brutal offensives. The cold also proved to be an extreme obstacle to survival as well, with numerous ponies falling victim to disease and hypothermia.

“We got the ledge comin’ up, watch your step. Keep an eye out for loose stone.” Soft said, breaking Sugar out of his rather depressing chain of thought. The two ponies had moved from ice and snow underhoof to much more solid stone during his musings.

While the stone seemed more sturdy than the ice of much of the rest of the mountain, it could be deceptive. Rock was still liable to fall away underhoof, and Sugar wouldn’t make the mistake of assuming it safe.

The two ponies continued along the rocks, the walkable ledge narrowing out severely as they continued. Soft stopped walking as the ledge narrowed out to barely wide enough for a pony to walk properly, using a hoof to take one of his two safety lines attached to his harness and clip it onto a rope that had been hammered into the wall with pitons.

“Hook up Sugar. I better not see you without a clip on the line until I pull you off the ledge.” The older pony said firmly as Sugar pulled one of the carabiners attached to his harness and secured it to the safety line.

“I got it old man, let’s get this show on the road.” He sniped back, taking his first step onto the narrow ledge to follow his partner. The feeling of walking on the ledge was terrifying, even after spending months at high altitudes hanging from walls and icy slopes. The feeling of hanging over a cliff edge without the ability to use his wings being something straight out of the worst nightmare of any pegasus. Especially because unlike climbing, looking down was just so easy.

As if to prove the point to himself, Sugar’s eyes looked to his right. His view plummeted straight down towards the steep slope that spread out beneath them. The stallion’s body shivered in fear at the feeling of leaning slightly towards a near thousand meter fall as his body pressed into the stone on his left. The stallion’s eyes fixated on the stones that dotted the mountainside below, their jagged faces dusted with snow to make them appear as some form of dark and terrifying teeth of a predator waiting to swallow him up.

A voice snapped Sugar out of his terrified staring. “Hey, eyes up. Look at me Sugar. You need to keep movin’, the faster you get over here, the faster it’ll be over.” Soft called out from the other end of the ledge. It was probably a mere twenty meters further, but the pegasus had frozen in terror some halfway across. “Come on kid, you’re fine. You got it, just one hoof in front of the other. Ain’t nothin’ to it.”

“S-Shit…” Sugar muttered, his eyes lifting up from the drop to the pony standing ahead of him. “Sorry, got a bit… C-Caught up.” He stuttered, his shaking legs forcing themselves to take a step forward. As his legs shook like leaves in the wind, he flinched as he made his first step. Despite being uneasy about what he was walking on, he continued forward slowly. After a few minutes of slow progress, and even slower transfers of his safety clips around the pitons that held the rope to the wall, he set hoof on the wider stone ground on the other side.

“I should’ve stuck closer. Sorry.” Soft said, pulling Sugar gently away from the ledge and unclipping him from the safety rope. “I forgot that the heights are worse for y’all when you can’t use your wings.” The shorter pony wrapped his coated hooves around Sugar in a brief hug, before letting him go and stepping back.

“Yeah. Thanks. Sorry, I know I shouldn’t do that. My head’s just… Not in the right place.” Sugar said slowly, stepping further from the ledge as the rock wall to his left fell away into a still steep but more gentle slope upwards. The trembling started to subside after a moment, and Sugar took a deep breath. “Not a great morning, huh? Let’s get to that camp before I really do lose it.” He said, trying to lighten the mood as Soft followed up beside him.

“Yeah. Camp’s just around the corner here, got a lil’ tent and everything to get us out of the wind for a bit.” Soft said, nudging his partner in the direction of the camp.

From the Journal of Soft Landing: 10 December, 1015

I screwed up royally today. Well, really the last few days.

I’m writing this from the Little Granny camp, Sugar’s sleeping beside me.

First thing, I let him go for almost a full two days straight during our ascent window. I didn’t time the watches right around the RAF flight window and he had to keep it going. Second thing, I fed him one of those Celestia forsaken tablets to keep him going. I know they’ve dropped them for us because they’re a last resort for energy, but damn it I don’t want to feed the kids any of that stuff.

Of course, worst thing I did was let him stay on that ledge alone. He and Stroke have been doing so well that I forgot that pegasi can get like that. As exhausted as he was, it’s no wonder panic set in like that.

If I don’t fix myself, I’m going to get them all killed. I don’t know how I’ve managed a third slip in the last month, but I can count myself lucky on this one. He’s alright, fast asleep next to me.

It’s hard not to keep treating them like my kids, especially Sugar. Kid needs the support after growing up the way he did, growing up the way he did. We’re fighting a war, but I really want to make it sure the kids make it.

Deep down I know I’m doing the wrong thing worrying about that. As a soldier anyways. As a pony, and as their friend I owe it to them to help them get through. Even if they don’t appreciate it. I really want them to be able to meet y’all sometime, I think you’d get along like peas and carrots.

Anyways, I guess I should probably say something a bit more cheerful here since it’ll be my only entry for a while.

The mission down the south face went well. Didn’t get caught, strike coordination went without a hitch. We didn’t do much proper raiding this time around, but I heard Snowbell’s team was out to raid the Changeling forward command center this week. Hopefully they had some good hunting and we can get our hooves on some coffee or something else warm soon. For all that I love the RAF, they don’t really deliver us the tastiest treats. Remember that well if any of y’all decide to marry a military pony, the Royal Navy’s got the best food.

Anyhow, high time I get going. Love y’all to bits.

Your Older Brother,
Soft Landing

Sugar had woken up from his, as Soft called it, ‘dirt nap’ right about when the sun was beginning to dip lower in the sky. They pair had taken the time to enjoy the view of the sun creeping down behind the lower peaks of the Ruby Mountains to the west before they’d slung all their gear onto their backs and began the walk back to Firebase Griffon.

The walk was, at least compared to the last couple days, relatively peaceful. A hop, skip and jump across the narrow ridge that connected the summit of Little Granite Top to the southern shoulder of Dragon Mountain. Soft was relatively subdued as he led the trek across the ridge, but Sugar was feeling rather fresh after a decent rest. This prompted the younger stallion to spend much of the trek stargazing at the clear sky. The moon was bright in the sky, which drowned out the stars just a little bit, but even so the stars were as pretty as he’d ever seen them.

All in all, the trek was mostly uneventful. Sugar had stolen some glimpses of the ice field below them, where he could still make out some of the Changeling trenches and positions in the moonlight. The sight of the enemy didn’t bring much concern to Sugar this day, the thought of returning to their small fortress in the sky and having a relatively safe couple of days off the line definitely a morale booster after the rather grueling pair of weeks on this most recent infiltration mission.

Some two hours after they’d set off, the pair of stallions finally stepped hoof on the ice and snow that made up Dragon Mountain itself. As they began to ascend the ice and rock formations that clustered at the mountainside, Sugar could see the relatively small plume of smoke that indicated FB Griffon was just within reach.

As the pair approached the top of the short climb to the base, Soft held up a hoof to stop the pair as he fished around in his uniform’s pouches for a flashlight. The pony flipped the light on and off up in the direction of the base four times, then turned it off and waited for a response.

“Bingo!” A voice called from above.

“Bango!” Soft shouted back, stashing the flashlight in a pocket.

“Come on up!” The sentry above called, prompting the two ponies to pop over the rocks and get onto the icy ground above. Sugar’s eyes were met with the sight of the welcoming ice covered concrete wall of the base, along with a machine gun pointed in his general direction from nearby. A unicorn approached the ponies, rifle slung over her back. “Let’s get the check over with so you guys can get warm.” She said, the horn poking through her white helmet glowing a soft yellow.

The two ponies were enveloped in the same yellow glow for a few moments, before it disappeared just as quickly. Sugar looked over at the machine gun as the gunner lowered his guard, and the unicorn nodded to them.

“Welcome home, guys. Take it easy while you can.” She said, motioning them to proceed towards the fort.

“Thank you kindly Goldie, stay safe out here.” Soft said with a nod, before making his way towards a relatively small tunnel entrance cut into the stone beside the machine gun. “Y’all too Breaker.” He said, nodding to the bundled up pony in the gun pit before stepping into the tunnel. Sugar didn’t say anything as he followed, but he nodded to the gunner as he passed into the dimly lit stone tunnel.

“Lieutenant Landing’s team is back. Let them in.” Sugar heard the mare’s voice speak into the telephone set in the gun pit.

Electric lights were sparsely scattered across the walls of the tunnel, their lights long since past their bright days. On the walls, the faint reflection of the light off the iced over surfaces could be seen dancing about, but Sugar paid them no mind as the pair approached a large steel door. As the pair reached the end of the tunnel, the ice that had been growing on the door cracked loudly as the door began to swing open. The dimly lit tunnel was flooded with an invitingly warm light as a shorter grey pegasus stood in the doorway.

Unlike the two heavily dressed stallions at the door, she was dressed instead in the much lighter uniform they’d used in the lower elevations. It was a light brown instead of stark white, and came with only a lighter coat.

“Welcome back guys. Good to see you in one piece.” The mare welcomed them, stepping aside to let the pair enter. Soft shook himself free of snow in the tunnel before stepping in, immediately removing the winter cap from his head and shaking out his mane after having it left in the hat for most of two weeks. The stallion’s bright blue mane was beginning to turn more white than blue to Sugar’s eyes, a sign of how the stress of the war was treating the aging pony.

As Sugar stepped in after shaking the snow off of himself, he followed suit in removing his cap and shaking out his relatively short brown mane. “Good to see you too, Stroke.” Sugar said to the grey pony, reaching up a jacketed hoof to pat the mare on her dark blue mane.

“I gotta go down to the CP for a debrief.” Soft said, undoing his overcoat and draping it around his neck. He looked rather thin to Stroke, who looked to Sugar with some concern. The green stallion shook his head, mouthing ‘later’ to her as the tan pony turned around to head to the command post.

“Don’t wait up for me y’all. Get somethin’ good to eat and catch up, I’ll meet up with y’all sometime later.” The officer said, making his way through the concrete halls of the bunker and rounding a corner out of sight of the other two.

As the older pony disappeared down the corridor, Sugar groaned and leaned against the concrete wall beside him. Stroke made to give him a hug, but the green stallion held up a hoof to keep her away. “I smell like death. At least let me throw some water on myself or something before you touch me.” He said with a chuckle.

Stroke also gave a weak laugh at his attempt to lighten the mood, shaking her head. “Fine, but you owe me.” She said, nodding her head to the side. “Let’s get down to the barracks. You look like you could use some rest. Somepony else did too, though that pony seems to lack a bit of self awareness.” Stroke rolled her eyes as she placed emphasis on the word ‘somepony’, glaring at the hall Soft had walked off down for a moment.

“You know how he’s been lately. I’m sure he’ll catch up with us later and we can tie him to a cot if needs be.” Sugar said with a sigh, standing up straight and making his way towards the stairwell towards the barracks. “So, why don’t you catch me up with what they dropped this time around. Did any good food come in the gifts this week?”

Stroke tilted her head in thought as she began to walk with Sugar, recounting going over the supplies they’d been given by the RAF on their recent supply run. “Well, there’s a lot of canned carrots and oats. Other than that, I think they blessed us with the luxury of some bread…”

From the Journal of Masterful Stroke: December 12, 1015

Soft left again today. He was back for two days, and yet he’s back to work. I swear his hair gets less blue and more white every time I see him. I know I’ve said he’s like the older brother I never had, and I think that extends to how fucking pissed off he’s made me the last month going out and ignoring our concern to take the world on his shoulders.

Sugar and Soft got back from their south face reconnaissance two days ago. Sugar looked ready to die and Soft looks like he aged another decade in the two weeks they were gone. The rotations are getting longer and breaks shorter these days. There’s hardly half of us left, and probably half that can fight anything other than a last stand in the bunkers anymore. Yet here Soft goes, ignoring his time off the rotation to head back out to OP Zenith and go hunting again.

I’m praying every day that this siege is broken soon. I don’t think we can last much longer, despite how much Soft is trying to keep spirits up.

On a brighter note, Sugar is still hanging around and he won’t leave me be. He’s still worried that I’ll make things worse even though I’m on the up and up. Of course, he won’t listen if I tell him I’m fine, but I at least appreciate the sentiment. I would be the same if it were him that got put out, and I know I just spent the last two weeks waiting by the radio for them to call in so I knew they were alright.

Hopefully I’ll be ready to go back out with them soon. I never feel comfortable letting them go it alone, even if they’ve been fine for the last two months.

Author's Note

So I hope that this isn't such an extremely offensively bad chapter. I wanted to kind of start introducing the other characters, and thanks to the advice of some reviewers I also wanted to expand the characterization of the two I've had already.

Anyhow, as always feel free to deep fry me in comments, I need all the help I can get.