Little Lyra and You

This is War Pt: 2

Michael stood at the very top of a different hill that still had a great view but the snow wasn't like the other hill. It wasn't smooth and undisturbed but broken and moved before being covered by more snow that was pulled over  back to break up the tracks. Michael sighed looking at small tendrils of smoke that were on the other side of the greenling across the shallow valley from them.

"That are moving faster than I thought they would, how is it possible to clear three days of distance in eighteen hours, mass teleportation is terrible for unicorns so they must have some kind of booster." He whispered to himself. The idea of a magical booster could completely wreck his plans and destroy his army. And he didn't want to rely on the booster being depleted for his victory. He had thought this out to the very last detail but this was not one that he had planned on. And this anomaly could prove to be beyond catastrophic, not just for his plans and his army, but also him. He had to find a way to ensure that booster wouldn't be used in the upcoming battle.

That night in Lyra's camp

Lyra sat in the snow outside the general's tent. She had been summoned from her warm campfire to the massive tent that the general had spent the day in with his enchanted armor that kept him warm but had been to expensive for everyone in the army to have. Lyra had been waiting outside for about fifteen minutes but she was already starting to feel the nip of frost bite in her rear. She picked her rump up out of the snow and started to pace about, trying to bring some warmth back into her frozen limbs.

Though her pacing is interrupted by the snapping of a twig in the distance of the wooded area surrounding the tents and the camp itself. She goes to the place of witch she thought she heard the snapping. She kneels down and picks up a broken twig that lay in the middle of a hoof print the snow. "Hmm." She said examining the hoof print. Suddenly she whips around to the sound of snow crunching behind her and locks eyes with a tall stallion in black armor, not like hers.

She saw the glint of a blade in the moonlight but it was still at his side, this would be too easy. She took advantage of the hesitation and lashed out her fore hooves and landed three quick jabs to his ribs. He stumbled back by the surprise of the blows, this time with his blade up, but his stance was clumsy and Lyra easily imbalanced him with another quick jab. He stumbled again but this time tripped over his own hooves and fell into the snow. Lyra came over and to pin him but he surprised her by bucking her chest with his back hooves sending her reeling, and giving him time to stand back up, though he had dropped his blade in the snow and didn't have time to retrieve it.

Lyra scoffed at his stance again. He had obviously been taught the wrong for of close quarters combat. His stance looked as if he was about to do combat wrestling but his hooves looked as if her was a boxer. He threw the first punch fully committing to it but Lyra quickly side stepped it and grabbed his hoof. She pulled him forward into her hoof driving the air from his lungs and hunching him over. As he gasped for breath Lyra placed her hoof on his back and slammed him into a tree head first. He groaned slightly before collapsing to the ground in a heap. Lyra smiled to herself, proud of what she had done.

Ten minutes later in the general's tent

"And I dragged him back here sir." Lyra said finishing the story of their new prisoner. He was still unconscious but was now tied to a chair. There was a steady stream of blood running from his scale and his snout was contorted in a funny way, so his nose was most likely broken as well.

"Right, let's see what he knows." The General said. He flicked the prisoners nose and suddenly his eyes flew open, full of fear. He looked around the room frantically before locking eyes with Lyra.

"What's your name son?" The general asks skipping any pleasantries.

"My name's Emerald." He said. Lyra scoffed at the name, most likely attributed to his green everything.

"Okay then Emerald why in the hell were you in our camp this evening?"The general asked angrily. The general's question was met with silence from the pony. "Are you going to tell me," He paused and Lyra drew one of her swords and pressed it to his throat, "Or do I need to let my associate take over?"

"You don't understand, I'm bound to an oath of secrecy. If I tell you one detail of my mission then I'll be executed." He said.

"And if you don't tell us then you'll still be executed, either way you loose I suppose." Lyra said circling the chair, keeping her blade level with her captive's throat.

"You don't understand," he said as Lyra stopped in front of him. "Their executions aren't like your executions. they lock you in a steel box and bury you in the snow where no one will find you and then loose the key. Its slow and painful and miserable." He paused and let his head sag for a moment before looking up at Lyra again. "It'd be better if you just killed me right here." He leaned forward until the blade was pressed against his throat.

Lyra stared into his pleading eyes, looking for any sign of deceit but all she found was pleading.  He obviously realized his mistake in joining up with Sombra and wanted out, but the only way out with that army is in a body bag.

"Then I guess we're at an impasse." Lyra said putting her sword back into its scabbard . "Si I have come up with a deal. You give us the information we want and we don't kill you and you get to stay in our camp, under watch i may add, until the war is over in which you will be released to do whatever it is you please without surveillance." she said kindly. Emerald smiled weakly at the deal and opened his mouth to agree but shut it quickly and jumped back in fear when Lyra slammed her hooves down on the arms of his chair just in front of his hooves. "But if you even consider betraying me for a second then I wont hesitate to march you over to Sombra's camp by your scruff myself. Are we clear sweetheart?" She said. forcing the last word out as if it hurt she was so angry. Emerald nodded tentatively and Lyra resumed her kind and sweet posture. "I'm glad we understand each other." she said smiling. She held her hooves behind her back and walked out of the tent with the general at her tail.

"How did you manage to do good guard and bad guard?" He asked her in a reverent tone.

"I spent a lot of time in the past arguing with myself in the mirror, I got quite good at it." She said walking away.

"Aren't you gonna stay and help me get what we need?" he asked.

"I'm tired, I'll get back to it tomorrow. Give him some food and a bed roll in your tent, it'll soften him up.' She said though in the back of her mind she was thinking to herself 'Did I just give my commanding officer orders?' But she chose not to let that bother her, she was too tired and cold to get and she was already undoing the straps on the back of her armor before she got to her bed roll and got a few looks from the stallions at a fire she passed. It was hard for her to get accustomed to how these ponies saw it as an indecency if she didn't wear any. 'What does it matter?' She thought to herself as she rolled up in her bedroll she was too tired to care what any pony near by her thought right now.

The Next Morning

The camp was mainly quiet except for a few crackling embers in the remaining beds of this fires allowing,Lyra to sleep peacefully through the night, but waking up is a totally different matter. In the early hours just after Celestia's sun had begun to sow signs of rising a hoof shook Lyra awake. Her eyes snapped open to meet one of the sentries.

"The general sent forgot, said it was a matter of the utmost importance." He said. Lyra sighed and sat up reaching for a thin tunic as the sentry walked away to the other side of the camp,most likely to wake the next one manning the shift. Lyra stood up and walked over to the general's tent for whatever it as that they summoned her for. As she approached she picked up several voices coming from the tent, most likely the general and several other high ranking ponies from around the camp, but there was one that she couldn't put her hoof on, somepony that she had never heard before. She pushed the tent flap aside and the voices fell silent. Each of the officers turned to look at her, they were obviously all on edge.

Lyra examined each of the faces in the room until her eyes came to rest on a small mare that stood in the middle of them all. What she lacked in size she made up for in the obvious confidence and defiance towards the ponies around her. By her clothing he was obviously from Sombra's camp wearing a set of dark blue robes.

"You summoned me?" Lyra asked the whole room.

"Uhh yes Lyra." The General said after an awkward silence, "This here me sever from Sombra's camp has come with a message." He said nudging the messenger forward as a signal to speak.

"Yes, right." The messenger began. He had a light accent that was stereotypical among intellectual types. "King Sombra demands the return of Private First-Class Emerald to the camp of our lord." He said, adjusting his collar after the long winded speech.

"Or what?" Lyra said looking around the room for an answer from the higher ups but her gaze was met with a grim faces all around.

"Or Sombra launches the first strike earlier than we all planned. A missing soldier is a big deal for him, a captured soldier even more so." The messenger said.

"How much earlier?" Lyra asked stepping forward past her fellow officers until her face was merely inches from the messenger's and she found herself looking down at him.

"The attack will initiate tomorrow morning, just after the sun rises over the trees." He said smirking to himself. "And it will be over before the sunhigh." He said malice in his eyes. But soon the air was cut by the hiss of steel on leather and after that second the room was filled with a gasp, and then. Silence.

The messenger's face contorted into a look of pain and the malice and confidence evaporated into fear and pain. After a moment Lyra jerked her arm back and the body of the messenger fell to the ground, the blue robes now stained with the color of blood that was pooling on the floor.

Lyra slid the short blade back into the sheath at one of the officers belts and nudged the body with her hoof. "What have you done?" A soft voice asked behind Lyra, one she hadn't heard in a long time, but very important.