Big Mac was TIRED.



It was always the same. The general callout, the mobilization, the airship or ocean going vessel ride to some Diarchal-forsaken place of mud and skeletonized trees, shell craters and barbed wire, and the whiff of toxic gas in the air from the last major attack. Leaping "over the top, lads...!" as they left the trenches to fight somepony getting a little too frisky in the stall, or Chrysalis' minions trying to move in toward Canterlot, or some other sort of insanity.



He wasn't too hopeful even when the Armistance was signed. The suits always came together in top hat and tails, striped waistcoats over portly bellies, making the big fuss over the papers. "Peace in our time," they cried, and three, four years later, the callup would come again.



And friends wouldn't come home.



He was smart, this time. Hank rode home with him in a seabag he bought at the pier, carefully disassembled and wrapped in oilcloth against the sea air. And when he got home, he carefully, just like they taught him, put Hank back together again.



Granny sent him off, frightened by the roar of the gun as it fired, splintering the used cider barrels. But that was fine. He wanted to see the world.



Not the blasted pieces of it. Lessn' somepony got frisky with him and Hank. Then, he might just have to do his own blastin'...