Fires in Severyanaby The CheeserChaptersAn unfortunate, yet expected redeploymentUnderwayThe little town of MarepolisAn unfortunate, yet expected redeployment“There is a crackle of thunder as shivering soldiers stood in a line. Around them, other soldiers chatted happily as they waited for breakfast, their officers not worrying about strict regulations. But, for the unfortunate fools of the 6th company, they were under the command of Captain Verbose Maxim: a stalwart unicorn stallion with a blue coat and a dark purple mane, demanding the utmost taciturn composure. He is the one we shall be following in this story. As his troops shivered, a moderate drizzle began, and Maxim did not take this chance for granted. As other companies were called inside for breakfast, he began to speak loudly, “Soldiers, do you see your compatriots around you?” His soldiers resisted the urge to look around, fearing punishment. “Good, good,” Maxim said, with a small smile upon his face. “Your indolent compatriots enjoy a lax military career—” Before he could finish, he was interrupted by a Colonel, who was clad in a well-maintained work uniform. “Maxim, may I have you for a moment?” he said in a stern voice that didn’t really mean “May I?” “Yes, sir,” Maxim replied, quickly trotting over to the higher-ranked officer. Once he was a little ways from his troops, the Colonel began, in a Canterlotian accent, “Verbose, you mustn’t put down the other rank-and-file soldiers! I have told you before and I shan’t tell you again!” “But sir—” Maxim tried to chime in, but he was interrupted. “I find it quite humorous, Verbose, that you emphasize all of this ‘proper military conduct’ yet you yourself cannot even follow a simple damn order! If I see you mistreating your troops, or putting down other companies again, I will penalize you,” the Colonel stated. As these words were said, out of eyesight, a Corporal slyly smiled, happy to see the worst upon the hated Captain. All Maxim could do was lower his head and say, “Yes, sir.” The Colonel puffed, “Good, now get out of my sight!” Maxim dashed back to his troops before he commanded them to stand at rest. When he looked back at the Colonel, he was met with a fiery gaze. Maxim sighed and stated, “Soldiers, form a single-file line for breakfast, fall out!” They didn’t respond, since they knew they were in the presence of Colonel Neighers; they began to casually chat and walk to breakfast, showing every chance to display malevolence towards their hated superior. As the troops entered the chow-hall, Maxim remained outside. He could’ve gone in, but he was still fuming at his chastisement from the Colonel. He stomped at a newly formed puddle, splashing dirty water onto his once-clean uniform, which made him feel a little better, albeit not much. All he wanted was simple: soldiers that were well trained, devoted to their service, and most importantly, healthy. Everypony in the Vanhoover garrison had seemed to put on a few pounds since arriving. Maxim avoided that fate by working out with the little equipment he had, his own body-weight. The rain began to pick up, and the thunder started crackling increasingly. Maxim sighed, “I suppose I should eat something,” he said. His old, worn uniform was already becoming quite wet from the rainfall. Ever since he had become known for his... ‘behavior,’ he had a rather hard time acquiring anything more than a needle and a thread, sometimes not even the right thread! (On his left flank of his green uniform was a red patch.) Maxim entered from the pouring rain into the canteen, nearly soaked. The rain made him feel much, much better. He had a preference for harsh conditions, and the weather in Vanhoover during the spring could certainly be called harsh. The chow-hall was already quickly settling down, as most soldiers and officers had already begun eating. As Maxim quickly walked up to the chow-line, he examined the trays that other ponies had gotten. For the enlisted, he saw a rather tasteless-looking gruel, with some fresh vegetables and fruit. But for the officers, he beheld the pie and savory pastries, but he also saw more common vegetables as well, usually with a cup of steaming tea beside it. For Maxim, his remaining choices were an apple, some remaining stew, and a couple of older vegetables, which were the last pick left. He grabbed what he could fit onto his tray and found himself a seat in a more secluded part of the chow-hall. Although at this time, “secluded” meant only a chair or two away from another pony. As he enjoyed his rather pitiful meal, an admin officer, named Fleeting Pen, with whom he had been rather amicable, trotted up to him. “Maxim, may I talk to you?” “Sure,” he replied, motioning to the seat in front of him. The officer sat down and pulled out a letter from his saddlebag. “I got this earlier this morning, it’s from higher-up, and I figured I’d take it directly to you.” Maxim grew worried, “Am I being dismissed?” “I don’t know, but I figure we shall find out!” Pen responded in a worried voice, yet with a hint of exhilaration. Maxim quickly opened the letter and stared quite intensely at the small letters, but to no avail. He shyly looked up with a quaint smile, “Can you read this for me? The letters are too small…” “You still can’t read well?” Pen worriedly asked. “I have no time! I am too busy commanding troops or pushing paperwork,” Maxim responded. "I know, but you cannot just put these things off forever. If you ever…” Pen halted his speech as he read the letter. “What is it?” Maxim questioned, but he got no answer. So he asked again, in a much harsher and commanding tone, “What is it!?” After another few tense moments, Pen responded: “You’re being transferred to the Princessyn Garrison in Severyana and promoted to Colonel. You need to be in Severyana in two weeks,” he stammered out. Maxim gasped in shock, “What? Why?” To this, Pen looked up and stared at him. “You are hated by nearly everypony here. In every garrison, you cannot help bashing heads with everyone you encounter that you might disagree with. In all honesty, now that I think about it, this shouldn’t be surprising to either of us. Most ponies really don’t like you,” he stated. Maxim sat there for a moment before replying, “Yes, I know. I don’t intend to be nice to fools,” he said crassly. Pen huffed, “You’re the fool, how can’t you see that?” and with that frustrated insult, Pen stood up and left, leaving the letter behind. This was a scene Maxim had repeated before, and would probably repeat later. To him, most ponies wanting to be his friend would usually fall out with him. At this point, he had become quite emotionless to such things. So, he simply tucked away the letter into his aged saddlebags, and went back to eating, getting a mental list prepared before packing for Severyana. Two weeks later... Tonight, he needed to meet with the XO. He would be promoted to Colonel by command of the CO. His uniform was in tip-top shape. All he had to do was not mess up the ceremony, which wouldn't be too hard. "Always good to double-check before you go," he reminded himself as he looked over his uniform. Nothing was wrong with his clothing, fortunately—well, except his tie. The standard uniform for a proper military tie was black. He preferred a green tie with his uniform, although he was swayable to a brown tie. Both of these he kept secure in a garment bag. He didn’t want them getting ruined; that would be a tragedy! Before he left, he peeked back into his garment bag. "Should I wear a different tie? I doubt hardly anypony would care," he debated in his mind. Another thought arose, "Yes, but I would notice. And that alone is too many!" "And? You don't always have to look perfect. Just look good, and nopony will care!" "It's about the principle! If I want to set a good example for my soldiers, I can't allow myself any deviation from the rules." That settled it. He was going to stick with his black tie. He needed to leave now anyway. As he walked towards the event hall, the evening sun was giving its final rays upon setting under the horizon. This little bit of light was quite useful to Maxim since Vanhoover high command had yet to schedule streetlights to be built. However, the dim lighting made him take a wrong turn or two. Once he found his way to the event hall, he made his way inside via two of the many large iron doors. He pushed open the rusted metal doors, which squeaked from age and wear. Inside, he saw only three ponies standing in the poorly lit room. “Welcome, Captain Verbose Maxim,” the XO coldly greeted him. “I could only get one pony to come, but I need two witnesses. Alright, let us get this over with.” The XO didn’t stutter. He had forged the other signature. With that, he gestured Maxim to come closer. Although he wasn’t quite sure of the situation at hoof, he nevertheless stepped towards the small group. He saw Pen, with whom he was in troubled waters, standing near the XO. When he saw Maxim, he took a step towards the XO. Maxim saw this as an intentional jest by Pen and maybe the XO as well. “Captain Verbose Maxim, by the authority given to me by Princess Celestia, I hereby promote you, under instructions of the Commanding Officer, to the rank of Colonel. Congratulations,” the XO said, hoofing him a manila folder. “What’s this?” he asked. “Open up the damn folder and you’ll find out. I’ve got more important things to do, and everypony else wants to go to bed. Understand?” asked the XO quite bitterly. "Yes, sir," Maxim spat out as he grabbed the folder and tucked it into his saddlebags before he turned around and left the building. He didn't know if he was supposed to stay or not. But nopony said anything as he was leaving. When he got out, the sun had completely fallen below the horizon, leaving him near blind, with the only light source being faint indoor lights shining outwards. "How long have I been stationed here again?" Maxim wondered as he stumbled around the dark base. "Three months, I think? That's a record," he grimly remarked. Each redeployment was happening faster and faster. "Will it take them thirty days... No... Maybe forty days to redeploy me." As he stumbled around in the darkness, since his eyes were having trouble adjusting to the low light level, he finally saw a familiar barracks. "Home at last!" he said quietly as he pushed open the front door. Within thirty minutes, he was asleep. 12 days later Maxim looked at the Vanhooverin garrison beginning to vanish in the distance as the cab he was in pulled away. All of his uniforms, documents, and gear were stowed right by him in the wagon. He felt a twinge of sadness leaving this place. The weather was miserable, the staff and enlisted hated him, and overall, he should’ve hated it, but, for whatever reason, he didn’t. “Oh well,” he thought to himself, “At least I’ve been promoted! What good that’ll do, I don’t know…” He had read up a little bit on Severyana, a region he had barely known about almost two weeks ago. It was a poverty-stricken, corrupt, and forgotten region in Equestria. This all in all wasn’t too terrible. He had been a strike-breaker, for Celestia’s sake! "If I could survive in the Manehatten coal mines as a foal, I can survive this," he remarked quietly. What did worry him, however, were the newspapers. In essence, anything about the military in the area would be called a debacle. “Where the hay are they sending me?” he murmured to himself as the mighty Vanhooverin garrison slipped under a hill. Just yesterday, he had received a letter from command that he was to meet up with a certain “Blazin Glory.” Maxim was fortunate that Pen still reluctantly read letters for him, although Pen would verbally chastise Maxim each time. Maxim pondered the name in the letter for the third time, “Blazin Glory. What a… unique name,” he muttered derisively. “What good would a pony with such a name be to me?” he asked himself curiously, "Perhaps an infantry officer?" The cart pulled into the station and stopped abruptly, shaking Maxim out of his thoughts. He grabbed his bags and hopped out. "The ride will be 5 bits, sir!" the coachstallion exclaimed, tipping his hat with a practiced flourish. Maxim grimaced at the gesture but quickly corrected his face and sternly muttered, “One moment.” Finally locating his coin pouch, he extracted the necessary five coins and hoofed them over to the coachstallion. With a nod of acknowledgment, the coachstallion trotted away to join the line of taxis awaiting passengers. After this, Maxim trotted around the train station, eventually finding the ticket booth, which was swarming with ponies. He was forced to stand in a long line. After a long 15-minute wait, he made it to the ticket booth and had his coins prepared. “One ticket to Princessyn, please,” Maxim stated. The stallion in the booth looked quite bored before he said that. “Why in Celestia’s name are you heading there? You don’t look like a merchant,” the stallion remarked, and his face immediately turned to one of immense interest. “I’m stationed there as an officer. Why would I be a merchant?” Maxim asked. “Ah, an unfortunate posting. That’ll be 40 bits,” the stallion said, ignoring his question. Maxim quickly hoofed him the bits. “Why does everypony warn me about Severyana? I’ve heard and read negative things about it, of course. But I’ve never heard anything worse than Manehattan.” Maxim was unaware of the increasingly long line forming behind him. The stallion simply replied, as he hoofed Maxim a ticket, “They aren’t Equestrian, and they still have a Duma. You can’t trust ‘em if you ask me,” he said, before nodding his head for another pony to come up. As Maxim left the line, he glanced at his ticket. “Track 4,” he mumbled, “departing at 1320... Isn’t that in 9 or 10 minutes?” He checked his hoofwatch, which read 1305. Though he had a few minutes to spare, he preferred to board the train sooner rather than later. He was slightly surprised at his own tardiness. Once he found Track 4, he trotted up to a stallion wearing a suit and asked, “Where do I board?” The stallion pointed his hoof towards an entrance not even 20 feet away. Embarrassed, he hastily boarded the train. After looking for a while, he realized his “seat” was in a private cabin. Maxim looked back down to his ticket; it didn’t say anything about this. Nor did he buy a luxury ticket. Slightly bewildered at this, he quickly opened the small door leading into the cabin. He went inside, leaving the cramped hallway behind. The room was small, only able to hold at most four ponies. But it would suffice for him. He took a seat on the left farthermost from the door, right by a cloudy window. From what he knew, this would be a one to two-day journey to the city of Princessyn. All of which, he would need to sit and probably sleep on these seats. Food wasn’t provided for free either, so at stops, he would need to grab food for the journey. He put a hoof to his face, “Why didn’t I think of bringing food in the first place?” he quietly asked himself, realizing the stupidity of his mistake. The train horn sounded as it pulled out of the station. Maxim watched outside as the bustling and fairly clean city started to sparse and then abruptly end as he finally left the outskirts of the city. It was going to be a long journey. A tiring one, too. He needed to know who this Blazin Glory fellow was. Was he going to be useful at all? Underway“Them trees pass by so swiftly. Those Manehattenites are good engineers,” he thought to himself. “I wonder what my commanding officer’s gonna be like...” A stallion, with a beige coat and an orange mane, thought to himself. He was slightly taller in stature than most ponies and had quite the messy mane. His tail was dirty as well, and his whole self desperately could use a spa day, although his uniform was in good shape. He briskly walked towards the little cabin his officer was sectioned in. He himself was only a Lieutenant First Class, barred from promotions because of his antics. Looking down the hallway, he saw the cabin. Stressing thoughts began filling his mind, “He’s gonna be like every other officer!” he murmured before quickly trotting past the cabin. He had been on the train for a while but was still too nervous to greet his new commanding officer. He needed something to relieve his stress. Nearby the caboose’s door, he saw two chairs and a little table in between. He set down his full-to-bursting saddlebags, with a ton of information some enlisted ponies had given him on the little table, and sat down. He ruffled around in his bags until his hoof caught a familiar package. “Camol Cigarettes: Built for the Bold,” it said on the front. He took out a Camol cigarette from the battered box, and he noticed he was almost out, “I’ll have to get more in Severyana,” he quietly murmured to himself, before pulling out his lighter and one of his last remaining cigarettes. He breathed in and felt the stress melt away, and, after a second or two, he breathed it out, “Aaah, nothing like a good smoke! Shoot, I can’t believe some ponies are trying to ban smoking in places. Don’t they know it’s harmless?” After a few minutes, he took his last drag of his cigarette. It was a brief moment of relief, and afterward, he felt very refreshed, ready to take on responsibilities from a Colonel. As he moved himself over to the cabin door, with his bags in tow, he breathed in and out and opened the door. Sitting there on a seat, a light blue stallion was writing abnormally large letters on some paper. He soon noticed the door open and awaited an introduction. “I’s First Lieutenant Blazin Glory,” Blazin Glory announced. “Ah… The Lieutenant sent to me by command. I hope you know more about Severyana than I do?” Maxim asked, with notable concern in his voice, as he sighed in his thoughts, "Yes, he is going to be trouble for me." “Well, unless you know less than a hound knows about hunting, probably not!” Glory exclaimed. Maxim looked rather annoyed and mockingly replied, “I do know less than ‘a hound knows about hunting,’ so please enlighten me.” Glory looked surprised but quickly sat down and pulled out a lot of maps and old documents from his saddlebags. He specifically focused on one map, which was of the region. “So, this is where we’re going,” he pointed at the city of Princessyn. “From what I’ve been told by a soldier who came from that region, Severyana is like a headless chicken. And as every pony knows, a headless chicken can’t order supplies.” Maxim tried to translate, “So, you’re telling me that the region is under-supplied?” In response, Glory laughed, “That ain’t the half of it! From these documents here,” he pulled out some dusty, hoof-written documents, “it’s easy to see that no supply wagons or convoys have been sent there since…” Glory quickly scanned one of the documents, “Aha! Here it is!” he showed Maxim the document. It was an old report documenting a shipment of goods sent to Severyana. “After 978ish, I haven’t been able to find a single document approving, or even taking count of goods sent to the Princessyn garrison, or even Severyana proper!” he said quite dismally. “What!? Are you sure?" Maxim replied with equal amounts of abasement and shock. “Well sir, that ain’t the half of it. I was poking my hoof around in an old archive full of military documents when I found this,” he pulled out a stack of papers documenting troop transfer to and from Severyana. “As you can see, ponies get shipped there, albeit in small numbers, but don’t leave. I’ve only seen five or six documented cases of ponies leaving.” “So, we’ve got ponies who’ve been there for a long time. How many do you think are past their time of enlistment?” Maxim asked. “Well sir, it’s hard to know. But my best guess would be a good portion of the garrison… err… 10%, at least,” Glory replied as he pulled out another document. “Alright, now that I’ve gone through our abysmal supply situation, now we get to go through our equally bad officer situation. That is, I can’t find any.” Maxim sat there, his mouth slightly open before he spoke, “Wh...What do you mean you can’t find any?!” his question being heard more as a statement. “Well, I went through all them transfer orders in that big ol’ stack of documents, and I can say, with near one-hundred percent confidence that all of 'em left. Here, this little paper I wrote this morning shows the officer count in 972, and the percentage of transfers outta the region.” He pushed the document forward. It was very well detailed, to the point Maxim was impressed. From what he could tell, the region in 972 ALB had around 250-300 officers, but a more precise guess could be 280~. This was enough officers for a region of that size, or maybe too many. But the important thing was below. The loss rate indicated around a 95-100% transfer of officers to different regions. Blazin Glory knew what the Colonel was thinking and said, “It’s astounding! But I figured out why.” He pulled out an old newspaper. “THE PRINCESSYN TIMES” it read on the front. “SCANDAL! EQUESTRIAN OFFICERS STEALING OUR MONEY?” The newspaper was about some money laundering scheme, stealing government funds from a group called “The Guild of Pegasi.” Maxim briefly ran his eyes over it before he looked up with a curious expression, “Is that all your evidence?” From what he understood, the weather may have gotten drier, and some ponies would be sore about it, but Maxim was confused why Glory thought this was significant. “No, Sir. In fact, I needed you to read that so I could bring out this.” One could easily tell that he had been working for some time to make a good impression. It was working. Blazin Glory proceeded to bring out a document detailing Severyanian opinion of the Equestrian Officer Corps throughout the 970s. "In the 70’s, them newspapers ignored them. Honestly, not a terrible thing. But, unfortunately, some damned Equestrians decided to ruin it all by making up some dumb scheme to steal money. After that, the local papers couldn’t get enough of our officers. Nopony likes being harassed by the locals, but you can’t blame 'em. If they’d have stopped though, I think it could’ve blown over." He continued, "Just when everything was calming down, a group of Officers made a fool of themselves at a bar, and started a bar fight. A lotta ponies got hurt, including a good few from a local militia, the “Forest Brothers” as they call themselves." Maxim interrupted, “And who are these “Forest Brothers?” he asked. “Good question, Sir! Well, them’s were the military when Severyana was an independent kingdom. Some deal with Celestia took place where they got to keep their Duma and a reduced form of their military. “A bunch of Forest Brothers got hurt, but they did win the fight. They decided to spread a whole bunch of lies 'bout our troops, and the locals ate it up. After that, most locals couldn’t stand our troops, and especially not our officers, made their lives Tartarus. So, those who had the authority to leave, well, left.” Maxim listened to this with heavy interest, “This is troubling news indeed. I must ask, however, what role do these ‘Forest Brothers’ play in Severyana today?” “Well sir, they are 'posed to fight banditry, but otherwise, I have no idea. Since there’s been little exchange of documents from Equestria and the garrisons in Severyana, I just can’t get ahold of any details.” “Hmm… That’s quite troubling,” Maxim said, whilst relaxing himself. *Knock knock knock…* Somepony was at the door. Maxim was about to scoot over from the window to the door, but Blazin Glory scooted much quicker and opened the door before Maxim could even get off his seat. Outside, a mare stood with a cart full of confections. She hastily and excitedly said, “Hello folks! Is there anything I can get’cha today?” “Y’all got any coffee?” Glory asked. “Yes sir!” she said, quickly pouring a black cup of coffee. “Anything else?” She forced her voice to be more chipper than she really was. Maxim quickly spoke up, “May I have a spot of tea?” “Of course!” After the coffee was poured, she grabbed a pot full of green tea with her magic and poured it into a paper cup. “Is that all for you guys today?” she asked. Neither of them said anything for a moment, “Nope!” Glory quickly said, before shutting the door on her. They both relaxed quickly, Maxim enjoying his tea, whilst Glory gulped down his piping hot coffee. Maxim shot him a dirty look, to which, Glory replied, with a chuckle, “Sir, it’s better if ya don’t taste it!” The two sat there for some time, one with an empty cup of coffee, and the other, sipping tea. “What brought you to join the Equestrian Officer Corps?” Maxim asked, with a good bit of curiosity, yet some notes of judgment in his tone. “Well, Sir, I went to college down near Dodge City, but I figured I didn’t wanna deal with cows and apples all my life. And when I figured out they’d make ya an officer if ya went to college, even if it were for something like cow care, I joined right away!” Maxim sat there, thinking, “That’s how he became an officer...” He said aloud, “Alright, we should get onto the next piece of information. We need as much time as possible before we get to Princessyn to plan.” Blazin Glory quickly moved his cup to the other side of the table. “Where’d we leave off?” he mumbled to himself, until he remembered and quickly pulled out a manila folder. “I am happy to say that our history lesson is over, and it is finally time to talk about the present.” Maxim shifted in his seat, preparing for the next onslaught of information. Blazin Glory put away the papers covering most of the table back into his saddlebags, before pulling out a few pages from the manila folder, along with a detailed map of the region. “Sir, I gotta warn ya, all of these are guesses at best, but it's all I could find,” he warned him. “Now, we should start on our supply situation. It’s utter cow shit. No pun intended. The army hasn’t sent a single gun there. I can only guess we’re running an extreme supply deficit. The worst thing is, we've got no idea how bad it is.” “That is an issue we’ll have to solve when we get there,” Maxim commented. “Sure is, sir. Now, onto our next problem.” “Hold on, Glory, I have to ask, is there anything but problems?” Maxim abruptly interrupted. Glory looked at his Colonel awkwardly, “Uh… No. If we did, I would've already said it.” Maxim sighed in great disappointment, “Continue on then.” “Alright sir. I will summarize what I know. Until now, there has been no contact from the Equestrian army to our garrisons in Princessyn. To the north, the Griffimsk naval garrison has been requesting resupply for years and has alerted command of a bandit issue. That’s probably why we can’t get any messages from Princessyn.” He continued, “To the south, there’s the other naval garrison of Petershoof. From what I’ve read, it ain’t doin too hot either, and I suspect it’ll be as bad as Princessyn. Further south, there was a detachment of soldiers stationed in Krupochinko to fight the bandits, but they were transferred to Manehattan.” Although Glory tried to say “Krupochinko” correctly, it was quite obvious to both of them that he wouldn’t be able to say any of these names correctly. “Did the army just abandon the city?” Maxim asked in some amazement. “No sir, instead they stationed half a company of Royal Guards there,” Glory replied. “You mean the ponies who still use halberds? They sent them to fight bandits?” Maxim said with abasement. “Yes sir. And they ain’t doin too terribly. That’s the whole reason this train can run to Princessyn without gettin blown up,” Glory hastily replied, trying to defend the Royal Guard. Maxim huffed, “Well, alright then. What other garrisons must I be aware of?” “Northern Severyana is garrisoned more by the Forest Brothers. They control the garrisons of Krasivsk and Zayatsk and supposedly have a minor garrison in Stavichi to help guard the roads in the north. In the south, I’ve heard they control a few more in Muffinskoye and Taraskiy. These are to protect the railroads and roads. But from what I can tell from the reports in Petershoof and Griffimsk, they aren’t doing their job.” Maxim was extremely surprised, “Glory… Where did you find all of this information? I thought we couldn’t get anything from Severyana.” “You’re almost correct, sir. We can’t get anything from Princessyn, probably because of the bandits. But we can get information from port garrisons and some old documents I found in archives saying where troops were garrisoned in the past,” he responded. “Ah, I understand. Continue,” Maxim commanded. “Yes, sir! Alrighty, so those are all the garrisons. We are supposed to have three thousand troops, eight hundred in Griffimsk, although five hundred of them are under the Navy. We’ve got another thousand in Petershoof, with half of them being with the Navy, and finally, we have our garrison in Princessyn, which is supposed to have twelve hundred. I suspect we’ll have half of all that at best. Any questions, sir?” “Not yet,” Maxim replied. At first, Maxim quite disliked the Lieutenant for his undignified speech, but his persistence in acquiring information had already proven useful. He decided, at the very least, to chat with his Lieutenant. As the afternoon wore into the evening, the two were quite enjoying each other’s company. Maxim found Glory’s down-to-earth attitude refreshing, while Glory was glad to have an officer that cared for proper military conduct. Some time passed, with much chatting. Maxim was getting to know this “Lieutenant Blazin Glory.” He found, much to his immense surprise, that he quite liked him, even if his accent was infuriating. Finally, the chatting began to die down, as Glory glanced around, looking for a bed. Maxim chuckled a little bit, something he hadn’t done in some time, “You know, Glory, that these benches are probably the best we’ll get tonight?” “I know… I was just hopin' for maybe a bed hidin' out near the ceiling or the floor.” “Sorry to disappoint you, but that is sadly not the case, Lieutenant,” Maxim replied, as he laid a saddlebag down on the far end of his bench before laying his head down on it. At this point, there was very little light in the cabin, with the hallway light barely illuminating the space. “Sir?” “Yes, Lieutenant?” “Do ya think bandits’ll blow open a hole into this train?” Glory humored himself. Maxim let out a single laugh, “Let's hope not.” The monotonous sound of the train upon the rails slowly but surely cradled Maxim and Glory to sleep. Tomorrow, they would need to buy food for the last day of the journey. Thankfully, though, the day's briefing was finished. Author's Note Hello! Thank you so much for reading these two short chapters of my book. Hopefully next week, I'll have posted the next chapter! The little town of MarepolisMaxim stood there, behind a line of foals about his age, holding firelocks, guarding the entrance. He didn't know what to do. The large crowd of fifty or more foals slowly began to become more riotous as time went on. Some even began throwing stones. A few picked up sticks and began threatening to attack the stallions. "Please! For your sake, calm down!" Maxim cried to the crowd of angry children. The reply was quick and bitter. A pony, one he knew personally, yelled "Traitor!" as he threw a rock at him. It hit him on his temple, causing a small cut. With that, the crowd began slowly pressing forward. As they were pressed towards the entrance, Maxim yelled, "Fire a warning shot! Above the crowd!" A loud 'Bang!' went off. Many of the children backed off. It was dangerous shooting into a coal mine, but he couldn't risk having him and his fellow stallions trampled. Unfortunately, the crowd gathered itself back together quicker than Maxim thought, and they started pressing forward before his stallions could reload. One colt on the older side rushed forward and hit one of the ponies in his line of troops on the head, who quickly collapsed from the hit. In a flurry of emotions for his strike-breaker, Maxim pulled out his pistol and fired at the attacker. The bullet’s aim was true, and the colt collapsed to the floor, bleeding heavily from his neck. Maxim's hoof trembled and his pistol slackened in his hoof. He had just murdered somepony... He... He didn't want to... But he did! He had explicitly aimed at the colt. His mind started racing as guilt overcame him. He swayed heavily as he began to feel faint. One of his strike-breakers yelled, "Reloaded!" and the rest of them quickly followed. It was just in time as the ramifications of his actions began echoing throughout the crowd, who quickly grew angry and substantially more violent. Soon, the older colts had assembled and began pressing forward with makeshift clubs. Maxim had to bring himself back to reality. His stallions needed orders. But he couldn't think clearly enough to say anything helpful, and his head wouldn't stop spinning. He looked at his hoof that had held the pistol as tears fell from his eyes, "How could I kill somepony?" he murmured to himself. "Maxim!" One of them cried, "Should we fire?" they awaited his command, although they were becoming more nervous by the second. Maxim didn’t quite hear what was asked and only responded with a faint, "Yes..." a few seconds later. To his horror, a dozen firelocks fired into the crowd. Those who hadn't been struck by a bullet began screaming and fleeing down the cramped tunnels of the mine. Maxim fell onto the ground, his mind racing. He was no longer responsible for just one death. He had just ordered that at least twelve other ponies be shot. And in the terrible conditions of the mine, even if they survived, it would surely be a slow death instead. His vision began blurring, and he heard a familiar and repeating "Ca-chunk!" in the air as the world around him began to seemingly liquefy and warp... Maxim sat up in a heavy sweat, "It was just that dream again," he sighed. It took him a moment to regain his composure. He was in a train car headed towards Princessyn. He wasn't in those horrid mineshafts anymore. Taking a look around, he noted that, although the cabin was still dimly lit, the early sunrise was quickly illuminating everything. Blazin Glory hadn't noticed him wake up, either, and was peacefully snoring on the cushioned seat. Maxim sighed in relief, "Thank Celestia that he's asleep. I can't be having these nightmares near subordinate troops." He hated those memories, but he was never able to rid himself of them. Laying back down, he closed his eyes, but his mind was too active to fall asleep. All of a sudden, he remembered something Pen said earlier. Since he had little else to do, he sat back up. He didn't have any writing supplies in his bag, but Blazin Glory had a good few in his. Maxim saw that Glory wasn't resting his head on his bag, instead using a newspaper, probably the one from earlier, as a makeshift pillow. It looked somewhat comfortable. Carefully and quietly, Maxim grabbed Blazin Glory's saddlebag and took a few papers, along with a pen he found. He put the bag back into its original spot, and began looking at the newspaper, picking out words he didn't understand. Propagate Deforestation Intimidate These three words he kept writing again and again. And once he felt like he could write them proficiently, he moved onto other words. Even if he didn't understand any of them. one hour later... As Maxim was using yet another sheet of paper that he had taken from Glory, he accidentally pushed the bag back too far. It leaned hard and then fell. "Buh!" Glory exclaimed as the bag struck his chest. "Glad to see you're awake Captain," Maxim remarked, with a small grin on his face. "I ain't too glad 'bout it, but I spose I need to get up anyway," Glory unhappily responded. Maxim gazed outside. They were quickly moving through a forest. The train whizzed past the trees. All of a sudden, the trees thinned out and vanished as a lake appeared. "Well ain't that a sight!" Glory said as he looked into the glimmering lake through the window. "Yes. But it is a Tartarus to fight through," Maxim remarked. "Not everything needs to be about fighting, Sir!" You're right. But if we are unprepared for even a moment, the enemy shall take advantage of us!" Maxim responded. "...Why would that matter here on a train car, sir?" Glory looked at Maxim quizzically, with his head tilted a little bit. "It's all for planning purposes, Glory." Maxim sighed, "One lake may look like another lake. It's good to have a general plan for such things. On another subject, is there anything else I should be aware of, Glory?" Glory put a hoof to his chin, "I 'spose that ain't a bad idea... And, yeah, we're done with our briefing." "If that is the case, then we should, nay, we must get onto planning. Can you bring out that map of Severyana again?" "Yes sir!" Glory replied as he ruffled around in his saddlebags for a crumpled map, which he laid out on the table. Maxim slid himself a little closer to the map on his chair, "First, we need to make contact with our troops in the Princessyn garrison. I suspect we will face mild resistance at worst. I do hope, however, they have some sort of organization. "Second, we need to make contact with any local Forest Brother regiments and any Equestrian units that lost contact with us. Once we accomplish this, we can secure a convoy towards Equestria requesting assistance and resupply." "But what if the garrison ain't willin to cooperate?" Glory asked, "We can't just assume the best case scenario, sir." "Hm... You're right. What do you suggest then?" "Well, fer starters, we don't have the luxury of know whether or not that garrison is going ta be cooperative. Plus, we don't even know where the garrison is. We'll have to ask around. And that brings a whole other list of issues at hoof!" "You're right. We should be wary of those Severyanians. Especially since they don't trust us." Maxim replied warily, as he gazed outside once again. The lake had disappeared outside, instead, the train was passing through a dense forest. "The forests are denser up here..." Maxim noted to himself. Before Maxim or Glory could continue talking, the train brake was activated, and the train slowly screeched to a halt. Maxim took a moment to peer outside again. There sat a few wooden buildings in a large clearing. The architecture was quite unfamiliar, since it seemed whomever built this town preferred wooden structures over more traditional and sturdy brick or stone structures. Only the train station was made out of stone. He turned his head back towards Glory, "We'll need to pick up some food here," he said as he stood up and opened the cabin door. He started walking down the cramped train hallway, with Glory hastily following. As he slowly moved forward in the crowd of ponies, Maxim heard a shout, "We have thirty minutes here, so don't dawdle!" Maxim could only assume that the conductor had said this. Maxim hurried to get outside, pushing his way through the crowd, a few of which were going outside. Passing through the door, Maxim squinted his eyes against the sudden brightness. His eyes quickly adjusted to the new light. The train station was clean and orderly, something uncommon in city stations. Otherwise, it was a standard outdoor station. Outside, a small town awaited. It was the same wooden houses and shops he had seen, which sat upon old cobblestone streets. It looked like a rather pleasant place for somepony to stay for a day or two. After admiring the small town for a few seconds as he stepped off the train, Maxim began quickly trotting towards the town itself. He was strangely drawn to the town. Perhaps after his contract with the Equestrian military, he would go visit a town like this. Glory quickly moved up beside Maxim, "What’yda think we should get, sir?" "Well, depending on what they have, we'll probably just get some oats. I don't have the money for anything expensive. We can supplement our diet with grass from around here, it isn't polluted like it is in the cities." Maxim reasoned. "That ain't a bad idea. Maybe we could get some apples, though? Fer some flavor." "No, Glory. We can't. I just said-" Maxim was cut off. "I'll buy ‘em. I've got a couple of bits anyway." Glory insisted. Maxim sighed, "Fine. But you'll have to clean up any mess." "Fine with me!" Glory responded, a bit more chipper. The two eventually made it to the town market. It was simple. A few stalls outside selling goods and wares, and a general store. Walking up to one of the stalls, Maxim saw a mare selling what seemed to be a colorful rock. "What's this fer?" Glory asked curiously as he walked up to the mare. "It's a good ol' Souvenir! To remind you on your pleasant experience here!" the Mare replied in a strange accent. "And where is here exactly?" Glory asked a little impatiently. "We're in the lovely town of Marepolis! Last stop before entering Severyanian territory! These rocks are some geodes that our miners here in Marepolis extract from the soil. They're very pretty!" she exclaimed as she pointed out a purple one. Maxim stepped in, "Ma'am, no matter how... Delightful your rocks are. We simply do not have the time nor the money to afford these." "Oh! But you haven't even heard the price! They're only three bits each. A steal for such beautiful geodes!" Maxim could tell she was really trying to sell these rocks to him. "Sorry, but we're not interested." he told her, before swiftly turning away, with Glory following suit. "Oh okay! Have a lovely day!" she yelled to them as they walked towards the general store. "Thank ya fer gettin me outta that situation!" Glory exclaimed as they entered the store. "We can't afford to waste time here." Maxim dismissively replied as they entered the store. "Welcome to the Marepolis general store!" another shopmare greeted them. "Thanks. Where are the oats?" Maxim curtly replied. "They're just right over there, sir." she replied, nodding her head at a small selection of oats. As Maxim and Glory were looking over the oats, the curious shopmare, while looking at both of them, asked, "Are you Equestrian soldiers?" "Yes, we are." Maxim replied, not quite paying attention to her as he went to grab oats. "Oh! What'cha doing out here in the boonies?" She asked quizzically, "We normally don't get soldiers all the way out here! Though, I have seen a couple of Navy folk!" she rambled Maxim sighed and looked over to her, "Listen, I just want to buy some oats for my trip. Please, leave me alone." he stated firmly and with annoyance. The shopmare looked surprised and stammered out, "S-sorry sir." before she began fiddling with a pencil she had at the cash register. Maxim quickly found a cheap brand of oats hidden on the bottom shelf. He grabbed the small bag with his hoof and tossed it into his saddlebags. He walked up to the shopmare at the register. He put his oats on the table near the register, "How much is it?" Maxim asked. "That will be fifteen bits." The shopmare hesitantly replied "Did you want anything, Glory?" Maxim asked, looking back towards him. "Yes, I have it here," Glory replied, moving forward and putting his things on the counter, and looking up at the mare in a polite smile. "With the," she looked over at the new items, "Apples, salt, cigarettes and sugar, that all rings up to..." she pushed some buttons on the register, "forty-five bits." Maxim pulled out twenty bits and set them on the counter. Glory followed suit with an additional twenty-five bits. The shopmare gathered the bits and bagged their things. Once everything was bagged, Maxim picked up the bag and walked out. Glory delayed leaving for a moment, waiting until Maxim had fully left before he nervously said to the shopmare, "Sorry about him. He can be a bit of an asshole." She sighed, "It's alright. Have a good day, sir." Glory turned around, and walked outside, mumbling, "I'll have to find out some way to talk to him about that..." Glory quickly caught back up with Maxim, who was slowly jogging back to the train, but he sped up significantly when Glory started running beside him. The two ran in silence for a few moments. Looking around, Maxim counted the amount of mares compared to stallions... As the train station came into view, Maxim asked between breaths, "Are there only mares here?" Glory replied less steadily, and with a sarcastic tone, "Sir, it's called Marepolis. What did you expect? Stallions?" They ran in the quiet for a moment before Maxim gave his own reply, "When you think of Manehatten, do you think of a city made out of, or covered in manes?" "Sir, please, don't be an asshat about it." Glory snapped at him. Maxim felt quite offended, but he didn't have a response. At least not yet. And so he stayed quiet for the rest of the run. By that time, the train station was already close enough to read the clock, it was seven minutes till the train was set to depart. "Thank Celestia we made it back in time." Maxim thought to himself as he ran onto the train. Glory trailed behind, huffing and puffing as he walked onto the train. By the time the sweaty, and tired Glory had made it back to the cabin, Maxim was already sat down, reading a newspaper. Maxim was hoping that this minor jest would annoy Glory. And, from Glory's face, which was covered in a poorly masked frown, it seemed Maxim had achieved his goal. Glory uncomfortably positioned himself in the seat opposite from Maxim. It was easy to tell he was close to an outburst against his Colonel. Just before Glory was about to speak, a loud train horn sounded, interrupting his thoughts. Glory sighed and stood up abruptly as the train began moving. It was earlier than expected. He walked into the hallway and found the chair he had occupied just a day ago, where he had smoked that cigarette. He was feeling anxious and annoyed, thinking into it, he realized he hadn't smoked since the prior day. He settled into the chair and lit his lighter, quickly snatching his last cigarette from his old box. He would need to try these, "Yak!" cigarettes soon. "Built for the bold!" it said on front. Glory smiled as he lit his cigarette. He put it to his lips and breathed in, holding it for a few seconds. "Aaah" he breathed out as his stress melted away. Right after he breathed out, which turned into a short burst of coughing, which caused him to drop his cigarette onto the floor. He quickly scrambled to grab it, fortunately, it didn't leave any marks on the cold metal floor of the train. He tapped the cigarette to get off any dirt or muck that had gotten onto his smoke. As the cigarette slowly whittled down, he began to think about the inevitable clash between him and his Colonel. It made his stomach drop a little bit to think about. "It's probably a good idear to apologize." Glory thought to himself as he snuffed out his cigarette on the table and stood up, leaving the burnt cigarette behind. He slowly trotted towards the cabin door, running some lines in his head. None of the lines sounded right. "I'm sorry, sir for what I said earlier." was the best he could come up with. He opened the door, and began saying "I'm sorry fer-" but he was cut off. "Where in the blazes have you been?" Maxim asked with a shout. "Well, uh, I wus smokin and-" he was cut off again. "Does smoking take fifteen minutes?" Maxim questioned with an annoyed look upon his face. Glory blinked, "Uh... Yea, sometimes sir." he said, a bit confused. Maxim didn't respond, only looking away. It was clear that he was still annoyed from the previous interaction. "Sir... I'm sorry. I really shouldn't have talked like that to you. It was unprofessional." Glory apologized, still standing in the doorway. Maxim nodded for him to take a seat, "It's... Fine. Sit down." Maxim commanded. Glory sat down uneasily, and scooted himself towards the window, "Well sir, uh, what do we need to discuss?" "Nothing, Glory. All we need to do now is simply await our arrival to Severyana and see how much of a shitshow it really is." Maxim replied with a sigh as he gazed out the window with a bored expression, his annoyance seemingly melting away. "Yes Sir!" Glory said, as he pulled out some documents and re-read them, just to help time move along quicker. And it did help. He and Maxim sat there in silence, both working on separate projects, mostly to keep themselves occupied. The day wore on, and as evening dawned, the train neared its next stop, Krupchenko.
An unfortunate, yet expected redeployment“There is a crackle of thunder as shivering soldiers stood in a line. Around them, other soldiers chatted happily as they waited for breakfast, their officers not worrying about strict regulations. But, for the unfortunate fools of the 6th company, they were under the command of Captain Verbose Maxim: a stalwart unicorn stallion with a blue coat and a dark purple mane, demanding the utmost taciturn composure. He is the one we shall be following in this story. As his troops shivered, a moderate drizzle began, and Maxim did not take this chance for granted. As other companies were called inside for breakfast, he began to speak loudly, “Soldiers, do you see your compatriots around you?” His soldiers resisted the urge to look around, fearing punishment. “Good, good,” Maxim said, with a small smile upon his face. “Your indolent compatriots enjoy a lax military career—” Before he could finish, he was interrupted by a Colonel, who was clad in a well-maintained work uniform. “Maxim, may I have you for a moment?” he said in a stern voice that didn’t really mean “May I?” “Yes, sir,” Maxim replied, quickly trotting over to the higher-ranked officer. Once he was a little ways from his troops, the Colonel began, in a Canterlotian accent, “Verbose, you mustn’t put down the other rank-and-file soldiers! I have told you before and I shan’t tell you again!” “But sir—” Maxim tried to chime in, but he was interrupted. “I find it quite humorous, Verbose, that you emphasize all of this ‘proper military conduct’ yet you yourself cannot even follow a simple damn order! If I see you mistreating your troops, or putting down other companies again, I will penalize you,” the Colonel stated. As these words were said, out of eyesight, a Corporal slyly smiled, happy to see the worst upon the hated Captain. All Maxim could do was lower his head and say, “Yes, sir.” The Colonel puffed, “Good, now get out of my sight!” Maxim dashed back to his troops before he commanded them to stand at rest. When he looked back at the Colonel, he was met with a fiery gaze. Maxim sighed and stated, “Soldiers, form a single-file line for breakfast, fall out!” They didn’t respond, since they knew they were in the presence of Colonel Neighers; they began to casually chat and walk to breakfast, showing every chance to display malevolence towards their hated superior. As the troops entered the chow-hall, Maxim remained outside. He could’ve gone in, but he was still fuming at his chastisement from the Colonel. He stomped at a newly formed puddle, splashing dirty water onto his once-clean uniform, which made him feel a little better, albeit not much. All he wanted was simple: soldiers that were well trained, devoted to their service, and most importantly, healthy. Everypony in the Vanhoover garrison had seemed to put on a few pounds since arriving. Maxim avoided that fate by working out with the little equipment he had, his own body-weight. The rain began to pick up, and the thunder started crackling increasingly. Maxim sighed, “I suppose I should eat something,” he said. His old, worn uniform was already becoming quite wet from the rainfall. Ever since he had become known for his... ‘behavior,’ he had a rather hard time acquiring anything more than a needle and a thread, sometimes not even the right thread! (On his left flank of his green uniform was a red patch.) Maxim entered from the pouring rain into the canteen, nearly soaked. The rain made him feel much, much better. He had a preference for harsh conditions, and the weather in Vanhoover during the spring could certainly be called harsh. The chow-hall was already quickly settling down, as most soldiers and officers had already begun eating. As Maxim quickly walked up to the chow-line, he examined the trays that other ponies had gotten. For the enlisted, he saw a rather tasteless-looking gruel, with some fresh vegetables and fruit. But for the officers, he beheld the pie and savory pastries, but he also saw more common vegetables as well, usually with a cup of steaming tea beside it. For Maxim, his remaining choices were an apple, some remaining stew, and a couple of older vegetables, which were the last pick left. He grabbed what he could fit onto his tray and found himself a seat in a more secluded part of the chow-hall. Although at this time, “secluded” meant only a chair or two away from another pony. As he enjoyed his rather pitiful meal, an admin officer, named Fleeting Pen, with whom he had been rather amicable, trotted up to him. “Maxim, may I talk to you?” “Sure,” he replied, motioning to the seat in front of him. The officer sat down and pulled out a letter from his saddlebag. “I got this earlier this morning, it’s from higher-up, and I figured I’d take it directly to you.” Maxim grew worried, “Am I being dismissed?” “I don’t know, but I figure we shall find out!” Pen responded in a worried voice, yet with a hint of exhilaration. Maxim quickly opened the letter and stared quite intensely at the small letters, but to no avail. He shyly looked up with a quaint smile, “Can you read this for me? The letters are too small…” “You still can’t read well?” Pen worriedly asked. “I have no time! I am too busy commanding troops or pushing paperwork,” Maxim responded. "I know, but you cannot just put these things off forever. If you ever…” Pen halted his speech as he read the letter. “What is it?” Maxim questioned, but he got no answer. So he asked again, in a much harsher and commanding tone, “What is it!?” After another few tense moments, Pen responded: “You’re being transferred to the Princessyn Garrison in Severyana and promoted to Colonel. You need to be in Severyana in two weeks,” he stammered out. Maxim gasped in shock, “What? Why?” To this, Pen looked up and stared at him. “You are hated by nearly everypony here. In every garrison, you cannot help bashing heads with everyone you encounter that you might disagree with. In all honesty, now that I think about it, this shouldn’t be surprising to either of us. Most ponies really don’t like you,” he stated. Maxim sat there for a moment before replying, “Yes, I know. I don’t intend to be nice to fools,” he said crassly. Pen huffed, “You’re the fool, how can’t you see that?” and with that frustrated insult, Pen stood up and left, leaving the letter behind. This was a scene Maxim had repeated before, and would probably repeat later. To him, most ponies wanting to be his friend would usually fall out with him. At this point, he had become quite emotionless to such things. So, he simply tucked away the letter into his aged saddlebags, and went back to eating, getting a mental list prepared before packing for Severyana. Two weeks later... Tonight, he needed to meet with the XO. He would be promoted to Colonel by command of the CO. His uniform was in tip-top shape. All he had to do was not mess up the ceremony, which wouldn't be too hard. "Always good to double-check before you go," he reminded himself as he looked over his uniform. Nothing was wrong with his clothing, fortunately—well, except his tie. The standard uniform for a proper military tie was black. He preferred a green tie with his uniform, although he was swayable to a brown tie. Both of these he kept secure in a garment bag. He didn’t want them getting ruined; that would be a tragedy! Before he left, he peeked back into his garment bag. "Should I wear a different tie? I doubt hardly anypony would care," he debated in his mind. Another thought arose, "Yes, but I would notice. And that alone is too many!" "And? You don't always have to look perfect. Just look good, and nopony will care!" "It's about the principle! If I want to set a good example for my soldiers, I can't allow myself any deviation from the rules." That settled it. He was going to stick with his black tie. He needed to leave now anyway. As he walked towards the event hall, the evening sun was giving its final rays upon setting under the horizon. This little bit of light was quite useful to Maxim since Vanhoover high command had yet to schedule streetlights to be built. However, the dim lighting made him take a wrong turn or two. Once he found his way to the event hall, he made his way inside via two of the many large iron doors. He pushed open the rusted metal doors, which squeaked from age and wear. Inside, he saw only three ponies standing in the poorly lit room. “Welcome, Captain Verbose Maxim,” the XO coldly greeted him. “I could only get one pony to come, but I need two witnesses. Alright, let us get this over with.” The XO didn’t stutter. He had forged the other signature. With that, he gestured Maxim to come closer. Although he wasn’t quite sure of the situation at hoof, he nevertheless stepped towards the small group. He saw Pen, with whom he was in troubled waters, standing near the XO. When he saw Maxim, he took a step towards the XO. Maxim saw this as an intentional jest by Pen and maybe the XO as well. “Captain Verbose Maxim, by the authority given to me by Princess Celestia, I hereby promote you, under instructions of the Commanding Officer, to the rank of Colonel. Congratulations,” the XO said, hoofing him a manila folder. “What’s this?” he asked. “Open up the damn folder and you’ll find out. I’ve got more important things to do, and everypony else wants to go to bed. Understand?” asked the XO quite bitterly. "Yes, sir," Maxim spat out as he grabbed the folder and tucked it into his saddlebags before he turned around and left the building. He didn't know if he was supposed to stay or not. But nopony said anything as he was leaving. When he got out, the sun had completely fallen below the horizon, leaving him near blind, with the only light source being faint indoor lights shining outwards. "How long have I been stationed here again?" Maxim wondered as he stumbled around the dark base. "Three months, I think? That's a record," he grimly remarked. Each redeployment was happening faster and faster. "Will it take them thirty days... No... Maybe forty days to redeploy me." As he stumbled around in the darkness, since his eyes were having trouble adjusting to the low light level, he finally saw a familiar barracks. "Home at last!" he said quietly as he pushed open the front door. Within thirty minutes, he was asleep. 12 days later Maxim looked at the Vanhooverin garrison beginning to vanish in the distance as the cab he was in pulled away. All of his uniforms, documents, and gear were stowed right by him in the wagon. He felt a twinge of sadness leaving this place. The weather was miserable, the staff and enlisted hated him, and overall, he should’ve hated it, but, for whatever reason, he didn’t. “Oh well,” he thought to himself, “At least I’ve been promoted! What good that’ll do, I don’t know…” He had read up a little bit on Severyana, a region he had barely known about almost two weeks ago. It was a poverty-stricken, corrupt, and forgotten region in Equestria. This all in all wasn’t too terrible. He had been a strike-breaker, for Celestia’s sake! "If I could survive in the Manehatten coal mines as a foal, I can survive this," he remarked quietly. What did worry him, however, were the newspapers. In essence, anything about the military in the area would be called a debacle. “Where the hay are they sending me?” he murmured to himself as the mighty Vanhooverin garrison slipped under a hill. Just yesterday, he had received a letter from command that he was to meet up with a certain “Blazin Glory.” Maxim was fortunate that Pen still reluctantly read letters for him, although Pen would verbally chastise Maxim each time. Maxim pondered the name in the letter for the third time, “Blazin Glory. What a… unique name,” he muttered derisively. “What good would a pony with such a name be to me?” he asked himself curiously, "Perhaps an infantry officer?" The cart pulled into the station and stopped abruptly, shaking Maxim out of his thoughts. He grabbed his bags and hopped out. "The ride will be 5 bits, sir!" the coachstallion exclaimed, tipping his hat with a practiced flourish. Maxim grimaced at the gesture but quickly corrected his face and sternly muttered, “One moment.” Finally locating his coin pouch, he extracted the necessary five coins and hoofed them over to the coachstallion. With a nod of acknowledgment, the coachstallion trotted away to join the line of taxis awaiting passengers. After this, Maxim trotted around the train station, eventually finding the ticket booth, which was swarming with ponies. He was forced to stand in a long line. After a long 15-minute wait, he made it to the ticket booth and had his coins prepared. “One ticket to Princessyn, please,” Maxim stated. The stallion in the booth looked quite bored before he said that. “Why in Celestia’s name are you heading there? You don’t look like a merchant,” the stallion remarked, and his face immediately turned to one of immense interest. “I’m stationed there as an officer. Why would I be a merchant?” Maxim asked. “Ah, an unfortunate posting. That’ll be 40 bits,” the stallion said, ignoring his question. Maxim quickly hoofed him the bits. “Why does everypony warn me about Severyana? I’ve heard and read negative things about it, of course. But I’ve never heard anything worse than Manehattan.” Maxim was unaware of the increasingly long line forming behind him. The stallion simply replied, as he hoofed Maxim a ticket, “They aren’t Equestrian, and they still have a Duma. You can’t trust ‘em if you ask me,” he said, before nodding his head for another pony to come up. As Maxim left the line, he glanced at his ticket. “Track 4,” he mumbled, “departing at 1320... Isn’t that in 9 or 10 minutes?” He checked his hoofwatch, which read 1305. Though he had a few minutes to spare, he preferred to board the train sooner rather than later. He was slightly surprised at his own tardiness. Once he found Track 4, he trotted up to a stallion wearing a suit and asked, “Where do I board?” The stallion pointed his hoof towards an entrance not even 20 feet away. Embarrassed, he hastily boarded the train. After looking for a while, he realized his “seat” was in a private cabin. Maxim looked back down to his ticket; it didn’t say anything about this. Nor did he buy a luxury ticket. Slightly bewildered at this, he quickly opened the small door leading into the cabin. He went inside, leaving the cramped hallway behind. The room was small, only able to hold at most four ponies. But it would suffice for him. He took a seat on the left farthermost from the door, right by a cloudy window. From what he knew, this would be a one to two-day journey to the city of Princessyn. All of which, he would need to sit and probably sleep on these seats. Food wasn’t provided for free either, so at stops, he would need to grab food for the journey. He put a hoof to his face, “Why didn’t I think of bringing food in the first place?” he quietly asked himself, realizing the stupidity of his mistake. The train horn sounded as it pulled out of the station. Maxim watched outside as the bustling and fairly clean city started to sparse and then abruptly end as he finally left the outskirts of the city. It was going to be a long journey. A tiring one, too. He needed to know who this Blazin Glory fellow was. Was he going to be useful at all?
Underway“Them trees pass by so swiftly. Those Manehattenites are good engineers,” he thought to himself. “I wonder what my commanding officer’s gonna be like...” A stallion, with a beige coat and an orange mane, thought to himself. He was slightly taller in stature than most ponies and had quite the messy mane. His tail was dirty as well, and his whole self desperately could use a spa day, although his uniform was in good shape. He briskly walked towards the little cabin his officer was sectioned in. He himself was only a Lieutenant First Class, barred from promotions because of his antics. Looking down the hallway, he saw the cabin. Stressing thoughts began filling his mind, “He’s gonna be like every other officer!” he murmured before quickly trotting past the cabin. He had been on the train for a while but was still too nervous to greet his new commanding officer. He needed something to relieve his stress. Nearby the caboose’s door, he saw two chairs and a little table in between. He set down his full-to-bursting saddlebags, with a ton of information some enlisted ponies had given him on the little table, and sat down. He ruffled around in his bags until his hoof caught a familiar package. “Camol Cigarettes: Built for the Bold,” it said on the front. He took out a Camol cigarette from the battered box, and he noticed he was almost out, “I’ll have to get more in Severyana,” he quietly murmured to himself, before pulling out his lighter and one of his last remaining cigarettes. He breathed in and felt the stress melt away, and, after a second or two, he breathed it out, “Aaah, nothing like a good smoke! Shoot, I can’t believe some ponies are trying to ban smoking in places. Don’t they know it’s harmless?” After a few minutes, he took his last drag of his cigarette. It was a brief moment of relief, and afterward, he felt very refreshed, ready to take on responsibilities from a Colonel. As he moved himself over to the cabin door, with his bags in tow, he breathed in and out and opened the door. Sitting there on a seat, a light blue stallion was writing abnormally large letters on some paper. He soon noticed the door open and awaited an introduction. “I’s First Lieutenant Blazin Glory,” Blazin Glory announced. “Ah… The Lieutenant sent to me by command. I hope you know more about Severyana than I do?” Maxim asked, with notable concern in his voice, as he sighed in his thoughts, "Yes, he is going to be trouble for me." “Well, unless you know less than a hound knows about hunting, probably not!” Glory exclaimed. Maxim looked rather annoyed and mockingly replied, “I do know less than ‘a hound knows about hunting,’ so please enlighten me.” Glory looked surprised but quickly sat down and pulled out a lot of maps and old documents from his saddlebags. He specifically focused on one map, which was of the region. “So, this is where we’re going,” he pointed at the city of Princessyn. “From what I’ve been told by a soldier who came from that region, Severyana is like a headless chicken. And as every pony knows, a headless chicken can’t order supplies.” Maxim tried to translate, “So, you’re telling me that the region is under-supplied?” In response, Glory laughed, “That ain’t the half of it! From these documents here,” he pulled out some dusty, hoof-written documents, “it’s easy to see that no supply wagons or convoys have been sent there since…” Glory quickly scanned one of the documents, “Aha! Here it is!” he showed Maxim the document. It was an old report documenting a shipment of goods sent to Severyana. “After 978ish, I haven’t been able to find a single document approving, or even taking count of goods sent to the Princessyn garrison, or even Severyana proper!” he said quite dismally. “What!? Are you sure?" Maxim replied with equal amounts of abasement and shock. “Well sir, that ain’t the half of it. I was poking my hoof around in an old archive full of military documents when I found this,” he pulled out a stack of papers documenting troop transfer to and from Severyana. “As you can see, ponies get shipped there, albeit in small numbers, but don’t leave. I’ve only seen five or six documented cases of ponies leaving.” “So, we’ve got ponies who’ve been there for a long time. How many do you think are past their time of enlistment?” Maxim asked. “Well sir, it’s hard to know. But my best guess would be a good portion of the garrison… err… 10%, at least,” Glory replied as he pulled out another document. “Alright, now that I’ve gone through our abysmal supply situation, now we get to go through our equally bad officer situation. That is, I can’t find any.” Maxim sat there, his mouth slightly open before he spoke, “Wh...What do you mean you can’t find any?!” his question being heard more as a statement. “Well, I went through all them transfer orders in that big ol’ stack of documents, and I can say, with near one-hundred percent confidence that all of 'em left. Here, this little paper I wrote this morning shows the officer count in 972, and the percentage of transfers outta the region.” He pushed the document forward. It was very well detailed, to the point Maxim was impressed. From what he could tell, the region in 972 ALB had around 250-300 officers, but a more precise guess could be 280~. This was enough officers for a region of that size, or maybe too many. But the important thing was below. The loss rate indicated around a 95-100% transfer of officers to different regions. Blazin Glory knew what the Colonel was thinking and said, “It’s astounding! But I figured out why.” He pulled out an old newspaper. “THE PRINCESSYN TIMES” it read on the front. “SCANDAL! EQUESTRIAN OFFICERS STEALING OUR MONEY?” The newspaper was about some money laundering scheme, stealing government funds from a group called “The Guild of Pegasi.” Maxim briefly ran his eyes over it before he looked up with a curious expression, “Is that all your evidence?” From what he understood, the weather may have gotten drier, and some ponies would be sore about it, but Maxim was confused why Glory thought this was significant. “No, Sir. In fact, I needed you to read that so I could bring out this.” One could easily tell that he had been working for some time to make a good impression. It was working. Blazin Glory proceeded to bring out a document detailing Severyanian opinion of the Equestrian Officer Corps throughout the 970s. "In the 70’s, them newspapers ignored them. Honestly, not a terrible thing. But, unfortunately, some damned Equestrians decided to ruin it all by making up some dumb scheme to steal money. After that, the local papers couldn’t get enough of our officers. Nopony likes being harassed by the locals, but you can’t blame 'em. If they’d have stopped though, I think it could’ve blown over." He continued, "Just when everything was calming down, a group of Officers made a fool of themselves at a bar, and started a bar fight. A lotta ponies got hurt, including a good few from a local militia, the “Forest Brothers” as they call themselves." Maxim interrupted, “And who are these “Forest Brothers?” he asked. “Good question, Sir! Well, them’s were the military when Severyana was an independent kingdom. Some deal with Celestia took place where they got to keep their Duma and a reduced form of their military. “A bunch of Forest Brothers got hurt, but they did win the fight. They decided to spread a whole bunch of lies 'bout our troops, and the locals ate it up. After that, most locals couldn’t stand our troops, and especially not our officers, made their lives Tartarus. So, those who had the authority to leave, well, left.” Maxim listened to this with heavy interest, “This is troubling news indeed. I must ask, however, what role do these ‘Forest Brothers’ play in Severyana today?” “Well sir, they are 'posed to fight banditry, but otherwise, I have no idea. Since there’s been little exchange of documents from Equestria and the garrisons in Severyana, I just can’t get ahold of any details.” “Hmm… That’s quite troubling,” Maxim said, whilst relaxing himself. *Knock knock knock…* Somepony was at the door. Maxim was about to scoot over from the window to the door, but Blazin Glory scooted much quicker and opened the door before Maxim could even get off his seat. Outside, a mare stood with a cart full of confections. She hastily and excitedly said, “Hello folks! Is there anything I can get’cha today?” “Y’all got any coffee?” Glory asked. “Yes sir!” she said, quickly pouring a black cup of coffee. “Anything else?” She forced her voice to be more chipper than she really was. Maxim quickly spoke up, “May I have a spot of tea?” “Of course!” After the coffee was poured, she grabbed a pot full of green tea with her magic and poured it into a paper cup. “Is that all for you guys today?” she asked. Neither of them said anything for a moment, “Nope!” Glory quickly said, before shutting the door on her. They both relaxed quickly, Maxim enjoying his tea, whilst Glory gulped down his piping hot coffee. Maxim shot him a dirty look, to which, Glory replied, with a chuckle, “Sir, it’s better if ya don’t taste it!” The two sat there for some time, one with an empty cup of coffee, and the other, sipping tea. “What brought you to join the Equestrian Officer Corps?” Maxim asked, with a good bit of curiosity, yet some notes of judgment in his tone. “Well, Sir, I went to college down near Dodge City, but I figured I didn’t wanna deal with cows and apples all my life. And when I figured out they’d make ya an officer if ya went to college, even if it were for something like cow care, I joined right away!” Maxim sat there, thinking, “That’s how he became an officer...” He said aloud, “Alright, we should get onto the next piece of information. We need as much time as possible before we get to Princessyn to plan.” Blazin Glory quickly moved his cup to the other side of the table. “Where’d we leave off?” he mumbled to himself, until he remembered and quickly pulled out a manila folder. “I am happy to say that our history lesson is over, and it is finally time to talk about the present.” Maxim shifted in his seat, preparing for the next onslaught of information. Blazin Glory put away the papers covering most of the table back into his saddlebags, before pulling out a few pages from the manila folder, along with a detailed map of the region. “Sir, I gotta warn ya, all of these are guesses at best, but it's all I could find,” he warned him. “Now, we should start on our supply situation. It’s utter cow shit. No pun intended. The army hasn’t sent a single gun there. I can only guess we’re running an extreme supply deficit. The worst thing is, we've got no idea how bad it is.” “That is an issue we’ll have to solve when we get there,” Maxim commented. “Sure is, sir. Now, onto our next problem.” “Hold on, Glory, I have to ask, is there anything but problems?” Maxim abruptly interrupted. Glory looked at his Colonel awkwardly, “Uh… No. If we did, I would've already said it.” Maxim sighed in great disappointment, “Continue on then.” “Alright sir. I will summarize what I know. Until now, there has been no contact from the Equestrian army to our garrisons in Princessyn. To the north, the Griffimsk naval garrison has been requesting resupply for years and has alerted command of a bandit issue. That’s probably why we can’t get any messages from Princessyn.” He continued, “To the south, there’s the other naval garrison of Petershoof. From what I’ve read, it ain’t doin too hot either, and I suspect it’ll be as bad as Princessyn. Further south, there was a detachment of soldiers stationed in Krupochinko to fight the bandits, but they were transferred to Manehattan.” Although Glory tried to say “Krupochinko” correctly, it was quite obvious to both of them that he wouldn’t be able to say any of these names correctly. “Did the army just abandon the city?” Maxim asked in some amazement. “No sir, instead they stationed half a company of Royal Guards there,” Glory replied. “You mean the ponies who still use halberds? They sent them to fight bandits?” Maxim said with abasement. “Yes sir. And they ain’t doin too terribly. That’s the whole reason this train can run to Princessyn without gettin blown up,” Glory hastily replied, trying to defend the Royal Guard. Maxim huffed, “Well, alright then. What other garrisons must I be aware of?” “Northern Severyana is garrisoned more by the Forest Brothers. They control the garrisons of Krasivsk and Zayatsk and supposedly have a minor garrison in Stavichi to help guard the roads in the north. In the south, I’ve heard they control a few more in Muffinskoye and Taraskiy. These are to protect the railroads and roads. But from what I can tell from the reports in Petershoof and Griffimsk, they aren’t doing their job.” Maxim was extremely surprised, “Glory… Where did you find all of this information? I thought we couldn’t get anything from Severyana.” “You’re almost correct, sir. We can’t get anything from Princessyn, probably because of the bandits. But we can get information from port garrisons and some old documents I found in archives saying where troops were garrisoned in the past,” he responded. “Ah, I understand. Continue,” Maxim commanded. “Yes, sir! Alrighty, so those are all the garrisons. We are supposed to have three thousand troops, eight hundred in Griffimsk, although five hundred of them are under the Navy. We’ve got another thousand in Petershoof, with half of them being with the Navy, and finally, we have our garrison in Princessyn, which is supposed to have twelve hundred. I suspect we’ll have half of all that at best. Any questions, sir?” “Not yet,” Maxim replied. At first, Maxim quite disliked the Lieutenant for his undignified speech, but his persistence in acquiring information had already proven useful. He decided, at the very least, to chat with his Lieutenant. As the afternoon wore into the evening, the two were quite enjoying each other’s company. Maxim found Glory’s down-to-earth attitude refreshing, while Glory was glad to have an officer that cared for proper military conduct. Some time passed, with much chatting. Maxim was getting to know this “Lieutenant Blazin Glory.” He found, much to his immense surprise, that he quite liked him, even if his accent was infuriating. Finally, the chatting began to die down, as Glory glanced around, looking for a bed. Maxim chuckled a little bit, something he hadn’t done in some time, “You know, Glory, that these benches are probably the best we’ll get tonight?” “I know… I was just hopin' for maybe a bed hidin' out near the ceiling or the floor.” “Sorry to disappoint you, but that is sadly not the case, Lieutenant,” Maxim replied, as he laid a saddlebag down on the far end of his bench before laying his head down on it. At this point, there was very little light in the cabin, with the hallway light barely illuminating the space. “Sir?” “Yes, Lieutenant?” “Do ya think bandits’ll blow open a hole into this train?” Glory humored himself. Maxim let out a single laugh, “Let's hope not.” The monotonous sound of the train upon the rails slowly but surely cradled Maxim and Glory to sleep. Tomorrow, they would need to buy food for the last day of the journey. Thankfully, though, the day's briefing was finished. Author's Note Hello! Thank you so much for reading these two short chapters of my book. Hopefully next week, I'll have posted the next chapter!
The little town of MarepolisMaxim stood there, behind a line of foals about his age, holding firelocks, guarding the entrance. He didn't know what to do. The large crowd of fifty or more foals slowly began to become more riotous as time went on. Some even began throwing stones. A few picked up sticks and began threatening to attack the stallions. "Please! For your sake, calm down!" Maxim cried to the crowd of angry children. The reply was quick and bitter. A pony, one he knew personally, yelled "Traitor!" as he threw a rock at him. It hit him on his temple, causing a small cut. With that, the crowd began slowly pressing forward. As they were pressed towards the entrance, Maxim yelled, "Fire a warning shot! Above the crowd!" A loud 'Bang!' went off. Many of the children backed off. It was dangerous shooting into a coal mine, but he couldn't risk having him and his fellow stallions trampled. Unfortunately, the crowd gathered itself back together quicker than Maxim thought, and they started pressing forward before his stallions could reload. One colt on the older side rushed forward and hit one of the ponies in his line of troops on the head, who quickly collapsed from the hit. In a flurry of emotions for his strike-breaker, Maxim pulled out his pistol and fired at the attacker. The bullet’s aim was true, and the colt collapsed to the floor, bleeding heavily from his neck. Maxim's hoof trembled and his pistol slackened in his hoof. He had just murdered somepony... He... He didn't want to... But he did! He had explicitly aimed at the colt. His mind started racing as guilt overcame him. He swayed heavily as he began to feel faint. One of his strike-breakers yelled, "Reloaded!" and the rest of them quickly followed. It was just in time as the ramifications of his actions began echoing throughout the crowd, who quickly grew angry and substantially more violent. Soon, the older colts had assembled and began pressing forward with makeshift clubs. Maxim had to bring himself back to reality. His stallions needed orders. But he couldn't think clearly enough to say anything helpful, and his head wouldn't stop spinning. He looked at his hoof that had held the pistol as tears fell from his eyes, "How could I kill somepony?" he murmured to himself. "Maxim!" One of them cried, "Should we fire?" they awaited his command, although they were becoming more nervous by the second. Maxim didn’t quite hear what was asked and only responded with a faint, "Yes..." a few seconds later. To his horror, a dozen firelocks fired into the crowd. Those who hadn't been struck by a bullet began screaming and fleeing down the cramped tunnels of the mine. Maxim fell onto the ground, his mind racing. He was no longer responsible for just one death. He had just ordered that at least twelve other ponies be shot. And in the terrible conditions of the mine, even if they survived, it would surely be a slow death instead. His vision began blurring, and he heard a familiar and repeating "Ca-chunk!" in the air as the world around him began to seemingly liquefy and warp... Maxim sat up in a heavy sweat, "It was just that dream again," he sighed. It took him a moment to regain his composure. He was in a train car headed towards Princessyn. He wasn't in those horrid mineshafts anymore. Taking a look around, he noted that, although the cabin was still dimly lit, the early sunrise was quickly illuminating everything. Blazin Glory hadn't noticed him wake up, either, and was peacefully snoring on the cushioned seat. Maxim sighed in relief, "Thank Celestia that he's asleep. I can't be having these nightmares near subordinate troops." He hated those memories, but he was never able to rid himself of them. Laying back down, he closed his eyes, but his mind was too active to fall asleep. All of a sudden, he remembered something Pen said earlier. Since he had little else to do, he sat back up. He didn't have any writing supplies in his bag, but Blazin Glory had a good few in his. Maxim saw that Glory wasn't resting his head on his bag, instead using a newspaper, probably the one from earlier, as a makeshift pillow. It looked somewhat comfortable. Carefully and quietly, Maxim grabbed Blazin Glory's saddlebag and took a few papers, along with a pen he found. He put the bag back into its original spot, and began looking at the newspaper, picking out words he didn't understand. Propagate Deforestation Intimidate These three words he kept writing again and again. And once he felt like he could write them proficiently, he moved onto other words. Even if he didn't understand any of them. one hour later... As Maxim was using yet another sheet of paper that he had taken from Glory, he accidentally pushed the bag back too far. It leaned hard and then fell. "Buh!" Glory exclaimed as the bag struck his chest. "Glad to see you're awake Captain," Maxim remarked, with a small grin on his face. "I ain't too glad 'bout it, but I spose I need to get up anyway," Glory unhappily responded. Maxim gazed outside. They were quickly moving through a forest. The train whizzed past the trees. All of a sudden, the trees thinned out and vanished as a lake appeared. "Well ain't that a sight!" Glory said as he looked into the glimmering lake through the window. "Yes. But it is a Tartarus to fight through," Maxim remarked. "Not everything needs to be about fighting, Sir!" You're right. But if we are unprepared for even a moment, the enemy shall take advantage of us!" Maxim responded. "...Why would that matter here on a train car, sir?" Glory looked at Maxim quizzically, with his head tilted a little bit. "It's all for planning purposes, Glory." Maxim sighed, "One lake may look like another lake. It's good to have a general plan for such things. On another subject, is there anything else I should be aware of, Glory?" Glory put a hoof to his chin, "I 'spose that ain't a bad idea... And, yeah, we're done with our briefing." "If that is the case, then we should, nay, we must get onto planning. Can you bring out that map of Severyana again?" "Yes sir!" Glory replied as he ruffled around in his saddlebags for a crumpled map, which he laid out on the table. Maxim slid himself a little closer to the map on his chair, "First, we need to make contact with our troops in the Princessyn garrison. I suspect we will face mild resistance at worst. I do hope, however, they have some sort of organization. "Second, we need to make contact with any local Forest Brother regiments and any Equestrian units that lost contact with us. Once we accomplish this, we can secure a convoy towards Equestria requesting assistance and resupply." "But what if the garrison ain't willin to cooperate?" Glory asked, "We can't just assume the best case scenario, sir." "Hm... You're right. What do you suggest then?" "Well, fer starters, we don't have the luxury of know whether or not that garrison is going ta be cooperative. Plus, we don't even know where the garrison is. We'll have to ask around. And that brings a whole other list of issues at hoof!" "You're right. We should be wary of those Severyanians. Especially since they don't trust us." Maxim replied warily, as he gazed outside once again. The lake had disappeared outside, instead, the train was passing through a dense forest. "The forests are denser up here..." Maxim noted to himself. Before Maxim or Glory could continue talking, the train brake was activated, and the train slowly screeched to a halt. Maxim took a moment to peer outside again. There sat a few wooden buildings in a large clearing. The architecture was quite unfamiliar, since it seemed whomever built this town preferred wooden structures over more traditional and sturdy brick or stone structures. Only the train station was made out of stone. He turned his head back towards Glory, "We'll need to pick up some food here," he said as he stood up and opened the cabin door. He started walking down the cramped train hallway, with Glory hastily following. As he slowly moved forward in the crowd of ponies, Maxim heard a shout, "We have thirty minutes here, so don't dawdle!" Maxim could only assume that the conductor had said this. Maxim hurried to get outside, pushing his way through the crowd, a few of which were going outside. Passing through the door, Maxim squinted his eyes against the sudden brightness. His eyes quickly adjusted to the new light. The train station was clean and orderly, something uncommon in city stations. Otherwise, it was a standard outdoor station. Outside, a small town awaited. It was the same wooden houses and shops he had seen, which sat upon old cobblestone streets. It looked like a rather pleasant place for somepony to stay for a day or two. After admiring the small town for a few seconds as he stepped off the train, Maxim began quickly trotting towards the town itself. He was strangely drawn to the town. Perhaps after his contract with the Equestrian military, he would go visit a town like this. Glory quickly moved up beside Maxim, "What’yda think we should get, sir?" "Well, depending on what they have, we'll probably just get some oats. I don't have the money for anything expensive. We can supplement our diet with grass from around here, it isn't polluted like it is in the cities." Maxim reasoned. "That ain't a bad idea. Maybe we could get some apples, though? Fer some flavor." "No, Glory. We can't. I just said-" Maxim was cut off. "I'll buy ‘em. I've got a couple of bits anyway." Glory insisted. Maxim sighed, "Fine. But you'll have to clean up any mess." "Fine with me!" Glory responded, a bit more chipper. The two eventually made it to the town market. It was simple. A few stalls outside selling goods and wares, and a general store. Walking up to one of the stalls, Maxim saw a mare selling what seemed to be a colorful rock. "What's this fer?" Glory asked curiously as he walked up to the mare. "It's a good ol' Souvenir! To remind you on your pleasant experience here!" the Mare replied in a strange accent. "And where is here exactly?" Glory asked a little impatiently. "We're in the lovely town of Marepolis! Last stop before entering Severyanian territory! These rocks are some geodes that our miners here in Marepolis extract from the soil. They're very pretty!" she exclaimed as she pointed out a purple one. Maxim stepped in, "Ma'am, no matter how... Delightful your rocks are. We simply do not have the time nor the money to afford these." "Oh! But you haven't even heard the price! They're only three bits each. A steal for such beautiful geodes!" Maxim could tell she was really trying to sell these rocks to him. "Sorry, but we're not interested." he told her, before swiftly turning away, with Glory following suit. "Oh okay! Have a lovely day!" she yelled to them as they walked towards the general store. "Thank ya fer gettin me outta that situation!" Glory exclaimed as they entered the store. "We can't afford to waste time here." Maxim dismissively replied as they entered the store. "Welcome to the Marepolis general store!" another shopmare greeted them. "Thanks. Where are the oats?" Maxim curtly replied. "They're just right over there, sir." she replied, nodding her head at a small selection of oats. As Maxim and Glory were looking over the oats, the curious shopmare, while looking at both of them, asked, "Are you Equestrian soldiers?" "Yes, we are." Maxim replied, not quite paying attention to her as he went to grab oats. "Oh! What'cha doing out here in the boonies?" She asked quizzically, "We normally don't get soldiers all the way out here! Though, I have seen a couple of Navy folk!" she rambled Maxim sighed and looked over to her, "Listen, I just want to buy some oats for my trip. Please, leave me alone." he stated firmly and with annoyance. The shopmare looked surprised and stammered out, "S-sorry sir." before she began fiddling with a pencil she had at the cash register. Maxim quickly found a cheap brand of oats hidden on the bottom shelf. He grabbed the small bag with his hoof and tossed it into his saddlebags. He walked up to the shopmare at the register. He put his oats on the table near the register, "How much is it?" Maxim asked. "That will be fifteen bits." The shopmare hesitantly replied "Did you want anything, Glory?" Maxim asked, looking back towards him. "Yes, I have it here," Glory replied, moving forward and putting his things on the counter, and looking up at the mare in a polite smile. "With the," she looked over at the new items, "Apples, salt, cigarettes and sugar, that all rings up to..." she pushed some buttons on the register, "forty-five bits." Maxim pulled out twenty bits and set them on the counter. Glory followed suit with an additional twenty-five bits. The shopmare gathered the bits and bagged their things. Once everything was bagged, Maxim picked up the bag and walked out. Glory delayed leaving for a moment, waiting until Maxim had fully left before he nervously said to the shopmare, "Sorry about him. He can be a bit of an asshole." She sighed, "It's alright. Have a good day, sir." Glory turned around, and walked outside, mumbling, "I'll have to find out some way to talk to him about that..." Glory quickly caught back up with Maxim, who was slowly jogging back to the train, but he sped up significantly when Glory started running beside him. The two ran in silence for a few moments. Looking around, Maxim counted the amount of mares compared to stallions... As the train station came into view, Maxim asked between breaths, "Are there only mares here?" Glory replied less steadily, and with a sarcastic tone, "Sir, it's called Marepolis. What did you expect? Stallions?" They ran in the quiet for a moment before Maxim gave his own reply, "When you think of Manehatten, do you think of a city made out of, or covered in manes?" "Sir, please, don't be an asshat about it." Glory snapped at him. Maxim felt quite offended, but he didn't have a response. At least not yet. And so he stayed quiet for the rest of the run. By that time, the train station was already close enough to read the clock, it was seven minutes till the train was set to depart. "Thank Celestia we made it back in time." Maxim thought to himself as he ran onto the train. Glory trailed behind, huffing and puffing as he walked onto the train. By the time the sweaty, and tired Glory had made it back to the cabin, Maxim was already sat down, reading a newspaper. Maxim was hoping that this minor jest would annoy Glory. And, from Glory's face, which was covered in a poorly masked frown, it seemed Maxim had achieved his goal. Glory uncomfortably positioned himself in the seat opposite from Maxim. It was easy to tell he was close to an outburst against his Colonel. Just before Glory was about to speak, a loud train horn sounded, interrupting his thoughts. Glory sighed and stood up abruptly as the train began moving. It was earlier than expected. He walked into the hallway and found the chair he had occupied just a day ago, where he had smoked that cigarette. He was feeling anxious and annoyed, thinking into it, he realized he hadn't smoked since the prior day. He settled into the chair and lit his lighter, quickly snatching his last cigarette from his old box. He would need to try these, "Yak!" cigarettes soon. "Built for the bold!" it said on front. Glory smiled as he lit his cigarette. He put it to his lips and breathed in, holding it for a few seconds. "Aaah" he breathed out as his stress melted away. Right after he breathed out, which turned into a short burst of coughing, which caused him to drop his cigarette onto the floor. He quickly scrambled to grab it, fortunately, it didn't leave any marks on the cold metal floor of the train. He tapped the cigarette to get off any dirt or muck that had gotten onto his smoke. As the cigarette slowly whittled down, he began to think about the inevitable clash between him and his Colonel. It made his stomach drop a little bit to think about. "It's probably a good idear to apologize." Glory thought to himself as he snuffed out his cigarette on the table and stood up, leaving the burnt cigarette behind. He slowly trotted towards the cabin door, running some lines in his head. None of the lines sounded right. "I'm sorry, sir for what I said earlier." was the best he could come up with. He opened the door, and began saying "I'm sorry fer-" but he was cut off. "Where in the blazes have you been?" Maxim asked with a shout. "Well, uh, I wus smokin and-" he was cut off again. "Does smoking take fifteen minutes?" Maxim questioned with an annoyed look upon his face. Glory blinked, "Uh... Yea, sometimes sir." he said, a bit confused. Maxim didn't respond, only looking away. It was clear that he was still annoyed from the previous interaction. "Sir... I'm sorry. I really shouldn't have talked like that to you. It was unprofessional." Glory apologized, still standing in the doorway. Maxim nodded for him to take a seat, "It's... Fine. Sit down." Maxim commanded. Glory sat down uneasily, and scooted himself towards the window, "Well sir, uh, what do we need to discuss?" "Nothing, Glory. All we need to do now is simply await our arrival to Severyana and see how much of a shitshow it really is." Maxim replied with a sigh as he gazed out the window with a bored expression, his annoyance seemingly melting away. "Yes Sir!" Glory said, as he pulled out some documents and re-read them, just to help time move along quicker. And it did help. He and Maxim sat there in silence, both working on separate projects, mostly to keep themselves occupied. The day wore on, and as evening dawned, the train neared its next stop, Krupchenko.
