Diplomacy by Other Means

by Georg

Rating: teen
Tags: Gilda, Adventure, Sad, Nightmare Moon, Princess Luna, Original Character, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Bat Pony
Length: 52874

Princess Luna sends a diplomatic mission to the griffons in the hopes of preventing a deadly war. When disaster strikes, can their weakest member keep them alive?

“You should have burned their aerie to the ground two centuries ago and killed every one of them when you had a chance, Tia.”

These words trigger a series of events that send four ponies to the far northern Misty Mountain Aerie where Wingmaster Talon is threatening to invade the newly discovered Crystal Empire. The Diplomat, Luna's Hoofmaiden, and two Royal Guards are to face hostile griffons and dangerous mountains in order to bring peace to the region and prevent a war.

But what they find in the mountains is far worse than they could imagine, and their only chance for survival becomes a race to escape in a battle to the death.

Featured on Equestria Daily [Adventure][Sad]

Written to stand alone, but follows :
The Traveling Tutor and the Diplomat’s Daughter
Diplomatic Security
Genealogy (or the mating habits of Nocturnes Pegasi)
To Sleep, Perchance to Dream

Editing assistance provided by Peter and Tek.

Original line drawing by Ralph Hayes Jr.
Background Summer Campfire by BonesWolbach
Colors and shading by Shaleclaw
Special mention to JoyfulJ for shading on Pumpernickel’s armor.

Published 2013-10-07 19:30:02 UTC
Last updated 2014-02-20 18:23:38 UTC

Ch 1 - Fear Cuts Deeper Than Swords

Diplomacy by Other Means
Fear Cuts Deeper Than Swords

“Ponies shrink less from offending one who inspires love than one who inspires fear.”
— N. Marechiavelli, The Princess

“You should have burned their aerie to the ground two centuries ago and killed every one of them when you had a chance, Tia.” Princess Luna waved a wrinkled piece of parchment at Princess Celestia once before slamming it to the dinner table in disgust. “This… demand of theirs is insulting, degrading, and not even worthy of being used in a privy. We shall never give up one of our beloved ponies to be held as hostage in their flea-infested nest, particularly one of the Elements of Harmony!”

“Calm, my sister.” Celestia nonchalantly continued to spread marmalade on a slice of toast while Luna fumed. “I share your concerns, and I would never give up any of our ponies to the griffons in this fashion. Their stated belief that the Elements are a tool of war and should be separated in order to prevent them from being used against our neighbors is completely false, and you know it. Their demand is merely a bargaining chip their aerie is throwing out to goad us into a rash action. Should we raise one hoof against their isolated aerie now, the entire Griffon Empire would rally to their defense.”

Luna dropped onto a cushion and extracted a raspberry-filled frosted dessert from a pile of pastry, giving it a nasty bite while glowering. “Yes, and if we sit around on our plots and do nothing, the Misty Mountain griffons will launch an assault on the Crystal Empire in order to ‘restore their rightful rule’ over hundreds of earth ponies who have just been freed from their enslavement to that monster, Sombra. It will be a slaughter.”

“The Royal Guard is in place, my sister, as well as Cadence and Shining Armor. They will be protected.”

“Can they protect the dozens of small towns and villages in the vicinity, Celestia? Will their wings stretch flawlessly over all of our subjects, holding them safe from harm? The blood will flow both ways, my sister. Once the griffons have tasted pony flesh as they did centuries ago, they will not stop short of being slain themselves.” Luna stomped her hoof with no little restraint, making only small cracks in the marble tiles that covered the floor of their private dining room. “I should have slain Wingmaster Talon inside our very walls when I had the chance, and to Tartarus with the consequences.”

A faint reddish smear of raspberry filling flecked the edge of her lips, adding a certain macabre sense to the already tense dinner. Celestia attempted to ignore the material trappings of their surroundings, concentrating on the subject of her sister’s mental duress. “Luna, our options are limited in this matter. Even though the Wingmaster of the Misty Mountains aerie is most likely to blame for their aggressive action, he is old, and does this more out of fear than malice.”

“You did not sit across the negotiating table with the beast for the last two days,” spat Luna, waving the half-eaten pastry over her head regardless of the splatters of raspberry that resulted. “I have seen hatred within my own being that rivaled his shriveled heart, but he truly hates our kind to the limits of his mortal flesh. Our ponies thrive and grow in the valleys and plains around his mountain while his own flock withers away under his ‘guidance.’ He cannot believe his misfortune is the result of his own misguided actions, but is more than willing to pass the blame to us. The new Crystal Empire has drawn his greedy eyes and provided a focus for his hatred that he now uses to flog his remaining flock into their destruction.”

“True, as it may be,” said Celestia, her toast remaining untasted in her magic as it floated to her side. “However, we are limited in the response that we can provide. Moving the Royal Guard to the mountain villages and towns would be seen as an offensive move, while stretching the Crystal Empire defenses thin and providing the excuse the griffons want to call for reinforcements from the rest of the empire. It would escalate into war, Luna. Terrible, horrible war.”

“Thou wouldst have us wait, dear sister, until the Wingmaster descends upon our precious niece and her fledgeling empire? Must pony blood flow thick and deep beneath our hooves before returning his stroke?”

“I-I do not wish it, Luna.” Celestia placed her toast back upon the table and swirled the cold tea that remained in her cup, little fragments of tea leaves forming patterns against the Yixing pottery that had been crafted by an earth pony who had died and gone to dust centuries ago. “Violence will only bring worse violence. It will take…” She paused and tilted her teacup to the fading light of evening that illuminated their small dining room. “Diplomacy.”

“Diplomacy?” Luna fairly spat the word as if it left a nasty taste in her mouth. “The limits of our patience have been reached. They will never return to the negotiating table here.”

“Then a diplomat must be sent to them,” said Celestia firmly. “The wisest and most resourceful in our service.”

“No, Celly. The events of two centuries ago will replay again. Whoever you send will be killed, just as certain as the grass grows.” The sound of breathing from Luna became slower as her sister remained silent at the table, looking into her cup. Finally, the Princess of the Night could stand the tension no more, and sat down at the table with a sigh. “Although you entrusted this task to me, I should return it to your control. I have never been one for the gentle touch of diplomacy. I have mucked this up so badly, and the ponies who will be slain in the conflict shall be more dark spots upon my already blackened soul.”

“No, Luna. You have handled the situation as well or even better than I could have. Wingmaster Talon traveled to Canterlot for this diplomatic meeting as a gesture against myself, intending on waving his flank in front of my nose and showing his confidants how well he was able to bully me, much like his ancestor Silverbeak. Your presence disrupted his plans far better than I expected, and I shall not remove this burden from one who bears it so well, dear sister.”

A faint squeaking noise came from Luna’s cushion as she shifted position, the mangled pastry placed carefully onto the table while she thought. Several times she moved to speak, only to resume her concentration while Celestia looked on, her face locked in her most inscrutable position of false tranquility.

“The unicorn Primrose shall be my envoy,” said Luna abruptly. “Her mentor is far too old and fragile to endure a chariot trip to the Misty Mountains. With the danger she faces, I shall need the fastest pegasi from our guard if she is to flee in haste, preferably one from the Day and Night, to symbolize our joint rule. Three is all that can be risked. I shall not place more than that in mortal peril.”

Celestia nodded, the release of tension showing only as a faint ripple in her ethereal mane. “I shall have orders sent to the Commanders of the Royal Guard for Redoubtable and Pumpernickel to be released on detached service at once.”

“Dandelion instead of Pumpernickel,” said Luna with a faint undertone to her voice that drew Celestia’s attention like a magnet. “He is nearly as fast, and has more experience.”

Celestia remained silent as Luna buttered a roll, taking a bite and chewing without apparently tasting it. It took two more dry bites before Luna coughed and took a drink of orange juice with a glower at her silent sister.

“You are afraid of your own Night Guard,” said Celestia without a trace of accusation.

At first it looked as if Luna was going to argue, but she looked away from Celestia’s warm gaze and stared fiercely at the butter dish instead. “I have my reasons.” Silence filled the private dining room, the dead, dry quiet of thoughts left unsaid and regrets. Finally, Luna lifted her head to face her sister with her jaw set firmly as stone, her voice seeming to echo in the small room.

“When your diplomatic mission to this same griffon aerie was attacked and killed two centuries ago, I witnessed it all. Each of my Nocturne carries more than a tiny piece of my soul from the power that I bestowed upon their ancestors. As much as they are my children, they also bear her touch within their hearts. As we were trapped within the essence of the moon, I felt one of my ponies under attack, the namesake of my guard Pumpernickel, reach into his heart for that power.”

“The Nightmare,” whispered Celestia.

“I could feel every motion, every touch, every drop of blood he shed that night. The Night Guard you sent to protect your diplomats knew he was about to die, and unleashed that infernal power upon the ones who would destroy him in turn. It terrified me, Celly. I could feel their bones break against my hooves, their b-blood flowing down my t-throat.” Luna paused to take a drink of orange juice, her shaking hooves nearly dropping the glass.

“It happened only twice while we were imprisoned, but... it felt good. So awfully, terribly good. I had thought those memories locked away forever, or perhaps destroyed by the Elements of Harmony, but facing Wingmaster Talon over the table brought them back as if it were yesterday. I wanted to rend him apart and drink his b-blood, Celly.”

“You are strong, my sister,” whispered Celestia. “Far stronger than you know.”

“My Night Guard,” continued Luna after a moment, her voice gaining strength, “passes the names of their ancestors to their children in reverence, but has always reserved the name of Pumpernickel for those special even for my children. The ones touched closest by the Nightmare.”

“Pumpernickel?” said Celestia, her brow wrinkled in puzzlement. “He has never struck me as a pony prone to violence, even for a Royal Guard. Although…” A look of concern passed over her face as she thought. “It explains much of his behavior. I had always simply thought of him as frightened of his own shadow.”

“He is,” said Luna with a rumbling voice and a faraway expression as if she were looking at events of her own long past. “The shadow that lurks within his own heart. He fears what he may become if pressed too far. Over the centuries, two of his namesakes have fallen to the corruption which the name carries, and I now fear he may become the third.”

Silence once again surrounded the two alicorns, the meal which was their original intent for the private evening together forgotten in half-eaten bits around them. Celestia breathed out a long sigh, turning away from her sister to face the setting sun, which had nearly reached the horizon and was merely waiting for permission to be dismissed for the night.

“I concede your point, Luna. Your Night Guard Dandelion shall accompany my Royal Guard, Redoubtable on this dangerous task. Although…” Celestia paused, the fading sunlight coloring her white coat with tints of orange fire and the red of fresh blood. “Perhaps both guards should be from the forces of the Day.”

“What?” Luna looked up, the tiny edge of a frown showing at the edge of her mouth.

“Well, since it is as you say, there is a little bit of the Nightmare in each of your guards. If our diplomat is forced to flee, the slightest disharmony among the guards driving the chariot could slow their retreat in an emergency, and that could be disastrous. And Primrose cannot fly herself.”

“True,” said Luna in a small voice, doubt beginning to show in her eyes.

“We shall find Pumpernickel some lesser station where he can be observed, just until we are certain he does not pose a threat to Equestria. After all, your Night Guard are responsible for my security while I am the most vulnerable.”

“Celly,” said Luna, a low growl creeping into her voice as she laid her ears back and glared.

“It would be unfair to dismiss them all at this time, but perhaps they could be isolated away from any other sensitive missions. That is, until we can be certain of their loyalty.”

A chill breeze stirred the curtains of the dinner nook, swirling them around in little circles as Luna continued her baleful stare at her innocent-looking sister. Broken only by the rumble of far-off thunder, the silence stretched thin between them, until it finally snapped in an icy response from the Princess of the Night.

“My Nocturne have guarded Equestria ever since the Night they were born into their station of life, shedding their blood to protect those who scoff and deride them. Thou shalt not dismiss them from our service after they have shown a loyalty to you far in excess of any other during the years of my exile.” It was a tribute to Luna’s control that she managed to speak at all, although there was just a tiny bit of grinding from her jaw and her wings twitched with the effort to keep them down.

“Quite true,” said Celestia, refilling her teacup. “But if you doubt the will of one Nocturne, how can I trust them all?”

Upon hearing those words, Luna subsided to a low rumble, glowering at her older sister who ignored the tension of the moment by simply sitting on her cushion and drinking a fresh cup of tea. Finally Luna rose from the table, collecting her dishes in one large cloud of indigo magic and gathering them together for the servants. With one last look at her remaining orange juice, she turned to Celestia and spoke.

“You fight dirty, my sister. Lesser station, indeed. Your advisors used those exact words when they pressed me to abdicate upon my return. I knew if I were to accede to their demands then, none would ever trust me, and I would be forever beneath a cloud of my own making.”

“You still fear your Night Guard,” said Celestia in a comforting voice. “That which you did not wish upon yourself, you have placed upon others in your stead.” Lighting her horn, Celestia gave a brief nod and the sun descended below the horizon, plunging their dining room into near darkness.

A low indigo glow filled the room as Luna lifted her head, almost motionless as the silvery moon slid up into the sky and the city stretched out before their window glittered with light under the brilliant stars. “I had intended my service to Equestria to be my penance for my crimes,” she whispered. “My Nocturne are blameless for the evil that clings to their souls. How can I let them suffer for my weakness?”

“If your weaknesses are theirs, then so are your strengths, dear sister. I shall stand firm on my choice of Royal Guard to accompany your diplomat. Unless—” she added quickly as Luna opened her mouth to object “—you can prove him worthy.”

“He hath wrapped that seed of Nightmare’s hatred in years of armor,” whispered Luna, looking out the open window at the moon sitting on the horizon. “But it remains a seed, and he has imprisoned himself within the cage he has built for it. Our Royal Guard is the steel of our Equestria, but that steel is not made without fire. He must learn to master this beast that lives within him, or…”

Luna remained at the window, staring out into the night as Celesta moved up behind her and encompassed her in one large wing. They simply stood there for the longest time, wings intertwined as they looked out into the night, each sister seeing it in a completely different fashion. They did not talk, or even look at each other as the distant noises of the capital city filtered up to their moment together. Finally, Luna took a deep breath and rotated her shoulders, extending one wing after another to stretch to their fullest extent.

“He is mine, dear sister.” The Princess of the Night stepped to the edge of the balcony, her mouth set in a thin line and her eyes hard as stone. “I shall test him as thou wishes.”

Celestia remained in the dining room, watching her sister fly away in the direction of the Royal Guard practice field, watching patiently until she was lost from sight in the darkness.

And then a little longer.

Ch 2 - Test of Honor

Diplomacy by Other Means
Test of Honor

“Everyone sees what you appear to be, few experience what you really are.”
— N. Marechiavelli, The Princess

The beginnings of moonlight illuminating the Royal Guard training facility triggered the transition of colors as the golden armor of the Day shift began to give way to the deep purples of the Night shift in the pells and sparring areas that scattered over the silvery landscape. Incoming guards for both Day and Night busied themselves in various tasks of directed violence against each other and their trainers, with one new pegasus trainee walking nervously through the busy grounds between a fiercely mustachioed older Nocturne and a rather administrative appearing green unicorn mare with her red mane tied up in a matronly bun.

Trainee ‘Blade’ was just a little on edge being in the ‘real’ Royal Guard training grounds in close proximity of the Commander of the entire Night Guard after having spent such a long time with the regular Academy trainers. As a trainee, he had been exemplary in his discipline and scores, soon to graduate near the top of his class. It would have been at the top of his class, if his previous life had actually been a law-abiding citizen of Manehattan attending school instead of the mutual protection society he had joined with other young ponies studying non-scholastic activities such as extortion, theft, graffiti, and ‘hanging out.’ Every time an officer talked with him in the Academy, it brought a tense bolt of nerves into his gut as he expected to be unmasked as the fraudulent street hoodlum he was and cast into jail, or worse, sent back to Manehattan.

That life was dead to him now, just as dead as he would be if he were to return to his old stomping grounds. An earth pony named Breaker had made certain of that, declaring that a pegasus named Shiv was to blame for a particular activity that had come to the Manehattan Municipal Guard’s attention, and making it quite clear that the certain pegasus would be discovered one morning in a pulverized pile of bone fragments and blood.

Shiv had decided that travel was good for his health. As well as a name change.

How he ever wound up in the Canterlot Royal Guard Academy was still a little fuzzy, involving an epic drinking contest, six mares, and an Academy chariot that had been left unattended, just begging to be flown, but when he had sobered up, he decided a career of violence where you could not only hit ponies and not go to jail, but you could wear armor too was not a bad deal. It actually was less frightening than his previous life, except for the rare occasions where he had to deal with officers.

The elderly Night Guard officer at his side was nearly his mirror opposite. Where he was a young trainee, only a week from graduation, Commander Buttercup was old, his grey coat frosted in white hair across his entire body excluding the tip of one ear that had been lopped off rather raggedly and including a magnificent snowy mustache. Soon Shiv’s dark blue coat would match his superior’s, once the traditional post-graduation bleaching was complete, but his powerful feathered wings would never match the Nocturne’s dark membranous wings, legacy of an ancient ancestor who had supported Princess Luna in her rebellion. The Commander of the Night Guard position was not always filled by a Nocturne, but they had always been a major portion of the Royal Guard’s Night Division, and had an unbroken record of loyalty to the Crown, in addition to scaring the horseshoes off many of Equestria’s enemies. Their reputation certainly was doing a good job on Shiv at the moment.

Commander Buttercup kept up his brisk pace as they strode through the guard training grounds and talked. “Trainee, I’ve brought you here for one decision. From this point in your career, there are three roads you can take. First, you can stand in front of a door in your nice, shiny gold armor and try not to blink for the rest of your life. Sucks, doesn’t it?”

‘Blade’ nodded. Although he initially had grown quite excited about becoming a Royal Guard in his first few months of the Academy, the idea of being a shiny doorstop had rapidly faded as his training progressed.

“Second, you could join the Night Guard upon graduation. Not every task the Diarchy presses upon the Royal Guard take place in the light of day. Some take a certain class of pony. Unpleasant ponies.” Commander Buttercup did not look at the trainee, but was focused on the sparring ring they were approaching.

“What about the third road?” he asked, suddenly nervous.

The middle-aged mare trotting to his other side flipped over a page on the clipboard that was levitated in front of her. “The third option was, until a few minutes ago, where a certain pony named Shiv, also known as Slash, also known as—” The mare stopped with a blush starting to raise on her cheeks, adjusting her glasses while staring at the sheet for a moment before turning the page “—nevermind. This certain pony would have been returned to the custody of the Manehattan police department under an arrest warrant issued on charges including Assault, Criminal Damage to Property, Misdemeanor Theft, Arson, Robbery and Public Urination on a Police Officer.” She flipped several pages with a tiny twitch that might have been a smirk. “Remarkable aim, for that altitude. Anyway, it seems that a certain well-intentioned citizen named Breaker has even arranged bail in the event his ‘good friend’ were to be returned to Manehattan. What a nice young stallion.”

With a shock, Shiv realized the mare was actually wearing a modified version of a municipal guard uniform, altered to be in Night Guard colors. The sideways look she was giving him was more evaluating than the normal expression of cold disgust that he had seen far too often from the police, and even seemed to show a tiny amount of respect, which sparked a warm glow inside his chest that he had never felt before.

“Thank you, Miss Grace.” Commander Buttercup gestured to a sparring ring which had just opened up, a battered earth pony trainee staggering out to be attended by the a rather rough looking medic, while a unicorn trotted into the ring to look over one of the largest Night Pegasus that Shiv had ever seen. The battered training pads that laid over his purple armor looked as if they had been passed down for years, with little split seams and tufts of stuffing peeking out between the stitches. The commander raised a hoof in the direction of the ring trainer, getting a nod in return and an evaluating glance cast in Shiv’s direction.

“Normally recruits who lie on their entry forms are discovered fairly quickly and sent packing,” said the mare with an undertone of disgust. “Certain reprobates who seem to have distinguishing characteristics are retained for further study. You may not have seen it, but your progress through the Academy has been very closely monitored at the highest level. One single mistake, and the previous third option would have been your only option. Now Commander Buttercup has made another option available for you should you fail or decide to drop out.” She flipped another page, and scanned down the page. “In that most probable event, a certain pegasus named ‘Clean Cut’ will depart from Canterlot for an employment opportunity at the Cloudsdale Arena security department. Identification, background, and certain testimonials will be available, making it highly improbable that a certain ‘Breaker’ will ever determine your location in order to visit with malicious intent. The Royal Guard looks after its own, Trainee ‘Blade.’”

“If you want to go to the next level of training, all you have to do is spar with Pumpernickel,” said Buttercup, indicating the bulky Night Guard in question still standing in the ring. “Unarmed combat. Three falls.”

“So all I have to do is spar with that lunk?” asked Shiv, nonchalantly indicating the large Night Guard with a nod of his head while flicking his own feathered wings out in a limbering exercise. “What will that prove?”

“Character,” said the elderly Nocturne with a flick of his own membraneous wings.

“What’s the catch?” asked ‘Blade’, trying to look at both the commander and the unicorn mare at the same time while trying to figure out who was the most dangerous.

“No catch,” said Buttercup with a shrug. “He has the worst sparring record for all of our guards. Sparred over three years now, and although he has won a few rounds, he has no winning sets. But if you want to back out…”

“No, I’ve got this.” Shiv let the safety ponies examine his pads before entering the sparring ring, allowing the commander and the mare to speak privately before the combat started.

“Optio Pumpernickel looks like heck warmed over,” said Miss Grace, pulling up her clipboard and flipping through a few pages. “According to the schedule, he’s been here a few hours already.”

“And he’ll be here a few more tonight,” added Buttercup with a scowl. “I’m going to get that obstinate bastard to unwind and stop holding back if it kills him. This obnoxious little twerp may just be able to do it. Stars, over the last few weeks it’s been all I could do to keep from pasteing him in the face too.”

The rustle of paper continued as Miss Grace asked, “Like Guard Commander Twigs did to you during your memorable run through the Academy? It’s in your file,” she added as the commander gave her a questioning look. “And your criminal background was significantly more impressive. I believe there are still a few outstanding warrants on you that have not been cancelled yet.”

“Yeah,” he said with a smile indicative of pleasant memories as the two combatants squared off. “Good times.”

* * *

There was one pad over Shiv’s right shoulder that had never fit just right over his trainee armor, rubbing minutely against the bottom of his wing joint. The armorer at the sparring ring tightened up a strap to get it out of the way, but within a few minutes it was probably just going to start bugging him again. The ceramic ‘plate’ that would signify a point scored took only a few minutes to get strapped onto his chest on top of the training pads, and from the look of the sparing circle floor, it was going to have a lot of company when it broke. The lunkish guard Pumpernickel had an actual dent in the chest padding behind his plate, and the vast majority of shattered pebbly fragments of broken plates scattered within a pace or two of his position indicated his reluctance to actually move during combat as well as the rationale for his low ranking in combat sparring. The ring was over forty yards across, and one of the basics they had drilled into his head was to use every inch of that space and more. When fighting in the streets of Manehattan with his gang, he had obstacles to deal with and witnesses to avoid; here there were only four minor obstacles scattered around the sandy floor and a few observers leaning over the wall to look down into the ring. Even the lighting was unreal, with dozens of lanterns casting a shadowless light that filled the entire ring and reflected on his glum Night Guard opponent in a way that washed out his colors and left him looking somewhat pathetic.

With a nod to the referee, they both took their spots and waited for the signal.

“Gentlecolts. Best of three. Fight.”

Both of the combatants crouched, eyeing each other suspiciously for an extended period of time until Commander Buttercup’s dry voice sounded above him and triggered a wave of chortles from the onlookers.

“Blade, he’s not going to die of old age. You gotta go hit him.”

With a scowl, Shiv launched himself up, taking one quick circle around the cloud markers that indicated the top of the ring. The Night Guard never even opened his wings, in fact, the only sign that Pumpernickel was even paying him attention was a shift in his positioning, looking up at Shiv instead of across the ring. “Buck this,” he muttered, snapping his wings together and darting down almost vertically out of the sky only to meet a strong armored forehoof that batted his strike to one side, causing Shiv to roll across the sandy floor and skid to a halt several yards away. Springing to his hooves to avoid the inevitable counterattack, Shiv spun around, bringing one hoof up to block — nothing. Pumpernickel remained standing just as placidly as before, as if Shiv was not worth the few steps it would take to hit him.

“Woot! Hey, sexy stallion! Do that again!” The feminine voice that called out behind him triggered a number of catcalls and creative comments from the rest of the observers, and his cheeks burned red with embarrassment. Flinging himself forward, Shiv launched into a series of hoof-strikes and spin-kicks that he had learned on the streets and honed to a fine edge during training, but every single strike and kick was met by a solid armored parry on the shinguards of the placid stallion. It was like facing a wall of cold steel wrapped in padding. Little flecks of white flew in all directions as he struck, left, right, combination blows, all stopped cold in a defense that had no holes. Finally the brute blinked, raising one hoof to brush a fleck of white padding out of his eye and exposing his chest for the tiniest fraction of a second, which was all it took for Shiv to strike. The shattering of Pumpernickel’s plate and the delayed block that made Shiv’s entire foreleg numb happened so close together they sounded like one noise, but as he darted back out of range of a possible counterblow, Shiv could not help but grin under his faceguard.

“Point, Blade.”

As the medics made a quick dash out into the ring to replace Pumpernickel's plate and tape up one piece of padding that had ruptured a seam, Shiv drifted backwards in a few slow strokes of his wings to check out his admirer.

He had met a few of the rare Imperial Griffon Guards who were on detached training duty, and was still getting used to the bat-winged Nocturne stallions in the guard, but the female Nocturne who leaned up against the fence and watched his approach with lidded eyes and a coy expression was something entirely different. “Hello, beautiful,” he said with a smile, wishing that he was not in armor and pads so he could show off for the mare. There was a faint thread of blue that wisped its way through her dark mane, an indicator he had slowly been picking up in order to differentiate the nearly identical dark ponies, but those big golden eyes and half-spread membranous wings were what he paid the most attention. “What brings a gorgeous thing like you to see a bunch of sweaty stallions beat each other up?”

“Maybe I like seeing a bunch of big, sweaty stallions beat each other up?” she suggested cooly with a flick of her tail and a glance past him. “It’s exciting.”

“Well, if it’s excitement you want, how about after training tonight we go out and get a drink?”

“Blade.” The voice of the referee behind him was flat and contained just a little concern. “You’re up.”

“Be right back,” he whispered. “Save a kiss for the winner.”

It only took a second for Shiv to return to his spot, his opponent remaining exactly where he had been left with only a few wraps of tape around a ragged pad to show he had even moved. However, there was something different. All of the observers had an intense look, except for Commander Buttercup who was slowly shaking his head, and Miss Grace who seemed to be stifling a facehoof.

And then there was Pumpernickel.

Gone completely was the relaxed laconic brute who stood at the other mark. Instead, the dark pegasus crouched, tense as a spring and with an aura of dangerous lethality around him, golden eyes focused on his opponent and with a look in them that chilled Shiv to the core. He had only seen eyes like that one other time, from an earth pony named Breaker, but even that glare was as soft as a newborn foal compared to the limitless cold fury he could see now.

“Fight.”

The voice of the referee had not even reached the end of the word when the Night Guard launched himself forward, giving Shiv time for only one thought.

He’s too big to move that fa—

A few years ago when he had been attempting to do something spectacularly stupid, Shiv had been hit by lightning. He still could not remember just exactly what he was doing under the thundercloud that had been so darned important, but for one timeless moment, he had actually seen the crackling bolt descending on him, and the stunned realization he was still alive when he had woken up in the dumpster later felt strangely familiar now.

He could still see the hoof. He was probably going to be able to see and describe that hoof in great detail years from now. There was a tiny gap in his memory at the instant of impact, probably from trauma and the enchantments of the armor activating as to prevent him from becoming a lifeless hunk of meat flying backwards in reaction to that stunning blow. Everything seemed to stream past in slow motion, from the loose blue hairs in his mane fluttering in front of his face, to the droplets of blood he could see suspended in front of his nose, just floating in the little pocket of still air made by his head in the slipstream of his backwards passage.

The expression in the guard’s eyes was the worst. As Shiv flew limply backwards on his way to the back wall of the sparring ring, he could see that soulless expression of death, a face of a killer that was not going to stop after one hit, but only after his lifeless body had been stomped into a fine red paste. The expression barely lasted the flicker of a blink before it was replaced by something much worse.

Despair.

Those golden eyes looked up, above his head in the direction of the young Nocturne mare he had been speaking with, and that deadly intent went out of them instantly. The rippling chill of the night air froze in Shiv’s chest as his own heart felt torn in half, a pain that exceeded the growing agony in his face. The pain only lasted until he struck the wall, and he felt relief at the sudden blackness of unconsciousness that claimed him.

* * *

“Hey kid. Wake up.” The night air of the sparring ring felt cool on his mane, the sharp smell of disinfectant being swabbed on his battered nose competing with the warm tingle of a spell.

“The enchantments on his helmet held. No brain damage. Well, no more than normal for any stallion,” said a mature voice that he could fuzzily match with the forest-green mare in the modified police uniform. Miss Grace, that was her name.

“Lad, I think introductions are in order.” Shiv managed to open his eyes to look at the circle of concerned ponies surrounding him, one of which was the beautiful Nocturne mare he had been talking to just a few moments ago. Buttercup gestured at her and nodded. “Hoofmaiden Laminia, I would like to introduce and apologize for my newest recruit, Blade. Blade, I would like you to meet Princess Luna’s personal hoofmaiden, and the wife of Optio Pumpernickel, whom you already have met.”

“Charmed,” wheezed Shiv, trying to blink away tears from the odor of the disinfectant. “Sorry about that.”

“Mistress Laminia, I think I can give your husband the rest of the night off. Blade, welcome to the Night Guard.” Commander Buttercup nodded in satisfaction as he extended a hoof to his newest recruit.

“No.” Laminia’s expression of worry had been replaced by a grim frown as she looked back over her shoulder at her husband, who was still being fussed over by a pair of guard medics.

“No?” said Buttercup, his voice beginning to rise as his moustache flared. “I think you misunderstand your position here, young mare. This is my trainee.”

“We are all at the disposition of our Princess of the Night. You may think you have made a recruit for Princess Luna’s forces, when in fact by your actions, you have broken two of them.” The young mare’s voice resonated with authority far greater than her age, and Shiv found the hair on the back of his mane was standing on end. “My special talent is healing broken hearts. This young idiot will never again face mortal danger without seeing the face of my husband, and my husband will never overcome his loss of control unless…”

Laminia stopped talking and looked Shiv in the eyes, cool golden orbs that glittered in the lamplight that filled the sparring ring. Somewhere out in the darkness, he could hear Commander Buttercup’s voice saying something that just did not seem important at the moment. Shiv had always been a sucker for a dame, and realized that what she was saying was true. He may not have been able to do anything about Breaker, but if he fled from here, even as a Night Guard, he could not flee from his own fear.

“Get my helmet, please, sir. And a new plate.” Shiv staggered to his hooves and took a deep breath. “We’re still tied.”

* * *

In the end, their last bout lasted far longer than either of them expected. Guards and other observers from the surrounding training facility gathered quietly and watched the two of them as the fight rolled onward. It was a cautious battle that took up the entire ring at times with swoops and rolls, ending almost comically as a counter-punch from Shiv skidded off an unpadded spot on Pumpernickel’s foreleg and broke his plate. They just stood, panting and dripping with sweat while regarding each other, speechless.

Pumpernickel broke the silence first, nodding and announcing in a deep tenor voice, “Point and Set, Blade. Good fight.”

Shiv nodded back, turning his nod into a sudden bow as the air above the sparring ring filled with strong wingbeats and Princess Luna landed in the sand directly in front of Pumpernickel, wearing her own full set of training pads.

“Commander Buttercup. We have come to train at our facility. Since it has been many years since our last practice session, we shall begin by sparring with your lowest ranked Night Guard and work our way up.”

Ch 4 - Ashes

Diplomacy by Other Means
Ashes

“Never was anything great achieved without danger.”
— N. Marechiavelli, The Princess

Despite the bright lights illuminating the sparring ring, Pumpernickel could feel the darkness rising beneath his hooves as Luna turned away from him and walked away. Shock froze his heart and his mind as she spoke the words that would spell the end of his life in the Royal Guard.

“You have five minutes to prepare.”

She might have given him five years or five hundred years for all the good it would do. The sparring ring medics surrounded him with tape and antiseptic swabs, trying to get the last frayed seams of his worn padding taped away before the pounding it was about to receive. Nausea writhed in his belly, not at the thought of upcoming violence, but at the idea of leaving the Royal Guard, his position, the near proximity to Princess Luna that he had fought for and that had been his entire dream throughout his life. That dream was now shattered at the arrogant hooves of the legend whom he had trusted from his first days within his Nocturne family. Anger boiled within, a fierce burning that painted the night with a tinge of red just like the night when he struck—

The fire went out as if doused by ice water. The red haze of fury dying away from his vision struck a horrible resonance with long suppressed memories of his big sister laying bloody against the wall, so many years ago but still as sharp as if he were still the small colt cringing in fear at what he had done. Brook had taken weeks in the hospital to recover, but far worse had been the looks of guarded terror from his new family even after her return.

From that time on, he had been in fear of his own clumsy adolescent hooves and thought only of joining the Royal Guard the moment he became of age. Armor was to protect others from him, something to hide behind, a disguise to conceal that terrifying past. He could feel that fire in his heart whenever anger would rise, the urge to kill and destroy that only his transformation into a Royal Guard could suppress. The race of Nocturne were given their names in memory of those who had followed Luna on her rebellion and died, but the name of Pumpernickel had only been given to what he had been told were the most exceptional. The most honored. The bravest. The best.

So why me?

In the centuries since the Night of Creation, only two other colts had ever been granted the name of Pumpernickel. Both had died in pools of blood: the first one in a training ‘accident’ most probably within sight of where he stood, and the second one slaughtered two centuries ago in a griffon aerie protecting a diplomat. If he could only stand up against Princess Luna, he could walk in his ancestor’s hoofsteps and perhaps remove part of the shame from his family history, but the fire that simmered in his heart stood in the way.

Fire can be harnessed. Controlled. Used without burning the user.

To remain a Royal Guard, there was no other choice. Pumpernickel turned his will inwards, regarding the destructive force that he had never directly confronted before. It fought as a starved animal when forced into its chains, but oddly without the vigor he had expected. Like facing a monster that turned out to be a mere cardboard cutout, the rage guttered meekly to a smoldering lump as relaxation swept over his body.

Far away, the announcer could vaguely be heard describing the upcoming fight, but a rush of exhilaration swept across his armored skin that made the voice seem unimportant, with only the figure of Princess Luna seeming real in the bright lights of the sparring ring. If she wanted to see him master the fear that had been his captor for so many years, it would only be right to give her the best performance he was able.

“Three minutes. Fight.”

In perfect synchronization, Pumpernickel surged forward into a sweeping blow that was barely deflected by the hesitant princess. A flick of tail into her face happened without thought, even as he banked sharply to right on habits forged by endless hours of practice combined with some other instinct that he could not identify. Whatever it was, it flung him skywards in pursuit at nearly the same instant Luna ascended, and matched her strokes as they tumbled through the sky. Every blow met a padded block or dodge, every counterstrike met the same. What started as hesitant strikes by the princess turned into mighty blows, turned aside by padding, armor and skill in a hammering concert of musical impacts that beat across his forelegs and armored chest in a tempo of subverted violence that made his ears ring. Even though she did not wear armor under her pads, blows parried by the princess sent shocks up his hooves on impact, ripping and tearing at padded stitching so violently that sprays of stuffing burst from the ruptured seams of both sets of padding, leaving a trail of white scattered through their wake as the fight spread out across every possible inch of the sparring ring.

A chill force seemed to control his body, able to sense every move Luna made and counter it even as she did the same to his blows. Some small portion of his mind still remembered the fight was supposed to only go for three minutes while the rest simply reveled in the joy of their conflict. Royal hooves scored across guard armor, tearing pads free in a trail of sparks as the armor’s enchantments kicked in, softening the impacts to simple pain instead of the disabling strikes they would have been. They unleashed no crippling blows, no potentially lethal strikes to throat or head, only fair strokes that would have been well within the guard limitations if not for the stunning force they contained in perfect opposition to each other, as if there were only one pony fighting with two bodies. It was a heady sensation he had never felt before, being able to strike and swing without fear of death as the fire within grew to match the blows, flaring to encompass his entire body as the two of them clashed together in the middle of the ring, each with an opponent's wing between their teeth.

Feathers on his tongue.

The taste of blood.

Memories that were not his own surged as he bit down, feeling the taste of delicious flesh between his teeth. The dark memories swirled around him and drew him in, dreams of ponies dead centuries ago, living only as ghosts.

Pumpernickel dreamed of blood.

Blood and feathers stuck to his face as Pumpernickel landed hard in the sand, a ring of limp bodies dressed in archaic Royal Guard armor and drenched in blood at his hooves. Screams of his fellow guards flinging themselves at him mixed with the shrill shrieks of the wounded and dying, music to the tune of destruction singing in his ears. An earth pony guard with a net lunged out of the circle of guards, swinging the net in his teeth as he closed the range. Pumpernickel landed on him with all four hooves, feeling flesh rip as he struck the weak spots in the armor, where enchantments could not stop his teeth from ripping the guard’s throat out in a welter of gore. Bolts of power from unicorn guards burst against his side, knocking him backwards before he could finish off his victim, and a half-dozen guardstallions dropped on him in a synchronized assault that faltered rapidly at his flashing hooves and teeth. The Nightmare gave him power, far more than mortal ponies, but the blows rained in from all directions from the ancient ponies, the past dreams and present reality joining together in a mindless roar of power.

Vaguely he could feel Luna’s powerful wing strike forward, smashing him backwards through the delusions of history that clouded his mind. The rear wall of the sparring ring met his back in an explosive crash as Luna dropped to the ground, and his legs crouched beneath him, only one target obvious to his burning eyes.

Her neck.

She was stunned and prone, helpless for the five wingflaps it would take him to cross the ring and tear out her throat. With a bellowed roar, he sprang into the air, sweeping his wings back in a mighty surge of power.

One.

Little bits of sand kicked up from the ring stung against the few bits of his coat not protected by armor or whatever shreds of padding he had left. Skimming barely above the ground, he plunged forward to kill, his wings raised in another powerful stroke.

Two.

Flickers of the fire that burned in his chest resonated with the Nocturne surrounding the ring, reflecting down on him with a blazing intensity that scorched every nerve. His fellow Night Guards leaned towards him as if they hungered, each tiny flame mirrored by a silver sliver of ice that matched the chill of the Princess of the Night before him. His wings swept again.

Three.

One flicker of fire blazed brighter than the rest in a familiar pattern that drew his momentary glance. A feminine face frozen in a rictus of horror matched the feeling of fire and ice he carried in his own heart, but there was a second spark of dissimilar frozen fire within her. Very small, but it burned with an intensity that rivaled his own. A child. His son.

Four

His wings faltered as the vengeful fire burning in his heart went out, quenched into a ball of ice lodged in his chest. Luna loomed up ahead like Judgement, having scrambled upright and lifted both front hooves, her wings still tucked behind her. There was no mercy in her face, the laughter gone, only the Princess of the Night rearing above his flight path with hooves long ago stripped of fragile padding. He could still change his path, evade those deadly hooves as they began their descent, but that would only save his life, not his soul. No longer could he even tolerate the thought of sweeping up to bite with sharp teeth at her unprotected neck; instead, he lowered his head in submission to his fate as he swept his wings back for the last time.

Fiv—

Silence.

The sparring ring was frozen in moonlight.

Covered in silver.

Cold as a grave.

In a shallow crater by one wall lay the Night Guard Pumpernickel, wisps of smoke still rising up from his armor the only sign of movement, other than the occasional magical spark as the final enchantments of protection woven into the armor shorted out and failed.

Standing tall in the center of the ring was Princess Luna, her dark wings tucked up on her flanks as her burning eyes remained locked on the smoking guard she had just struck down.

Laminia recovered first, with a shriek of, “Lumpy!” that shocked the rest of the onlookers out of their stasis. Luna’s hoofmaiden was the first to leap the fence into the ring, but she hesitated at an equilibrium point halfway between the combatants, her love for her husband matched nearly exactly by her dedication to her princess. The rest of the medics and onlookers had no problems making a decision, and fairly swarmed over the fallen guardstallion several ranks deep.

“He’s alive!” The words seemed to electrify Laminia into a nervous twitch, and turning her back on her husband, she laid down on her belly in front of her princess in a full bow with wings covering her head, heedless of the stuffing-covered sand beneath her clean coat.

Commander Buttercup struggled clear of the mob around his guardstallion and approached Luna in a manner more deferential than he had ever moved before, lowering himself into a partial bow several bodylengths away from the motionless diarch.

“Your Highness, may I have permission to speak?”

Luna’s eyes moved, although her head remained perfectly still. “Commander, you may speak.”

The old Nocturne swallowed, taking a glance behind him as if he were afraid Pumpernickel would rise from the crater and resume the combat. “I’m s-sorry, Your Highness. I didn’t know what that… thing was inside of him. I assure you, we will—”

“It is naught but what lurks in all of your hearts. We should know better than any others, for we placed it there ourselves.” Luna walked forward somewhat stiffly, brushing by Commander Buttercup as if he were a foal. Guards parted before her, with fearful whispered comments between them that she pretended not to hear. She did not stop until she was at the edge of the shallow crater, looking down at Pumpernickel, who was still being attended to by one of the sparring ring medical unicorns, the only guardstallion who had not retreated at her advance. “What is the status of my guard?”

“Tenderized, Your Highness,” replied the unicorn almost casually, keeping his attention strictly on his patient. “Nothing broken or cracked, by some miracle, but we’re going to need a can opener to get him out of that busted armor. Right now I’ve got him under a sedation spell, but he’s going to be one huge bruise in the morning.”

“That’s… really good news, Your Highness,” added Buttercup almost apologetically, having followed along at her side. “I thought for a moment there you were going to kill him.”

“Didst thou think we did not know the power of our blows?”

Buttercup glanced at where a small cluster of Nocturne gathered around Pumpernickel’s flattened helmet that had been torn free of the terrifying guard on impact and lay smoldering a dozen yards away. The Night Guards seemed to be regarding it as some holy relic in need of a temple where it might be revered properly, perhaps only to be brought out on ceremonial occasions. Two Royal hoofprints adorned the twisted chunk of metal, one to each side of the crest in a display of precisely focused violence that made the guards whisper among each other to compare their sparring ranks, and their estimated time when they would experience that violence first-hoof. “No, Your Highness.”

“‘Twas my own magic that enchanted his armor, each training, work and ceremonial piece. I fear I may have overestimated the thickness of his head, however. Can he be moved?”

The medical unicorn nodded briskly. “Yes, Your Highness. I was just going to take him to the infirmary.”

“Hold, good stallion. Hoofmaiden, attend me and thine husband.” Laminia appeared at her side as if teleported, her big golden eyes glancing back and forth between her battered husband and her precious princess, who still had a few of her tattered pads hanging from her body.

“Shall I remove your pads, My Princess?”

“Disrobe in front of my guards? What of the scandal?” asked Luna flatly, triggering a small wave of nervous laughter among the observers. “Nay, I shall dispose of them after taking your husband to the infirmary myself, and procure a new set for my next sparring match.”

Her gaze swept over the ring, still littered with tufts of white padding and more than a few deep dents in the torn screens protecting the observers. “Next week, perhaps. Timekeeper, what was your record for the duration of our match?”

“Two minutes, fifty seven seconds.”

“Acceptable.” Luna nodded almost imperceptibly as Pumpernickel floated up in her indigo magic, being carried in front of the princess as she walked away. “Redoubtable, Primrose, Laminia. Attend thy Princess of the Night. The rest of you, continue your training. There is room for improvement.”

* * *

“Your Highness,” started Primrose, walking briskly alongside Princess Luna as a shimmering rose-colored shadow in the bright moonlight. She paused for a while, attempting to place a troublesome problem in diplomatic language as they passed out of the Royal Guard training facility and onto the long walkway that led back to the castle. The silence was broken by Laminia, who trotted ahead a few steps so she could look at the interloper mare who was sharing space with her husband and her princess.

“You’re frightened of my husband,” she said bluntly. “When you travel to the griffon aerie, you think he’s going to lose his marbles and kill somepony, just like he tried tonight. You want him removed from your diplomatic mission and put as far away from you as possible. You’re afraid of our kind, Luna’s childre—” Laminia slowed to a halt as Luna abruptly stopped in the center of the walkway.

“Hoofmaiden. Take Redoubtable and fly to the castle infirmary to prepare things for your husband’s arrival.” The snow-white Royal Guard who had been striding along behind them immediately opened his wings and took to the air as if relieved at being able to flee the three tense mares, but Laminia paused with wings half-spread until Luna narrowed her brows and added, “Go.”

Luna remained standing, the Night Guard being levitated in her magic making a quiet snoring noise as they waited for the two mismatched pegasi to get out of earshot. Finally the princess resumed her stride, the diplomatic unicorn at her side. “They are not my children,” said Luna firmly. “They are obstinate, disobedient, troublesome, quarrelsome little brats at times, but that does not make them my children.” Pumpernickel had the misfortune to shift positions at that moment, making little smacking noises as he returned to slumber under the sedation spell with a mumble that sounded entirely too much like “Yes, Mom.”

Ignoring her dozing guard, Luna continued. “As my creations, they all bear my touch upon their souls, but also that of Nightmare. When my guard reached out and touched the Nightmare tonight, I feared I would have to slay him, but he overcame it. Somehow.”

“You fear him too, Your Highness.” The diplomat merely nodded at Luna’s sharp glance and continued. “If you are willing to face your fears, I can do no less. I shall accept your guard on this mission, even if I have to carry him.”

Luna nodded, slowing her hoofsteps to stand stationary and look up at the stars. “Thus you hath lifted the lesser of my burdens from my back this evening. There is a greater need.” With great care, the alicorn lifted her wing to expose the bloody hole where Pumpernickel had ripped a long ragged tear in her powerful muscles. Along severed arteries and veins, large drops of blood were held against her body by an indigo glow.

“Once we have seen my guard to the infirmary, we shall visit my sister. She is an accomplished healer with much practice against my folly. We shall discuss thy mission while Celly sews.”

Ch 5 - The New Order

Diplomacy by Other Means
The New Order

“There is nothing more difficult to take in hoof, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things.”
— N. Marechiavelli, The Princess

“Lumpy. Hey, Lumpy. Wake up.”

The world was pain. Giant lumps of throbbing agony that beat against every nerve ending in time to the beating of his heart, a dull throb of bruising that had no specific point upon which to focus, making it even harder to ignore. With a wince, Pumpernickel opened one aching eye and regarded his torturer in preparation of shouting him down.

“Ummph.”

His perky pegasus friend dressed in golden Royal Guard armor gave a grin that failed to hide a deep thread of nervousness while patting Pumpernickel on a foreleg in a manner that was supposed to be comforting, but only managed to strike new injured nerves.

“Rose says she dropped the pain suppression spell for a few minutes so the flight surgeon can release you for limited duty. We’re taking off in a few minutes for the Crystal Empire and then the Misty Mountain aerie. Hope you packed a toothbrush.”

Pumpernickel managed to open his other eye in order to look around. His surroundings were much different than expected, lacking angelic choirs and harp music, and including Redoubtable, who most certainly was not going to Elysium Fields when he died if there was any justice in the world. Instead, a dozen or so Royal Chariots were lined up neatly inside a large hangar, a thin padding of cloud along the floor with various guards and support staff scurrying around in the never-ending job of maintenance and operations. He had been inside the main hangar for the Royal Guard many times, but looking at it from this angle gave him a new perspective on the cavernous place. It was far too large, open, and lacking in obstacles to hide behind, and every pony within sight was watching him as if he were the newest carnivorous animal from the zoo who had wandered outside his cage.

Two of those ponies were Redoubtable and Primrose, standing just outside of hoof’s reach on the bottom step of a dark purple Night Guard chariot. Both of them wore the exact same insincere grin as if they were waiting to see which way he would jump, although they stood much closer together than a guard and his charge should.

After a few minutes of clearing his throat and licking his lips, checking for missing teeth, Pumpernickel managed to speak coherently.

“You two kids have fun playing with the chickens.”

“Oh, no. No way, Lumpy old buddy, old pal.” Redoubtable’s grin became real as he gestured to the open bay door of the hangar. “You’re coming along with us. Princess Luna’s orders. I even packed your regular armor.” He tapped a metallic bundle inside the chariot which rattled and clunked. “And here comes the pony who will make your dream vacation possible. Good morning, Flight-Surgeon Bone Spur. How are you this fine morning?”

“Peachy,” said a tired voice behind Pumpernickel, who paused, then added, “Lumpy? What in Tartarus are you doing out of bed?”

With a deep breath, Pumpernickel turned around while standing up, saluting the older Nocturne stallion in a precise motion that could have been used in any Royal Guard recruiting movie. “Pumpernickel of the Royal Guard, Optio of the Night Division, reporting for duty.” He swayed on his hooves and the hangar faded in and out of his vision, but the battered guard remained on all four hooves as the surgeon shook his head.

“Sit down, you stupid lunk. I’d be sent to Tartarus before I pass you for a mission. Sorry, Miss Primrose, but the guard will have to provide a different driver for you this morning.”

“He’s not a driver,” said Primrose firmly, taking a moment to float out a clipboard and give it to the flight surgeon. “He’s my adjunct.”

“Lumpy?” The surgeon flipped through several pages with a growing frown. “I wasn’t even aware he could write, let alone understand Griffon.”

The object of his derision folded his tufted ears back and growled several chirps and raspy squawks⁽*⁾ at the surgeon, which made Primrose break out in a short chuckle. “Now, that’s not the way a good adjunct talks. Besides, I don’t think that’s biologically possible for a pony.”

With an additional scowl, the surgeon hoofed the clipboard back over to Primrose. “Well, you’re still short a driver, so this chariot is grounded until—”

“Sorry I’m late! I had problems with the flight harness on this cursed thing, but I’m ready to fly now.” The noises that came from behind the flight surgeon matched a Royal Guard in the clatter of connecting straps and hardware that meshed with the chariot’s gear, but the voice was very much not a Royal Guard voice. It was far too high. And female. And it belonged to somepony who was very much not a Royal Guard, although she was closely related.

* * *

Laminia trotted around the side of the surgeon and saluted him in a slapdash fashion that would have given any drill sergeant a fit of apoplexy. “Hoofmaiden Laminia, reporting for transportation duty as assigned, sir. All we need is for you to sign off on the trip, and we’ll be on our way.”

Flight-Surgeon Bone Spur stayed mute, looking at the abomination in front of him in disbelief while Laminia remained standing casually with a defiant look—

Wearing the purple armor of a Night Guard.

He had always been aware that Nocturne mares could wear clothes, and on occasion even dresses, but this was… steel. Stallions wore steel. Mares wore… whatever wasn’t steel. The armor was not even cut the same as real guard armor. It… curved in places armor was not supposed to curve. Places where stallions had straight lines. There was even some… thing underneath her belly in the area he was trying not to think of. Actually it was two things in lieu of the proper chunk of steel that protected a stallion’s valuable area, only it was over… hers. He could not help but stare, the same way many of the other guardstallions in the hangar were regarding the display with jaws agape. Finally the words came blurting out of his mouth.

“Take that obscene thing off before somepony sees you in it!”

A second female voice came drifting over his shoulder, but where Laminia’s voice had been filled with happiness and anticipation, this voice was cold and stern as if the very Night was speaking to him. And in a way, it was.

“Lieutenant Bone Spur, would you like to rephrase your command to my hoofmaiden?”

All across the hangar bay, guards and support ponies found fascinating things to do that did not involve watching, listening, or otherwise being involved in Princess Luna’s conversation with the flight surgeon. The Princess of the Night stepped to one side of the older Nocturne stallion and regarded him as one would look at a piece of gum stuck on her hoof.

“Your Highness!” he yelped, backing up several steps.

“That is not an answer,” said Luna, stepping forward. “That is an evasion.”

“She isn’t… But that’s… Why is… Armor!” Bone Spur pointed at the offending chunk of curvy steel, unable to make any more words other than to repeat himself. “Armor. It’s armor.”

Laminia clucked her tongue and shook her head. “Eight years of medical training proves its worth. Look, all we need is for you to sign off on my ability to fly and we’ll be out of your mane. Here, I’ll show you.” She reared back and spread her wings wide, out to the fullest extent they could possibly reach. Flawless membranes rippled in the low light of the hangar, resulting in more than one low whistle of admiration from the distant non-observers, and low “Ooof” from Redoubtable as Primrose put a sharp elbow into the side of his armor before he could even get properly puckered.

“We shall abide by thy decision,” said Luna with a bit more force than usual to break through the stunned expression on the Nocturne flight surgeon.

It took a few moments for Bone Spur to gather his wits as he managed to tear his eyes away from the spread wings of Her Highness’ hoofmaiden. Princess Luna had been growing deferential to her advisors and the guard over the last few weeks, a far cry from the authoritarian presence she had presented after her return. The stern expression she wore gave little indication if she would actually follow his advice, but there was just no way around it. Mares were not meant to take on the dangers the Royal Guard faced. After all, she would be going into a tense situation with the griffons of the Misty Mountains, very well risking her life in the process, and that was no role for a mare, in particular Princess Luna’s hoofmaiden. A certain hesitation came over him as he considered the request was coming from the same Princess Luna who he had seen in the training grounds pounding Pumpernickel into the ground. His Princess. The one the Nocturne had waited a thousand years to return from exile. Still, it was for her own good. Bone Spur had the word ‘No’ all ready to say when a low noise drew his attention.

It was more of a rumble than a growl, a deep subsonic noise made by a pony-eating predator that stood the hair on the back of his mane on end. It only took a moment to realize the noise was coming from the battered Night Guard curled up in the back of the chariot like a cat, or more properly, a hunting cat, with narrowed eyes that watched him. Evaluating. The eyes of a pony who he had seen exchanging terrifying blows with Princess Luna just a few hours ago. They were eyes that said quite clearly, “If you make my wife unhappy, I will break you in half. Lengthwise.”

“Yes,” said Bone Spur, in a slightly higher tone than he expected. “Your flight is approved.”

* * *

Five minutes later after they landed on the Canterlot train platform, Pumpernickel watched in amazement while the train porters stowed the chariot in the baggage car.

“We’re not flying directly to the Misty Mountains aerie?” he asked Primrose, who was consulting a checklist while directing a porter where to put the bags.

“I would prefer to arrive at a potential diplomatic disaster with my escape route fully rested and ready to flee. We’re overnighting at the Crystal Empire and arriving at the aerie in the morning, which would only be a few hours later than flying direct. If nothing else, Luna thinks the griffons will avoid attacking for three days after our arrival, provided they adhere to their traditions.”

“And what happens after three days if you can’t make any progress on a diplomatic solution?” asked Pumpernickel with a pained wince, limping along after his new boss.

“We run like crazy and hope they don’t catch us.”

(*) Roughly translated from Griffon as “Stick your beak up your cloaca and bite me.”

Ch 6 - A Mighty Fortress

Diplomacy by Other Means

A Mighty Fortress

“It has been a custom with princesses, in order to hold their states more securely, to build fortresses that may serve as a bridle and bit to those who might design to work against them...”

— N. Marechiavelli, The Princess

While the chariot bumped towards the mountains, the cool air flowing over his bruised body felt good to Pumpernickel, but not nearly as good as the sensation of armor over his bare hide would have felt if he had not swelled up on top of the bruises. A formal military jacket of darkest purple and silver substituted for steel this morning, let out in several places by his seamstress wife and decorated with the medals he had been awarded in his short but meteoric career. There were the usual small clips of silver and gold that signified the usual accomplishments: graduation, assignment, honors, and the like, for which he was quite glad they did not have to be returned when he inevitably screwed up. Then there was a treasured silver ring that showed his assignment to Princess Luna’s personal protection unit, and a tiny red fleck of painted steel that reflected his promotion to the rank of Optio. He still had no idea just exactly what rank that was supposed to represent, and since he had received it immediately after accidentally smashing a door into Her Highness’ face, he was not certain if Luna knew what the rank was supposed to be, but it came with ten more bits in each pay period, so he had decided it was best not to press the issue and simply remain quiet.

He had thought that was going to be the most embarrassing medal he would ever have to explain, but today there was a little three-quarters moon done in silvered steel that was going to be worse. Laminia had explained in excruciating detail how the Commander of the Night Guard had given her the medal, quickly cut and polished out of the broken remains of his helmet in a new Tradition that was probably going to be known as ‘The Night Pumpernickel Got His Flank Whupped.’ The commander had explained the four different configurations of the medal as a quarter-moon for simply having the nerve to face Luna in the sparring ring, a half-moon for lasting a full minute, three-quarters for two, and a full moon for actually beating her.

It galled him somewhat that the rest of the guard, and in particular his own wife, could take his murderous loss of control so casually. The angry fire that burned in his chest had never been closer to the surface than now, and the chill breeze of high altitude only made it simmer into the background as if it were waiting for an opportunity to strike.

The tall spires of the Crystal Empire had been left far behind them this morning, an irrational fortress of crystal built to be defended with magic instead of steel and flesh. It was an uncomfortably naked feeling to walk the cool halls and walls of that ancient fortress, held away from the world longer than Princess Luna. The familiar battlements and portcullis of Canterlot had been as absent as his own armor, and he had not been able to help looking out of the crystalline windows as if griffons were about to fill the night sky and attack while the defenseless city was sleeping.

Ahead of the chariot now stood the aerie of the griffons, tucked away high on the Misty Mountain’s tallest peak in a familiar rugged lump of solid stone that almost brought a tear to his eyes. Battlements and portcullis in large numbers lurked beneath the grey stone skin of the hulking structure, seeming far too large for the few griffons who circled on the violent thermal updrafts that were scattered through the dangerous mountains. Ahead of the chariot was their single guide griffon, a short spear tucked in one taloned claw as she directed the diplomatic mission around the downdrafts and gusts. Violent short drops and bounces made the delicate pink coat of Primrose more of a bilious green by the time the chariot landed, just as softly and professionally on the landing pad as if the performance were being watched by both Princesses of Equestria.

Their welcoming committee consisted of two griffons who sat impassively at the landing pad with an unbending expression indicating a tolerance of the interlopers into their aerie that was just barely greater than the desire to kick them off the mountain. The slightly taller of the two had a dark neck ruff with little silver feathers scattered throughout it that contrasted well with the silver armband of office that he wore, showing his royal position within the aerie. The female griffon to his side bore nothing that indicated her position except the way she spread out her snow-white ruff in an attempt to look more important, but just wound up making her neck look fat. They both observed the nauseous unicorn who stumbled off the chariot and knelt at the edge of the landing pad, before turning their golden eyes to look at Pumpernickel.

“” chirped and squawked the larger griffon in a tone just short of insolence.

“” replied Pumpernickel slowly, picking his way through the Griffon language as if it were a minefield.

In truth, it took about five minutes for Primrose to get enough control over her bodily functions to officially introduce herself and the rest of the diplomatic mission to Duke Bravely Plummets Upon Groundbound Unknowing Prey and Princess Gilded Clouds Raising Gloriously Into The Dawn Sky Signifying Upcoming Storms, otherwise known as Duke Plummets and Princess Gilda. Leaving her ‘adjunct’ to oversee the luggage and the storage of the chariot in the decrepit rooftop garage, the queasy unicorn diplomat and her two guards trotted off to meet with the Wingmaster, King Talon.

According to the briefing that Primrose had drummed into him, the griffon aerie was thick with self-appointed royalty, with almost every golden-eyed griffon claiming one title or another. It was complicated enough he had almost resorted to writing all their names on one hoof, but fortunately griffon formal names were only used once in formal occasions, after which they could just be called Princess Sunny, Ambassador Sharp Edge, King Talon, etc…

While in the Academy, Pumpernickel had taken nearly every course on Griffon and Minotaur culture and language he could find, a welcome extension of his youthful concentration of studies in the same topics. The Night Guards who had served in the loose-knit Griffon Empire were as close to role models as his youthful mind could understand, and a sense of worth had trickled into his mind while studying the violent history of the two races. After all, embassies needed guards too, and the career of a Night Guard far from home had appealed to him at the time. Contrary to his wishes, he had also received some minor training in diplomacy in a forlorn attempt to counter his innate ability to say just exactly the wrong thing at the wrong time, but most of it had been promptly forgotten except for the summary: “Shut up, nod, and let the big ponies talk.”

In that regard, he was doing an excellent job so far. Two sentences spoken and no major diplomatic incidents was probably pushing the limits, and he made a resolution to remain mute for the rest of their trip just in case three times was not the charm.

After the ambassadorial party and the griffons trotted off to the warren of tunnels that led to their quarters, he oversaw the griffon’s earth pony servants as he had been commanded, making sure they got the chariot properly stored in the small, dusty hanger and all of the luggage moved.

There was something about the meek earth ponies that rubbed him the wrong way. The few servants he had seen so far were all dull and faded, as if the elevation were a draining experience on both their colors and their energy. The fortress was at a slightly higher elevation than Canterlot, but that did not explain the hunted look about the servants, and the fearful way they treated their employers.

He was used to a certain degree of passive royalty worship, having no small amount of it in his own self in regards to Princess Luna, but that was nothing like the few terrified glances they cast at the taller of the two griffons, Duke Plummets, if they looked at him at all.

After a few minutes outside to soak his bruised body in the warm sunshine, Pumpernickel turned to go into the chilly warren of tunnels that would lead to the diplomatic quarters where he had been ordered to sleep, both to heal up and to be prepared to guard this evening. That is, if he were able to find the place, as he had been foolish enough not to follow the servants when they left. There would have been a certain indignity appropriate to his life so far to become lost inside the ancient castle, and starve to death while trying to find a way out.

One of the skills a Royal Guard was supposed to have was the ability to know when they were observed. Due to his fatigue and physical condition, it was perfectly understandable for him to have missed the cues and yelped a little bit when he swept through the doorway and nearly ran over a small fledgeling griffon, who backed up so fast she almost tripped and fell down the stairs.

“Careful there!” said Pumpernickel abruptly as he darted a wing forward to herd the little griffon away from a fall down the cold stone steps. He almost finished knocking her down the steps instead, hissing in pain as his bruised wing refused to open correctly. After a few moments of labored breathing, he very carefully lifted the wing back up for examination. His bruising was somewhat covered by the dress jacket and some artfully applied cosmetics that he had complained about to no avail, but the stretched-out wing was a blotchy array of reds and blues shifting to purple where the healing spell had made the most progress.

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry, Mister Peggysus!” The little griffon looked up at him with a mournful golden gaze, sweeping her eyes across his battered body from blackened eyes to a mottled rump that brought out his silver heart cutie mark in dramatic contrast. She reached out one tentative taloned claw to touch his membranous wing, so different than her own feathered, or more accurately pinfeathered wings. “I’m sorry.”

With a suppressed curse, Pumpernickel tucked his wing back up at his flanks and managed to look down at the little fledgeling without too much of a frown. “That’s fine. No harm done, sorry to be an inconvenience. I’ll just be on my way to the diplomatic suite with the rest of our luggage and get out of your mane. Ruff. Feathers. Whatever. Goodbye.”

“Wait.” The little fledgeling looked at him with an air of command in her voice, mixed with a plaintive begging that froze his hooves to the cool stone of the staircase before he could get more than a few steps away. He tried to smile in a diplomatic way as he looked back, managing only a pained grimace in the dim lighting of the stairs that silhouetted the little griffon fledgeling in a halo of sunlight. She reared up on leoine rear paws, resting her talons against his bruised flanks in an action that caused a wince of pain, even though she seemed to be touching as gently as possible. Tiny talons traced the circular bruises that covered his flanks, in a tentative brushing as if the sad little griffon were terrified of breaking him, or guilty of his injuries.

“Are you going to go away too?”

“What?” Pumpernickel managed a painful turn, facing the little griffon who sat down with a thump on the staircase landing. “We’re only here for a few days until we can get a diplomatic agreement, if that’s what you mean.”

“No.” The little griffon sniffled. “I just thought…”

As the little griffon sat drooping at the top of the stairs, Pumpernickel considered his options, eventually deciding an introduction was an appropriate way to continue the conversation without causing some diplomatic incident. “Allow me to introduce myself. I am Pum—” Pumpernickel cut himself off with a painful cough and a moment to adjust his collar. “Please excuse me. I am called Lumpy, Adjunct to Her Excellency, the Ambassador Primrose, Representative of Princess Luna.”

It had been decided by female forces greater than himself, that the name ‘Pumpernickel’ was perhaps less than diplomatic for the occasion, because of the bloody history behind his namesake. ‘Lumpy’ had been deemed an accurate and painfully appropriate substitute, much to his chagrin at having to wear the disgraceful nickname in an official capacity. At least his title was understandable, as opposed to the title of ‘Optio’ which Luna had bestowed upon him and never explained.

“What’s an adjunk?” asked the little griffon, curiosity overcoming sadness for a brief period.

“It’s an assistant, of a sort,” explained Pumpernickel. “I make sure the bags are packed, the carriage put away, all of the paperwork is in order, things like that.”

“Oh, you mean a servant.” The griffon sniffed, and looked away. “Does your misstress beat you for misbehaving?”

The angry denial died on his lips in a wave of guilt. The little griffon fledgeling was right, but for all the wrong reasons. His mistress, in a highly metaphorical way that would never become reality as long as he lived, was Princess Luna, and she did ‘beat’ him for misbehaving, although not in the way the little griffon was probably thinking. In order to prevent any misunderstandings, he opened his mouth again to deny the charge, only to have the little griffon continue.

“You must have been bad. Like Stargazer. I didn’t think she was bad, but…”

A rustling and scratching at the bottom of the stairs preceded a strong voice calling, “Sunny? Are you up there?”

“Yes, Father. I was talking to Lumpy.” With a scratching thud of paws and claws on stone, a tall slim griffon with silvery ruff and piercing blue eyes hurried up the stairs, brushing past Pumpernickel without hardly a glance as he scooped up the little griffon in a quick hug. With a shock, Pumpernickel realized the father was Ambassador Sharp Edge, a griffon he had encountered several times around the court over the past year, and in particular just a few days ago when he had accompanied King Talon to Canterlot in the ill-fated diplomatic negotiations over the newly-emerged Crystal Empire. At which time, he had been accompanied by his daughter—

“,” squawked out Pumpernickel in Griffon, as if it were the answer to an exam question.

Her father turned rather deliberately on the stairs to face the unarmored Royal Guard with a speculative look. “Lumpy?”

“Yes, sir. Your Excellency, that is. Sir. And Your Highness. Ma’am.”

The griffon was nearly impossible to read, a study in immobility except for his piercing blue eyes, which looked the battered Night Guard over from nose to tail. His gaze only paused when taking in the guard’s crisp new uniform, hesitating momentarily on the unfamiliar medal before looking at his injuries with a dispassionate examination that felt vaguely medical to Pumpernickel.

“A very diplomatic name,” said Ambassador Sharp Edge. “Lumpy.”

“Ahh. Yes. Well, I must be going to our quarters. It was nice talking to you, Ambassador, and your daughter.” The Nocturne hesitated at the bottom of the stairs, looking in both directions in the vague hope the earth pony servants had dropped a trail of bread crumbs on their way to put away the diplomatic luggage.

“Left,” said Ambassador Sharp Edge in a particularly dry tone. “Or perhaps you would like me to guide you there. I appear to be between tasks at the moment, as King Talon is relying on Duke Plummets for this afternoon’s negotiations. After all, we would not want an agent of a foreign power wandering our halls unescorted during this time of tension. Unfortunate accidents can happen from misunderstandings.”

It only took the ambassador a few minutes to escort Pumpernickel to the Equestrian ambassador’s quarters, a small collection of rooms that would have easily held a dozen ponies. Even with the spacious balcony built for parking a chariot or two, the frigid gusts coming off the mountain made Pumpernickel feel better about having their transportation tucked away on the roof of the fortress. After all, even if Laminia had been driving, somehow a dent in the chariot would be his fault. The rooms were spotlessly clean and the ambassador was quite detailed in his description during the tour, with one exception that seemed to pluck at some unseen nerve within his chest.

“What about there?” Pumpernickel pointed at a section of the balcony about ten yards in front of the main door to the quarters. Where the rest of the balcony was swept and cleaned within an inch of its life, about a wingspread of stones remained untouched, with a dark smear of dust and accumulated debris that indicated years of disuse.

“That? Oh, you would not be interested.” The ambassador turned to leave, and paused, considering the silent little fledgeling on his back who had not moved during the entire tour. “Then again, I believe Sunny knows the story, having heard it from her grandfather several times.” A chill breeze blew through the balcony, sending a single leaf skittering across the dirty patch of floor.

“Really, Father?” Sunny looked up at from where she had been huddled against her fathers feathers, considering the bruised Nocturne stallion standing tensely at the edge of the dirty circle. “Well, if Lumpy wants to hear it, I suppose.”

“Yes,” said Sharp Edge, picking up his daughter and placing her on the floor next to him. “‘Lumpy’ wants to hear this.”

The little griffon sat back on her haunches with eyes closed and pinfeathered wings tucked up in the posture of Griffon storytelling, took a breath, and began to speak in a low cadence.

A long time ago, many centuries in fact, there was a dark and mysterious pony who visited our aerie. His eyes were like royal gold, and his wings were as a dragon, strong and powerful. Many other proud ponies traveled with him, supposedly on a mission from the Fire Queen, Celestia, to bring tribute and slaves to our Wingmaster as he deserved, but this pony was not as he seemed. One day while the Wingmaster was throwing a celebration in the Council Circle, the dark pony struck! With his companions at his side, the dark pony attacked in the middle of the party, slaying many innocent griffons and servants.

But the Wingmaster was wise, and had armed his children before the party, allowing them to fight back and slay nearly all of the treacherous ponies. The dark pony fled before his vengeance, retreating to this very balcony where he made his last stand.

Tercel after brave tercel attacked him in honorable single combat, but the dark pony scattered them all like frightened quail, until the rising of the moon. Then his demonic form could be seen, a hideous creature of darkness and evil. Only the Wingmaster was brave enough to defeat him, talon to hoof, in a deadly fight that stained the very stones red with blood that will not wash away even to this day.

The next morning, the aerie rose as a wave and descended upon the traitorous ponies who had attempted to destroy them. We captured and held the towns and villages of the Misty Valley, holding them even against the revenge of the Fire Queen, for the dark pony slain that night was her mate. That is why we remain on watch at night, for someday he will return, and only the talons of the Wingmaster will be able to slay the demon again.

“But, Father,” said Sunny with a dry sniff as she opened her eyes and turned away from Pumpernickel. “That’s only a story. They’re not like that, you know it! You were with us in Canterlot, you talked to Celestia. She’s nice, like Stargazer. She’s not evil, she doesn’t want to burn our nest down and kill us. We had dinner with her, I shared my fish with her, and she even had her batponies take us on a nighttime trip around Canterlot in a chariot—”

“Sunny—” started her father in an admonishing tone.

“—but you don’t listen to me! They have stories and histories like ours, but they say we’re the monsters! They say we attacked and bit and e-e-eat them!”

“Sunny!”

The little griffon burst into tears and darted out the door into the hallway, her father dashing after her but stopping momentarily at the door.

“My apologies for the words of my daughter, Optio. She is worried about the absence of her friend. Excuse me.”

And he was gone.

Pumpernickel walked painfully to the door, listening to the noises of father and daughter echo through the halls as they faded into the distance. He had not forgotten the feeling when he saw the two fires in Laminia’s chest, the knowledge that he would someday have a son or daughter who would bear his curse. The ambassador had lost a wife and an older daughter to the simple rigors of the dangerous life of griffons. Someday would he be in the same situation, raising a colt without Laminia for assistance?

It was difficult enough thinking of becoming a father, the thought of losing his wife was a crushing rope that threatened to choke the life out of him. The fire in his heart guttered to low coals as if the circle of dirty paving stones were sucking the heat out of it. The Pumpernickels of centuries ago were not him, a thought that comforted him as he prepared for bed with the various potions and pills that would numb his body more than his already numb mind.

Why should I forgive Sunny for believing a lie?

His bed was very cold as he curled up and attempted to sleep.

And not to dream.

Ch 7 - Trust

Diplomacy by Other Means
Trust

Because this is to be asserted in general of Griffons, that they are ungrateful, fickle, false, cowardly, covetous, and as long as you succeed they are yours entirely; they will offer you their blood, property, life, and fledgelings, as is said above, when the need is far distant; but when it approaches they turn against you.
— N. Marechiavelli, On Griffons

“Lumpy. Psst. Wake up, you lazy slug.”

He restrained himself to the great effort necessary to open one eye and glare at his guard partner, because it would have taken far too much energy to simply to slug the handsome pegasus and return to sleep.

“What do you want?” was too complicated to make it through his mouth, turned into a somewhat “Murghleth thumph” by the combination of fatigue and early rising. It took a long time to wriggle out from underneath the tight sleepy grip of his wife, who had obviously come to bed sometime after he had gone to sleep, but she barely protested when he finished getting all four hooves on the cold stone floor and slipped his duffle bag full of armor back into bed in his stead. With a subdued purr, Laminia threw a leg over the lumpy bag and snuggled in, resuming her quiet snoring even as Redoubtable helped him hobble out of the tiny guard bedroom.

“Sorry to wake the old married geezer, but we young and handsome guards have to get some sleep sometime.” Redoubtable yawned and stretched his wings, showing more than a few ruffled feathers that desperately needed preening.

“Geezer? I’m a month younger than you.” Pumpernickel suppressed a yawn of his own and felt for the moon, surprised at the lateness of the hour. “Sheesh, Red. It’s almost midnight. You should have gotten me up for my turn hours ago.”

“Doctor’s orders. You didn’t even twitch when Rosie gave you a quick dose of healing spell before she dropped off, so live with it. Now stick up a wing and let me look at you.”

Redoubtable conducted a quick examination of his fellow Royal Guard without a word despite the occasional grumble of “cold hooves” from his patient, finishing off with a gentle pat on the back that only drew a subdued wince.

“How is it, doctor? Will I ever play the piano again?” Pumpernickel stepped into his high-shinned shoes and adjusted them before putting on his helmet. The rest of the armor remained in the duffel bag being used as a pillow by his wife, because he still felt too swollen to get properly wedged inside, much like a clam too large for its shell.

“Accordion,” said Redoubtable. “With the way that you folded up when Luna hit you…” He trailed off before quietly shedding out of his own armor. “Master of the Post, I request relief.”

“Watch Guard, I am here to relieve you,” said Pumpernickel in the timeless cadence of the guard.

“I stand relieved. The watch is yours.” Redoubtable paused before heading to his well-deserved bed. “I’m glad you didn’t get killed, Lumpy.”

“It would have ruined Luna’s night,” said Pumpernickel with a nervous flick of his wings that only hurt in a good way. “Besides, this gives me an even bigger opportunity to screw up and get more ponies killed.”

“Don’t you say that!” The words almost hissed out of the pegasus guard, held to a low volume in order not to disturb either of the other two sleeping mares in the other rooms. “There’s no other guard, Day or Night, that I would rather have outside that door while I’m sleeping.”

Pumpernickel could not look the other guardstallion in the eye, but instead settled on glaring at the door to the ambassadorial suite in the vain hopes a vicious assassin would break through at any moment. After an awkward pause with no interruptions, he added, “Even after seeing what I did at the sparring ring?”

“Particularly after seeing what happened in the ring. Sheesh, Lumpy. If you had fought like that against half the instructors, you would have pounded them into the — I mean — That’s why you always held back, isn’t it? You were afraid of letting that thing out.”

“Yeah,” muttered Pumpernickel. “Like the last mission to the griffon aerie here. That Pumpernickel died just outside our door in a pool of blood. Impressed them so much they haven’t ever mopped up the mess.”

“I’ve been reading Morning Glory’s diary,” said Redoubtable with a frown. “I don’t think either of us could take more than one or two griffons by ourselves, but he didn’t just beat them, he must have killed a dozen or more to scare the griffons so much even after this many years.” The guardstallion paused with his helmet half-off, taking a surreptitious glance backwards at the diplomatic bedroom to ensure he was not being overheard. “I meant what I said. You’re more than just a name, you’re my best friend, and Laminia’s Lumpy, and Luna’s…” Redoubtable paused with an introspective look. “You and her never—”

“No!” hissed Pumpernickel with a vivid blush. “Not in that way. She was having a really bad time for a few days, and could only sleep by holding somepony’s hoof, but that’s it. Nothing else.”

From the look on Redoubtable’s face, he was on the verge of asking for more details before shaking his head and turning for bed with a muffled yawn. Pumpernickel duplicated the motion in the other direction, slipping out the front door of the diplomatic suite and settling in for a hopefully quiet night on the balcony under the stars.

-----~^~^~^~^~^~-----

There was a sense of timelessness that slipped over a guard on duty, a tranquil state of mind where even the smallest movement was registered, evaluated, and classified while the body remained perfectly still, with only breathing and heartbeat to disturb the silence. A properly prepared guard was unable to be surprised even in the darkest night in the worst of weather.

Instead, Pumpernickel split his guard time between moping over his station in life and leafing through the slick pages of the book Redoubtable had left out on the balcony beside the guard position. The copy spell had always left a duplicated book feeling too smooth for his taste, and this book had been copied recently enough that the pages still tried to stick together. It felt oddly dividing to be standing in the same place that the writer of the diary had stood two centuries ago while her Pumpernickel had savagely defended the remaining members of the diplomatic mission.

Part of him could feel the red rage of his namesake being unleashed upon the attacking griffons even through the barrier of centuries, while part of him just stood in the frigid breeze and shivered under the light of the moon. His moon and the other Pumpernickel’s moon were more different than he was to the rage-filled monster who killed griffons until he could kill no more. That Pumpernickel had been looked down upon by the imprisoned Nightmare Moon, unwillingly held away from Equestria and unable to interfere, while he was only here as a representative of Princess Luna, who held herself back from the task by her own free will. After considerable consideration, he stood in the center of the dirty circle and tried to imagine himself defending his friend and his wife from the same danger.

After a minute, he moved out of the circle.

Reading on guard duty was strictly forbidden, particularly in a potentially lethal situation such as being in the middle of a griffon aerie that could attack at any minute. Still, there was something that touched at his soul, as if the ghost of his namesake long dead these two hundred years was sitting in front of him, maintaining his eternal guard over the ponies he had failed to protect, for the sole purpose that he understand his murderous sacrifice.

The diary of the diplomat, Morning Glory, was a complicated thing, filled with socio-political observations about griffons and ponies that she had met at the side of her mentor, Ambassador Stone. He flipped through it, feeling slightly ignorant at the large words that he only vaguely recognized, until he reached the section where she talked about her trip to the aerie. Apparently his namesake was not as important as he thought, as his name was mentioned only once in passing until the entry after the attack.

According to the diary, Wingmaster Silverbeak had not ordered the attack upon the diplomats. On the contrary, he had fought fiercely against the idea until the rebellious tercels, his own children and grandchildren, had flung themselves into the attack upon Celestia’s diplomats. There were only a few lines about the attack, the mindless violence thrust upon a peaceful unicorn diplomat that she was barely able to understand, but a great deal written about the aftermath and the resulting treaty which she had signed in memory of her fallen comrades. Flipping through the rest of the book, it became apparent that the diplomat had never returned to Canterlot, spending the rest of her days in the small villages of the area, falling in love with a hero of the battle, getting married, and eventually dying in a house filled with generations of her talented progeny.

There was a sense of disappointment in him that she had not named any of her children ‘Pumpernickel’ in reverence of the guard who saved her life, but he could understand. Survival was not enough; an attack like that would cling to the mind unless it could be forgotten, left only on dry pages in faded ink instead of nightmares. There was even a notation on the diary cover that it was to be kept sealed until all who would be affected by its contents were dead. He flipped back to the few lines that covered the attack, finding it entirely too easy to imagine the blood splattered across the feathers of the dead in the descriptive words. The image was so stark that it took him a moment to separate the imaginary scene from the real sound of light hoofsteps in the hallway. They seemed to move in little spurts, with slow, hesitant clicks as they approached, and rapid scuttling noises as they fled, but the approaching was more frequent than the fleeing, so he moved away from the edge of the dirty circle on the stones where only his ghosts walked and prepared to receive living visitors.

The hallway door clicked with the sound of a key being fumbled in the lock, and a familiar voice whispered, “It’s us.”

Having been deprived of his normal gruff, “Who goes there!” command, Pumpernickel settled on the less used challenge of a whispered, “What do you want, Princess Sunny?”

“To run away and hide in my room and never have to come in this terrifying place again,” a second voice whispered back. The whispered conversation in the hallway that resulted was just barely below the limits of Pumpernickel’s sensitive hearing, but he did catch several “You promised!” and at least one “I’ll tell on you!” before the door creaked open and a milky-white pony nose poked in. But just barely in. And the owner of the second voice still sounded terrified.

“Hi! Is anypony here?”

He was so tempted to whisper back, “No” just to see what would happen, but the humor of the situation eluded him among the whispers of the invisible dead. Still, if there ever had been an attack that began this way, it had never been covered in his Academy training, so Pumpernickel sighed and said, “Come in.”

Moving in little fits and starts, the rest of the milky-white earth pony emerged from the doorway, a familiar little griffon fledgeling sitting impatiently on her back. Princess Sun Shines glanced around the balcony with a squint and whispered, “Lumpy, are you there?”

He had been around his own kind so long Pumpernickel had forgotten just how inferior most ponies’ night vision was in comparison to the Nocturne. The overhang shadowing the back half of the balcony had been the natural place for him to stand guard, but he stepped out of the shadows into a ray of moonlight and announced, “Yes, I’m here. What were you needing, Princess?”

The earth pony mare carrying Sunny froze, her eyes shrinking to tiny dots while her knees trembled and a tiny squeak managed to force itself out of her lips. The little griffon patted the pony gently on the top of her frizzy cinnamon-colored mane and said, “Oh, don’t be so frightened. It’s only Lumpy. Did you think Pumpernickel was up here?”

“Pumpernickel?” asked Pumpernickel.

“Don’t say his name!” squeaked the mare. “He’ll hear you!”

“Pumpernickel, pumpernickel, pumpernickel,” said Sunny with a scowl as she hopped off her method of transportation and scurried over to Pumpernickel. “It’s just an old biddy’s tale. Hi, Lumpy. I see you’re wearing your armor tonight.”

“Hello, Princess,” said Pumpernickel, feeling more than a little uncomfortable in more than one way. “I had to leave some of it off, but these parts fit. What brings you out at this time of night?”

“Can’t sleep. Stargazer and I used to come here and look out at the stars when I couldn’t sleep. That is, when she felt good.” The little griffon scratched at the balcony rail, climbing up on top with little heed to the hundred foot drop below that her little fledgeling wings would be unable to stop. Pumpernickel tried to help her climb, but after Sunny’s strong protests, he merely held one wing out over the precipitous drop, just in case.

“There!” declared Sunny, sitting down on the stone rail with a contented sigh and fluffing her feathers against the cold.

“Um. Yes. There.” Pumpernickel glanced back at where the pale earth pony who had brought Sunny was huddling up next to the hallway door, obviously thinking she could not be seen in the darkness. There was a definite air of nervous tension tonight, much like whenever he had attempted the thankless task of entertaining young foals in his family home. Any moment now, Sunny was going to ask him to tell a story about the beautiful stars that were scattered about Luna’s sky, and the last thing he wanted to admit was his knowledge was limited in that regard to ‘North’ and ‘Orion, I think.’

“So, was your friend sick a lot?”

The fluffed-up feathers around Sunny lost much of their fluff. “No. She was bad. She had to be bad or she wouldn’t be punished so much. And she wasn’t a friend. She was just a pony.”

“No, I didn’t mean that,” said Pumpernickel, uncomfortable at having hit the little griffon’s weak spot. “I mean… When you couldn’t sleep before, what did she do?”

All of the previously flattened feathers fluffed back up and the little griffon looked up at him with bright sparkling eyes. “We used to fly!”

“Pardon?”

“Well, not really fly. She used to hold me out over the edge and I’d flap my wings just as hard as I could and imagine the wind in my face was really flying.”

Pumpernickel considered just what ideas would go through a battered earth pony servant as she held a flightless fledgeling over a certainly fatal drop, where one tiny slip would have bashed Sunny’s head on the rocks below. He wasn’t sure just what he would have done in the same circumstances, and he really didn’t want to know either.

“Could you hold me over the edge again so I can practice flying, Mister Lumpy? Please?”

-----~^~^~^~^~^~-----

A piercing voice echoed around the buildings in Canterlot, as ponies gathered to hear the latest news. “Extra, extra! Read all about it!” screamed the Canterlot newscolt, holding a newspaper above him as a crowd of ponies gathered around. “Butterhooves Royal Guard Kills Royal Heir! War Declared By Griffon Empire! Thousands Feared Dead!”

-----~^~^~^~^~^~-----

“No,” said Pumpernickel firmly. “No, Your Highness. I’m still recovering from my injuries, and I would not feel… safe in that role.”

“Oh.” The little griffon drooped again, scooting closer to Pumpernickel as a windbreak against the chill breeze that scattered ice crystals around the moonlit balcony in glittering swirls. Before she could somehow come up with another dangerous request that would shorten Pumpernickel’s life through suppressed stress, he quickly steered the conversation in a neutral direction.

“Stargazer sounds like a very interesting pony. What do you know about her?”

The floodgates were opened and the little griffon began to chatter, holding herself against the warm Night Guard with only the occasional covetous glance at the sparkling decorations on his jacket. Stargazer apparently had known Sunny for a few years now, almost ever since her hatching, and had been a constant companion until her uncle, Duke Plummets had arrived at the aerie nearly the same time her sister had died. Grandfather, or as Pumpernickel had to constantly remind himself, Wingmaster Talon had given the duke preferential treatment, including a personal servant of his own choosing.

To Sunny’s youthful ire, he had chosen Stargazer.

Grifflet and pony had been still able to talk on occasion, in particular during the rest of mating season when all of the adult griffons who could fly engaged in idiotic plumage displays and stupidly dangerous stunts in order to attract the attention of prospective mates. Sunny had taken the death of her older sister during mating season harder than most griffons, whose views on death and mourning were shockingly shallow to Pumpernickel’s judgement. One single day of mourning, a funeral in the crypts on the top of the mountain among the rest of the ancestors of her clan, and a short epitaph chiseled on a stone were all that most griffons received. Even Wingmasters merely received a few additional inscribed lines of their accomplishments before being placed within the vault of bones on the high mountain peak like any other commoner.

Pumpernickel nodded along as the little griffon talked, avoiding interjecting his own observations on pony funerals and mating rituals. Somehow he did not think it would be productive for Griffon-Pony relations to tell how Laminia used to kick him in the head just as hard as she could when they first met, or the rather interesting relationship Princess Luna had with her groomer.

The little griffon leaned into his chest more and more as she talked about how she missed her friend and her sister, and the loneliness of her position. Only royalty or the servants were supposed to interact with a princess in a proper fashion. Since her sister was gone, grandfather had become her frequent companion whenever he had time, although she avoided Duke Plummets as much as possible. Casting a cautious glance back towards the door showed her earth pony servant, Milk Toast, was still patiently waiting, but the edge of terror that the pale pony showed earlier had worn down to a series of silent fidgets, only rising to a spasmodic twitch whenever the duke or the wingmaster’s name was mentioned.

Finally Sunny let out a yawn, looking back into the darkness where her servant was waiting. “I just wish I knew why Stargazer left.”

“She’s pregnant,” said Milk Toast from the doorway, suddenly looking nervous once the words were out of her mouth. Sunny fluffed up her feathers and turned around, causing Pumpernickel a moment of fright as one hind leg kicked briefly in thin air before she regained her footing.

“Pregnant? How did that happen?”

“Well, when a mare and a stallion love each other very much,” started Pumpernickel, still a little distracted by Sunny’s near fall. There was a pregnant pause, and the guardstallion was abruptly aware of the piercing alert gaze of the little griffon, waiting for his next line.

“Well?” she added impatiently. “Then what?”

“They mate?” said Pumpernickel, who had expected to be giving a birds-and-bees lecture someday, but had expected it to be years in the future to his own progeny . “It’s not really that big a deal. My wife is pregnant. Like Stargazer, she’s probably going to want to take a few months off when the foal is due, and maybe a few months for nursing.”

“So has she laid her eggs yet?”

It was all he could do to avoid breaking into laughter, or possibly tears. Memories floated up of a delightful practical joke Laminia had pulled on a couple of annoying little bullies involving a melon, some grey paint, and a lot of gullibility on their regard, but the little griffon looked deadly serious, so he choked back the chuckle in exchange for a brief snort. “No, of course not. We don’t lay eggs.” Quickly catching Sunny’s crestfallen expression, he continued, “But I’m willing to go check up on Stargazer if you want. Toehold is the name of the village, right?”

“Toenail,” corrected Sunny. “She said her parents live in a two-story blue building with green shutters.”

The quiet voice of Milk Toast interrupted with a protesting “But you’re not supposed to leave…” The interruption died out into a dead silence as the young mare glanced back and forth between her predatory employer and the pony that she suddenly seemed to realize had much the same predatory instincts. From the expression on her face, she believed the guard was restraining himself from violence by only the smallest of margins. And she had nearly trod over that margin.

Sunny appeared oblivious to Pumpernickel’s glare at her servant, and rubbed her head up under the Nocturne’s chin with a happy, “You would? Thank you!”

He tried to nuzzle her back, but something inside crumbled at the affectionate gesture even as he heard the faint whisper of displaced air that did not belong in the still night. Swinging one wing forward to wrap around the griffon fledgeling, he tucked into a forward roll and spun around at nearly the same instant a huge feathered shadow from the sky dropped onto the balcony in the exact same place he had been standing just a second ago.

Ch 8 - Greed

Diplomacy by Other Means
Greed

“The lion cannot protect himself from traps, and the fox cannot defend himself from timberwolves. One must therefore be a fox to recognize traps, and a lion to frighten timberwolves.”
— N. Marechiavelli, The Princess

“Uncle Plummets?” said Sunny, popping her head up from behind Pumpernickel’s wing to squint at the moonlit griffon crouched on the balcony. “What are you doing here?”

Moments passed while Pumpernickel calmed his heartbeat, thinking about how he would have preferred to ask the question Sunny asked in a more profane manner, with the griffon in a headlock and while pounding insistently on the top of his plume-decorated golden helmet with one armored hoof.

“Your father was worried.” Cold glints of green light flickered from the eyes of the helmet the griffon wore, a curious archaic relic dating back to many, many centuries ago when they had been costume de rigueur for the entire caste of griffon warriors, along with more fanciful armor which had been more of a hinderance than assistant to their combat skills. The large griffon could have been carved out of obsidian for as much as he moved, his razor-sharp beak pointed straight at Pumpernickel as if he were calculating the exact point to stab for the tastiest delicacies. Finally he moved, but only to talk again.

“You should not be here, Princess Sun Shines.”

“Yeah.” Pumpernickel could feel the little griffon princess slump behind his wing even as he remained with eyes locked on her uncle. “I couldn’t sleep. I miss Stargazer.”

“It is not proper to become attached to the servants,” said Plummets, turning his eyes deliberately from the Night Guard to look at his niece. “Others will talk.”

The response from the little griffon was nearly inaudible, but possibly included a sniff. Duke Plummets seemed to make a decision with a contemptuous twitch of his tail, striding to the hallway door past Pumpernickel by walking straight across the circle of dirty stones. “Come, Princess. Toast will carry you home.”

Sunny slid out from under his wing, but only after Pumpernickel gave her a quick reassuring winghug. Pony and princess passenger fumbled together in the darkness by the door before departing without a trace after their escort, only the sound of hooves and adult claws fading off into the distance of the hallway showing they had ever been here at all.

Waiting until he was certain the griffons had gotten out of range, and taking a peek down the hallway just to be certain, Pumpernickel locked the door again before turning to the other door leading from the balcony into the diplomatic quarters with a sigh.

“They’re gone. You can come out now.”

Three sheepish ponies walked out from behind the door, each trying with body language to indicate the others had been listening first. Both Laminia and Redoubtable were wearing their helmets and foreleg armored shin braces, the fastest pieces of armor to get on in a hurry and the most important in a fight, but Primrose held nothing more dangerous than a worried look. Pumpernickel cut across their carefully arranged excuses and began to take off his jacket.

“I’m going to get armored up and fly to that little village at the bottom of the mountain to talk with Stargazer tonight. There’s something wrong going on, and I want to get to the bottom of it.”

“You’ll endanger the mission,” said Primrose rather crossly. “I’m not going to let you do it.”

Ignoring the diplomat, he nodded at his fellow guard with a grimace. “The duke had the same night vision enchantments on his helmet as you do, which probably means there are more of them out there watching. You’ll need to guard the mares while I’m gone. I’m almost positive he was trying to attack me when he dropped onto our balcony, and I don’t think he knew Sunny was here. He came dropping in on me from an angle that would have concealed her.”

“You’re not going.” The diplomat took a position between Pumpernickel and the balcony, setting her jaw in a firm line.

Pumpernickel dumped the bag with the rest of his armor out on the floor with a clatter, picking up his breastplate. “If I’m not back by dawn, I’m not coming back. Make whatever excuses you need to, and get them out of here.”

The diplomat coughed quietly, and nodded to Laminia. “Get the envelope.” As Pumpernickel began the painful task of strapping his breastplate on, his wife trotted over with an envelope in her teeth and presented it to him. It was a very formal envelope, done in dark colors and with a smooth gloss that made it slick to the touch, adorned with the name ‘Lumpy’ on the front in silver ink much as an invitation to a formal occasion would be addressed. Pumpernickel turned it over in his hooves twice before opening it up and reading the enclosed letter out loud.

To my faithful and ~~sometimes~~ hard-headed Guard.
We have included this letter in case you have forgotten your lessons about how one of my diplomats doth speak with my voice. Thou shalt obey the words of Ambassador Primrose just as if you were to hear those words in my own breath, from my own lips, and with the promise that I shall have prepared a much thicker helm with which to adorn thy thick skull during our next sparring match.

To thy wife, who is reading this letter over your shoulder, I hereby order you to add thine efforts to Our Representative in the highly probable case your husband has been given this letter because he proposed doing something both foolish and dangerous.

And to Our Representative, we add the caveat that our guard quite often will make the wrong decision for entirely the right reason. His heart is right far more often than his head, so temper your decision with his wisdom, if not his stupid suggestions.

Until you return,
Princess Luna, Princess of the Night, Guardian of the Ebon Veil, Mistress of Dreams

P.S. Lieutenant Redoubtable, I have entrusted thee to bring Our Representative home safely. I am looking forward to attending your nuptials, and shall be most upset if anything happens to disturb our schedule.

“Nice to be remembered,” grumbled Redoubtable while his fellow guard just stared at the paper with the muscles in his jaw moving rhythmically. After a few moments, Pumpernickel wadded the paper up and popped it in his mouth, chewing with intense concentration before swallowing.

“Good,” muttered Primrose. “At least her words will soak into you one way or another. Now, what is it about that servant that has you all ready to fling your armored carcass out into the night where Celestia knows how many other griffons with night vision helmets are lurking? How do you know this isn’t some sort of trap to provoke us?”

“I don’t,” grumbled Pumpernickel. “It’s just — a feeling.” He hesitated before looking out the balcony at the glittering night. “I can feel something, I don’t know what, but it feels dangerous. My special talent is soaking up damage that would hurt the ones I care about.”

Laminia patted him on the shoulder as she moved to his side. “And you care about everypony, which is one reason I fell madly in love with you, Lumpy. I’m just still a little fuzzy about why you went off your gourd for me.”

“Madly in love indeed. I plead Contagious Insanity.”

Pumpernickel shifted uncomfortably as Primrose placed herself directly in front of his nose, so close he could feel her breath in the hairs of his muzzle. “Will you treat my orders as the words of your Princess of the Night, Optio Pumpernickel?”

As much as he wanted to prostrate himself flat against the floor and close his eyes, Pumpernickel remained looking resolutely into her piercing green gaze. There was one lesson he had been taught ever since the first day he had been adopted into his clan, one phrase that had been passed down throughout every generation of Nocturne since the very first night of creation. Four words that separated him from the monster that lived within his skin.

“We serve the Princesses.”

Primrose remained at the end of his nose, staring into his eyes as if she were a thousand miles away until she gave a sharp nod. “Good. I agree with you. This pony could be the deciding point to just what is going on here. Something has the griffons worked up, making them act more — griffony than normal, but I’m not sending a wounded guard stampeding down into the village to look for a pregnant earth pony. I’m sending his pregnant wife.”

“What!” Contrasting emotions stampeded through his body, but he kept his eyes focused and his breathing regular until Ambassador Primrose continued.

“She’s less threatening, more sympathetic, and more sneaky than any male in this room. Any objections?”

“Hundreds. Dozens. Several.” Pumpernickel wound down as his breathing slowed, the breath of the unicorn ambassador in his face seeming oddly calming to his frazzled nerves.

We serve the Princesses.

“The balcony is probably being watched,” he began, his voice sounding oddly detached to his ears. “But from a distance. Those night vision spells are tricky and have problems picking ponies up in the shadows, but if you’re in moonlight, you might as well be carrying a sparkly flag. If you’re spotted, freeze in place. Griffons see movement better than shapes. Wait until you’re positive they’re not watching, then wait some more. And for Luna’s sake, be careful!”

Laminia gave no indication she heard her husband, exchanging her bits of guard armor for a ratty hooded cloak that she extracted out of the luggage as if it had been waiting for just this moment. At a confirming nod from the ambassador, she gave Pumpernickel a kiss on the cheek and paused in front of the hallway door with a blinked away tear that she turned into a wink at her immobile husband.

“I’ll be back by dawn. Don’t worry.”

And then she was gone, slipping out the hallway door just as silently as a shadow.

He remained on guard while the ambassador went back to her bed and Redoubtable curled up just inside the door in his armor to get some rest. Morning was a long way away, and he composed himself into a guard stance outside the embassy door just as formally as if he were in the Academy.

Back straight. Eyes forward. Mind blank. Defending.

The night seemed to last forever.

--~-~-~--*--~-~-~--

--~-~-~--*--~-~-~--

Dawn had peeked over the mountains, burning into the thick fog that carpeted the lower peaks and valleys in a brilliant white, and reflecting off the spring mountain snowpack in a brilliant display that brought tears to the eyes without sunglasses. No tears marked the eyes of the Night Guard as he wedged himself uncomfortably into his unyielding armor, the sharp bite of steel across his healing bruises a comforting distraction from the absence of his wife, still not returned from her trip into the village. His fellow guard helped him with the more awkward pieces, casting the occasional nervous glance at the unmoving hallway door and nearly jumping out of his shoes when a hoof lightly knocked.

“Pardon me, Your Excellency. Are you ready for your meeting?” A rather timid pony in a thick cloak against the morning cold opened the door a crack, and when she saw the ambassadorial group already gathered together in a way to block line of sight to the griffons somewhere out beyond the balcony, slipped in the door and closed it behind her. “My hooves are killing me. Lumpy, the next time — Urk!” Laminia made only a token effort to escape from the armored hug she had become entangled within, blushing fiercely as her husband tried to suppress a sniffle.

“I was worried,” he mumbled from somewhere around her neck.

“Well, I told you not to worry,” she chided in return, slipping out of the thick wool cloak and wincing at the pinch of her husband’s cold armor against her coat. “I swear every house in that town is blue with green shutters. I must have talked to a dozen families before I found her parents, and still no Stargazer. Now let me get my armor on and I’ll—”

“No,” said Ambassador Primrose firmly, pointing at the door to the diplomatic residence. “Tell us what you found and go to bed before you fall over. Don’t make me get the letter,” she added as Laminia seemed ready to object.

“Um…” Pumpernickel looked uncomfortable as he attempted to get the diplomat’s attention.

“I said don’t make me get the letter. Neither of you would like it very much.” Ambassador Primrose fixed Laminia with a steely glare and the hoofmaiden decided rather quickly that she meant what she said.

Giving the ambassador a quick salute, Laminia detailed her trip down the mountain on the earth pony supply road in sharp detail, including observations on the watchgriffon who had been alert enough to watch her walk up and down the road, but not actually intrusive enough to talk with the cloaked pony carrying a candle lantern to discover her identity. The ponies of the village of Toenail were much like the servants in the griffon fortress, and rotated through their service with the griffons in exchange for proper rainfall for all the ponies in the valley, although for the last few years the bargain had become somewhat lopsided as the weather control became more slipshod and the demands for servants more insistent. Stargazer had actually been scheduled to return to the village for nearly a month now, and all of the ponies Laminia had talked to expressed concern about her late schedule.

“Troubling,” was all that the ambassador would say about the matter, even after Laminia had gone back to bed and the door to the diplomatic quarters sealed with a locking and trapping spell. There were more than a few troubled thoughts of his own rattling around in Pumpernickel’s mind as he escorted the ambassador to the morning meetings, but not enough to distract him when he was pulled aside by Sunny at their first break of the morning.

“Did you find out anything?” she asked with big, sad eyes once they were a short distance away from her family, although Milk Toast lurked by fairly close as if prepared to run away screaming when ‘Lumpy’ were inevitably to go suddenly insane.

“No, nothing. Sorry. She’s not down at the village.” The words were out of his mouth before he realized that Laminia’s little visit to Toenail was probably a horrible breach of security around the negotiations, and he had just blurted it out right to the Wingmaster’s granddaughter.

Fortunately, Sunny seemed preoccupied and blinked several times before murmuring something that sounded like, “...going to check out another possibility.” She excused herself from the negotiations once they resumed, turning down Milk Toast’s offer of a ride back to her rooms in order to simply plod out of the negotiation chamber on her own. The posture of the little griffon bothered him, as if she had some secret fear that she had been holding back with the idea that her friend was safe and secure, but now that hope had been brutally dashed.

Something else bothered him too, on a constant basis that itched at his subconscious all the while he stood motionless behind Ambassador Primrose. The tendency of the Royal Guard to blend into the background as they played ‘statue’ was something that never failed to amaze him, in particular legendary stories from his fellow guards who were stationed in the legislative buildings and the lewd antics of royals who conducted their private affairs where they thought nopony was watching. During the meeting, it had only taken him a few minutes of immobility behind Primrose for nearly every griffon to ignore the guards, all except two. Both Duke Plummets and Wingmaster Talon ignored Redoubtable, but each kept a constant flicker of brief glances in Pumpernickel’s direction, as if they thought the big guard was slowly creeping up on them whenever his attention was distracted. It was not until the ambassadorial party broke off negotiations for lunch until the subconscious itch worked its way up to the top of his mind, and then he held back on saying anything until they all had returned to their quarters and he had given his armored wife a brief hug.

“I told Princess Sun Shines about her friend not being down at the village,” he blurted out as they gathered the lunch meal things together.

“Well that explains why she looked like a kicked dog when she left the meeting,” said Primrose with a concerned frown. “And stop looking at me that way, I’m not blaming you. Now I’ve got two worries: a missing pregnant earth pony and a depressed baby griffon who knows one of us snuck out last night.”

“She’s not a baby,” said Pumpernickel absently while picking open a package of flavored oats from his supplies. It had seemed paranoid at first to pack their own food for the trip, but after the last two days in the aerie, he was beginning to think it was not paranoid enough. Despite being locked in the ambassadorial quarters, Laminia had not started preparing lunch before they returned, for which Pumpernickel was grateful since it gave his hooves something to do while he thought.

“She’s smarter than I am—” Ignoring the snort of derision from Redoubtable, he continued “—and smarter than most adults I know. I’m pretty sure she can even read—”

Pumpernickel paused, slipping back out to the balcony for a minute before returning to the lunch table. “She took your diary.”

“No she didn’t,” said Primrose, adding water to her own dehydrated lunch. “I loaned it to Red.”

“I left it out on the balcony last night after it got too dark to read,” said Redoubtable.

“It was still on the balcony when Plummets walked by, and I was watching him so intently I didn’t pay any attention to Sunny. She must have scooped it up on her way out and tucked it under a wing. I thought there was something missing last night when I was standing watch. My Academy instructors would roast me if I had been that unobservant during training.”

They ate the remainder of their lunch with few words spoken, the dry rations tasting even duller than before. Ambassador Primrose determined that for the afternoon negotiation session, she would take Redoubtable and Laminia, with Pumpernickel remaining behind to get some rest for the evening guard duty.

That was an unneeded decision as a hammering on the hallway door turned out to be a ruffled Ambassador Sharp Edge who greeted Ambassador Primrose rather hurriedly before panting out words that seemed to freeze on the chilly air.

“I have been sent to inform you to remain within the ambassadorial quarters until further notice. Sunny’s gone.”

Ch 10 - Escape

Diplomacy by Other Means
Escape

“She who neglects what is done for what ought to be done, sooner effects her ruin than her preservation.”
— N. Marechiavelli, The Princess

The form of a Night Guard stood perfectly still in the shadows of the ambassadorial balcony, with hooves firmly placed where the other Night Guard had stood a few minutes before. His sides did not move, and his eyes did not blink, but other than that, Pumpernickel had to admit it was a nearly perfect replica of a living guard. He still did not trust the magical device enough to leave the gadget out there to stand watch by itself, but it did leave Pumpernickel enough confidence in their security to stay inside with his shaking wife and observe the outside world through a crack in the door as Primrose and Redoubtable attempted to calm her enough to speak.

“From the beginning, dear,” whispered Primrose as she pressed a cup of recently rehydrated coffee into Laminia’s trembling hoof. “From when you left the apartment.”

“I thought she was going to be alive, I really did,” sniffed Laminia with a gulp of the nearly sludge-like coffee. “I can’t imagine anypony—I mean anygriffon doing that to her. All I could think of on the way back was that they had already broken in h-here and k-killed you all, and when Lumpy opened the door I just… I want them dead, don’t you understand? As long as they’re alive, they can do that to other ponies. They just need to die.”

“All of them?” whispered Pumpernickel as he looked out into the motionless night. “Including Sunny?”

The silence stretched thin, with Laminia trying to respond several times only to smother her trembling voice with more coffee until she had reached the gritty sand on the bottom of the cup. “No,” she finally whispered, running one hoof over her belly in a soft caress of the unborn foal inside.

“Tell us what you saw, my wife, and I promise you justice, not vengeance.”

Laminia accepted a second cup of ersatz coffee and began to quietly speak, with only a hint of trembling in her voice.

“I left by way of the servant’s entrance again. I’m pretty sure it’s being watched, but I kept my head down and the lantern on, and nopony bothered me. Once I got a ways down the path, I put out the lantern and took off through the trees. It was a little slow flying, but I really didn’t want to fly over the treetops and be seen by any griffon patrol, so dodging between the trees was about my only choice. The clearing I saw was a little bit farther south than I thought, and it took me quite a while to find it. Every minute I thought a griffon was going to come dropping down out of the sky and land on my neck.”

She shuddered and took another drink, rubbing the back of her mane with one hoof. “I found her body in the clearing, wrapped up in a sheet and smashed into the ground like she had been dropped from some height. She’d been—eaten. Partially. Something big had ripped out her throat, and tore into her chest. I think it was her liver that was half-gone, I don’t know for sure.”

Ambassador Primrose twisted uncomfortably without taking her eyes off the trembling mare. “There’s a lot of things out in the forest that eat—”

“She wasn’t eaten in the forest,” hissed Laminia. “There was almost no blood on the sheet, and the weather has been cold enough she had barely started to decompose. Something killed her, ate on her dead body, and then dumped her in the forest wrapped in a sheet. Something, or somegriffon.”

Laminia trembled with anger, resting a hoof on Pumpernickel’s armor for support. “Sunny had to have found her. There were little griffon tracks all around, and she had put branches and flowers over the body. The poor thing. Her only friend.”

Primrose gave a sharp intake of breath and a near-silent curse. “Plummets has his nest on the south side of the castle. Sunny could never have found the body if she didn’t have a good idea of where to look. We’ve must take this to the Wingmaster.”

“The eldest griffon is entitled to the first bite of the fallen prey,” whispered Pumpernickel, looking out on the moonlit night, watching the puffy clouds in the distance who watched back. “There is one griffon who hates ponykind more than Plummets, and that is his father, the Wingmaster. The bonds of tradition are strong in their kind, much as it is for ours. If you really believe Wingmaster Talon is not involved, you could always take it up with him at the meeting he has called for his flock this evening in the Council Chamber.”

“There is only one thing that griffons will talk about under the moon in that chamber that they will not discuss during the day. War,” breathed Primrose. “Are you sure?”

Pumpernickel nodded grimly, not taking his eyes off the distant clouds. “Almost positive. Duke Plummets came by less than an hour ago and picked up our door guard for their meeting, and he specified it was taking place in the Council Chamber.”

Primrose considered for long moments before reluctantly rising to her hooves and going over to their baggage. She scratched at a note for a few minutes as the rest of them looked on, a sense of failure seeming to drape across her shoulders at the action. The note was short and succinct, with several references to a small black book, before the note was popped into a green bottle with a faint thump and consumed by a curling flash of dragonfire. The four of them watched the thread of smoke waft out the door, flowing invisibly into the night before the ambassador placed the book on the floor. With another flash of her horn, she lit it, watching the small, flickering flames that lasted long after the pages of the codebook had burned to ash.

“We’re leaving.”

“Not without the body,” hissed Laminia, sounding more like a feral animal than his wife. “I won’t leave her out in the forest to be eaten by the scavengers.”

“I agree,” said Primrose, finally managing to look away from the burning book. “I might have been reluctant to take the escape cloak(*) before, but we’re going to need the chariot now. It’s the only transportation large enough to bring Stargazer’s body to the Crystal Empire as proof of what has been happening here. Hopefully the rest of the griffon aeries will be unwilling to rise up in support of Wingmaster Talon if we can show them… this. It will be dangerous, but it’s a risk we’ll have to take.”

“And if that’s not enough to keep Talon from attacking the Crystal Empire?” asked Pumpernickel.

“Then they’ll die,” said Primrose. “As will far too many ponies. And this time the Royal Guard will likely burn their whole aerie to the ground.”

* * *

* * *

“I feel stupid,” whispered Pumpernickel from under what seemed to be several yards of frilly black fabric.

“You look stupid too,” whispered Redoubtable from under his own fabric cloak, creeping along behind his fellow guard. A quick spritzing of mane coloring had taken all of the white out of Primrose and Redoubtable’s coat, and hoof-polish had dulled his golden armor to a muddy mess, but the tension of the moment was playing havoc with everypony’s nerves.

“Shut up, you morons,” hissed Laminia, looking back to make certain their inflatable guard decoy was still stationary in front of the ambassadorial quarters door. “This stuff only blocks the night vision spell on the griffon helmets, not your yammering.”

“He started it,” grumbled Pumpernickel.

“Did not,” responded Redoubtable.

“Hush!” hissed Primrose as she held her cloaking material up over the door to the hallway and gestured for her guards. “Hurry up.”

Pumpernickel slipped out into the hallway in front of the rest of the group, pausing only momentarily to hold a steel-clad hoof up and regard the additional covering with masculine embarrassment. “Couldn’t you have come up with a bunny slipper in some color other than pink?” he asked, once the balcony door had been closed and they were all safely in the fortress hallway.

“I’ve got two extra for your mouths if you don’t shut up,” snapped Laminia with a glance backwards at where the ambassador was sprinkling some sort of powder on the door.

Redoubtable opened his mouth to respond, paused at the look of pure malevolence on Laminia’s face, and decided further attempts to lower the stress level of their late-night stroll were not worth having a pink bunny slipper forcefully jammed down his throat, or into any other convenient orifice.

With only the slightest of noises, the two bunny-slipper clad guards ghosted down the corridor, followed by the two mares, the only signs of their presence being the low green glints from Redoubtable and Primrose’s goggles. Their route to the tiny roof garage where the the chariot was stored seemed clear and unguarded.

Until they turned a corner.

Two stunned griffons wearing their own green-tinted helmets blinked in surprise at the two mismatched pony guards coming around the corner, all four of them sharing a moment of mutual shock, although it possibly took the griffons just a tiny fraction of a second more to get over their surprise at seeing bunny slippers on the supposedly ferocious Royal Guard hooves.

The first griffon opening his beak and inhaling to give a shout found a dark thunderbolt of pony fury exploding up under his chin, armored forelegs clamping around his neck in a vice-like grip while rear hooves swept up under his own extending wings, striking tendons and muscles in a paralyzing blow. The griffon gave a brief grunt, jabbing downward with his beak even as Pumpernickel heaved backwards, causing the griffon to tumble forwards and land on top of the Nocturne. It was only a momentary distraction to the suffocating griffon as he opened one steel-clad gauntlet and struck downwards at the entrapping pony, again and again in frustration as the Royal Guard had managed to use the griffon’s own body as a shield, and the steel-clad pony legs sprayed sparks from the protective enchantments as he struck. Something moving in the corridor caused the guard to look up, even with his neck being restrained by the pony underneath him, and he jerked backwards as two delicate pink-clad rear hooves smashed forcefully into his forehead.

Pumpernickel heaved his limp opponent to one side and rolled forward to where Redoubtable was wrestling with the second griffon. One coordinated wing-sweep and grapple under leonine hind legs knocked the female griffon off-balance enough for Redoubtable’s hard-driven hoof to the chest and two solid smacks of feathered head against stone wall to drop the griffon in a pile of twitching feathers. Redoubtable hopped backwards, shaking one forehoof which had somewhere been stripped of the associated bunny slipper.

“Hard-headed bastard. How’s the other one?”

“Out like a light,” said Laminia, shaking one hind hoof after another. “He tried to eat something that disagreed with him.” She pulled the griffon’s helmet off and checked his eyes. “Breathing, but I don’t think he’s going to be quite right for an hour or two.”

A faint groan escaped the second griffon, and Primrose held up a hoof to stop her guards from additional violence as her horn lit up. “Gimme just a second. Truthspell. Learned it from Luna.”

“Isn’t that just a little illegal?” asked Redoubtable, tossing the female griffon’s helmet to one side and wrapping her forelegs together with some restraints.

“Hush, dear,” mumbled the ambassador. “If I don’t get this right, she’s just going to monologue.”

Green light glowed from Primrose’s horn, mirrored by a soft green glow that shone out of the stunned female griffon’s eyes. Her body convulsed briefly, then settled into a quiet rhythmic pattern that sounded slightly raspy as she clicked her beak in time with her breathing and wobbled her head as if it had become loose on her neck..

“What are your orders?” asked Primrose in a commanding tone.

“Secure the door. Make sure the ponies don’t escape,” replied the griffon softly, as not to disturb whatever she was looking at.

“Were you to kill us?” asked Primrose, moving to stand dangerously close to the griffon’s beak.

“Kill you? No. Why would we do that? Plummets said he wanted you all alive.” The griffon clicked her beak and bobbed her head like she was listening to music only she could hear. “Said it would be better that way for everygriffon at the meeting.”

“What’s going on at the meeting?”

“Just a front,” said the griffon weakly as if she did not want to admit to the deception. “Wingmaster is getting them all fired up so when Duke Plummets drops you ponies into the council chamber, they’ll side with him on the attack. No idea why.”

“What do you know about Stargazer?” asked Laminia, the green light reflecting from the griffon dancing dangerously in her golden eyes.

“Some pony, I guess. Plummet’s servant and bedmate. A little creepy. He beats her, you know?” The griffon blinked and looked quizzical, seemingly entranced by the play of greenish light on the corridor ceiling. “During mating season, he couldn't do it. Clawed all over my back instead. Maybe ponies do it for him.”

“You mated with him?” asked Primrose in a shocked tone of voice that indicated it was not her intended next question.

“Oh, he mated with eeeeverygriffon,” said the female griffon with a long purring chirp. “Or tried.”

“Any guards on the chariot?” growled Pumpernickel, still silently staring down the empty corridor as if he expected it to be filled with hostile griffons at any moment.

“Nope.” The female griffon’s head shook, making her tousled plumes flop back and forth. “They’re all in the Council Chamber for now.”

“Good,” grunted Redoubtable, bringing one heavy hoof down on top of the griffon’s head with a solid thud. “Amnesia spell. Learned it from Lumpy. Come on, let’s go!”

The remainder of their dash upstairs was accomplished with less stealth, the click of un-slippered hooves on stone the result of several of the fuzzy bunny slippers being lost in the combat. The chariot was unguarded and thankfully ignored in the dusty garage since their arrival. Pumpernickel and Redoubtable slipped into harness in perfect synchronization, taking off into the starry night the moment they heard the two ‘clicks’ of their passenger’s safety harnesses being fastened.

The Royal Chariot swept soundlessly into the inky darkness, its silent departure nearly unnoticed.

Nearly.

--~-~-~--*--~-~-~--

“Down there and off to the left, dear. I think I see the clearing.”

The two guards turned as directed, dropping the awkward chariot through the treacherous nighttime gusts and placing it gently in the center of a forest clearing. It was a rare flat spot in the rugged trees that stuck so tenaciously to the side of the mountain, where snow had melted into a slushy mess around the raw, dark earth. The resulting open clearing was filled with the frantic blooms of spring flowers, an explosion of colorful life that clashed horribly with the low undertone of death in the air. A muddy brown sheet wrapped around a lumpy object at the edge of the flowers would not have gotten a second glance from them at any other time, but this was no ordinary time.

With a scattering of yellow and white flowers, Primrose pulled the sheet back in one swift motion, taking in the view of the pony corpse with only a muffled gulp of nausea. Stargazer had been a dark blue mare, so close to Luna’s coloration but with a brilliant white mane sparkled with dark specks. The wan moonlight that flickered through the trees seemed unwilling to illuminate the gory scene, as if even Luna was afraid of what she would see. Despite the wan lighting, the pale blue star of her cutie mark still glowed in the darkness, splattered with dark flecks of blood in silent accusation of her murderer. The low murmur between the two mares seemed surreal in the darkness, a three-way conversation, two living, one dead, while their guards watched the sky.

A long line of shivers traveled up and down Pumpernickel’s back despite himself while he looked up into the silent trees with his back to Redoubtable. There were eyes out there watching, an ominous presence in the forest that seemed hungry for violence and blood. The fire in his heart stirred in response, flaring dangerously high when his fellow guard touched him on the flank, nearly brushing their short manes together in the darkness.

“Hey, Lumpy. Do you hear what I hear?”

“Nothing,” growled Pumpernickel. “Not a cheep or a peep from the night birds or bats.”

“Yeah.” Redoubtable took a deep breath and held it for a moment. “How many of them do you think are out there.”

“Plummets is a coward. Given that three griffons could kill us all, maybe a dozen. Sounds like he wants us mostly alive. For a while.”

“Stubborn ass,” muttered Redoubtable. “You’ve got a family to think of now. You two should slip off into the night while Rose and I make a distraction.”

“Screw that,” snapped Pumpernickel in a low whisper without moving his head. “How about I stay here and kill them all while you and my wife get your marefriend to safety.”

“What? And let you have all the fun? The least I can do is choke one of them to death on my thick head when they try to eat me.”

Pumpernickel swallowed dryly. “I mean it. If I snap, I won’t be able to tell you from the griffons. Take my wife to safety, and whatever you do, don’t let them name the foal Pumpernickel.”

One of Redoubtable’s hooves shifted, if by accident or on purpose it was difficult to say, but his armored flank bumped up against Pumpernickel with a low ‘click’ that echoed around the clearing. “And I mean what I said too, Lumpy. I know you bats have a little bit of Nightmare Moon buried inside you, certain dumb stallions closer to the surface than others, but you’ve got a whole galloping giant lump of Luna buried in there with it. Probably scares the crap out of it. Probably where you get that annoying streak of self-sacrificing angst from too. Right now that chunk of Luna is a whole hell of a lot more comforting to me than that bit of Nightmare Moon.”

The red burning rage floated in his mind, hovering just out of reach. It would be easy to embrace it, lose himself in the enticing song of destruction and blood. It floated nearer as he thought, the warmth of the hatred making his breath pull at his chest. All his life he had fought against that enticing tug, the surrender of his self to violence. But this was different.

The griffons outside their door may have been told the ambassadorial party was only to be captured, but Duke Plummets certainly had other plans by now. There was no way Sunny could have found the body of Stargazer without knowing roughly where she had fallen. The imagery was entirely too clear in his mind: the little griffon arriving at her uncle’s rooms to see him carrying a lumpy shape in a sheet out into the endless forest, probably the same way they dumped the offal and refuse from other kills. The nagging suspicion in her mind about the disappearance of her friend, until Pumpernickel had opened his big, fat mouth and removed the one hope the little griffon had that Stargazer was alive. The trip out into the thick woods that surrounded the fortress, hoping not to find anything. Her return to the only home she had ever known with the knowledge that her friend was not only dead, but eaten by a relative.

Once Plummets became aware that his murder was about to become public, the lives of all of them were forfeit, and probably the little griffon princess too. All it would take is a quick push, and Sunny would plummet to her death on the rocks below the fortress. Just like her sister died when Duke Plummets first arrived, which seemed far too convenient for pure chance now.

She knew. The little griffon knew her uncle had murdered her friend, and yet she stayed silent. The fear that she faced as a helpless little griffon in the talons of her uncle, not knowing who to trust, it must have been unbearable.

Plummets had to die. But even if he were able to kill the larger griffon, their retribution would certainly kill everypony Pumpernickel loved. If he held a portion of Luna’s soul in addition to the Nightmare, was there even space for a soul of his own to fight in their defense?

That was where he had failed. He was far more than Nightmare, far more than Pumpernickel, even more than the cool touch of Luna on his soul. Where any one of them would fail by themselves, all three could possibly… succeed?

Overcoming fear was the key. Fear had driven him whenever he had needed to go beyond his own strength before, the fear of hurting his sister, the fear of leaving the Royal Guard, the fear of losing his wife and unborn son.

It would be very difficult, but there was no other choice.

* * *

The body was lighter than Primrose had expected from an earth pony, lifting the corpse in her magic as the frighteningly serious Nocturne mare guided their awkward package to a landing inside the chariot and began to tie it down. Part of her own gut twisted in terror at the thought of being held down while a griffon tore into her chest, biting out goblets of flesh before she died. The silent darkness around them seemed filled with hungry griffons, the only noise the whispers of their guards and the near-silent muttered words from Laminia as she finished tying down the body inside the chariot.

Standing in the middle of a dark forest while griffons silently gathered was not anything she had really expected, but it actually seemed less frightening due to the strange discussion she had with the Princess of the Night before their trip.

--~-~-~--*--~-~-~--

Primrose felt Luna’s eyes burning into her soul, their cool blue gaze contrasting with the quiet sounds of Celestia’s sewing, making an eerie undertone to the quiet discussion they had been having about griffons and the history of the Misty Mountains aerie. At some unseen cue, the Princess of the Night paused in her instruction, gesturing her diplomat closer, and closer, until she was literally touching the end of her nose, the breath of the princess tickling the hairs on her cheeks.

“There will come a time when you must speak truly with my voice, if you are to be my diplomat to the griffons. Are you prepared?”

“Yes, My Princess,” said Primrose, strangely at ease despite the close proximity of Luna.

“Close your eyes and breathe out.”

Primrose followed her directions, breathing out with her eyes closed, feeling her breath reflect in little tickles from Luna’s face, as a soft but warm set of lips touched her own.

“Now breathe in the breath of your Princess of the Night.”

There had been many lessons and stories Primrose had heard while learning the art of diplomacy at the hoof of Ambassador Earlyworm, but this was not one of them. She breathed in as directed, feeling the cool, damp breath of Luna on her tongue and into her lungs. Strangely enough, she could feel something else settle into her soul, a sense of purpose and solidity that filled her with tingling sparks that crept over her coat and made her knees weak.

Or maybe it was the kiss.

--~-~-~--*--~-~-~--

The mountain night breezes cut through Laminia’s armor as she bent to the task of carefully tying the wrapped body to the floor of the diplomatic chariot. Her designer mind attempted to distract her from thoughts about the corpse by planning wool inserts for the new armor, probably imports from Alpacastan or San Marino. The churning in her gut mixed violently with the normal nausea of pregnancy, but despite the desire, she did not throw up. She could not throw up. Her husband and Redoubtable were grouped together with their eyes on the sky, as proper Royal Guards should be in this situation, and they showed no sense of fear, so she would not either. Although she wished she could.

Putting in one final knot, she trudged over to the two guards, making sure to make noise instead of wisping silently up to them like normal, which would be an exceedingly bad idea right now. Pumpernickel was a furnace in the darkness, a furious heat fairly radiating off of him in the muddy forest litter as he held himself motionless, eyes up to the sky and the moon filtering through the tree branches while his fellow guard whispered in one ear.

She cleared her throat and put one hoof on Redoubtable’s firm flank. “Hey, Red. We’re ready to go, just let me talk to Lumpy for a minute.” The words had the desired result as the dye-stained stallion nodded and slipped off to the chariot for a few quiet words with his similarly darkened marefriend before fumbling with the harness.

“Are you afraid, my love?” asked Laminia, moving up beside him in the warm position Redoubtable had just vacated and placing one trembling wing over the back of his cold armor.

“No.” The word was cold and distant, as if it came from a different stallion than the one she loved, and it tore at her heart.

“You’re a damned liar, my husband. I’m so scared I could piss. Again.” She huddled closer, but no matching wing from Pumpernickel spread out to cover her back in response.

“I can’t afford to be afraid.” A faint tremble ran through the guard, and continued for several moments until he added, “I love you too much to think straight. It would be easier if you weren’t here.”

“Screw that. You’re stuck with me. Us. ‘Whither thou goest’ and all that shit.” Laminia paused for a few breaths before adding, “I love you too, Lumpy.”

The trembling continued. “They’ll hit us when we clear the tree line. I want you on the back of the chariot, flapping for all you’re worth. Maybe we can outrun them. Whatever happens, you will be safe. I promise.”

Laminia repressed a sarcastic statement and swallowed before speaking, allowing the silence of the forest clearing to speak for her. “Maybe. Maybe not. I’m just damned glad you’re here, my husband. Even if we die.”

The trembling slowed, eventually stopping as Pumpernickel began to breathe in long, deep breaths. “I’m glad you’re here too, my wife.” One strong wing reached over her to squeeze ever so gently in one of his loving hugs that made her ribs ache, only this time it also calmed her churning gut and took away a trembling in her own knees she had not noticed until now. “We serve the Princesses.”

“We serve the Princesses,” echoed Laminia quietly. “In life and in death.”

(*) The escape cloak had been a clever idea by a pegasus a few decades ago, with loops of braid that could be unhemmed to provide the rear ankles a place to hook onto, and more braid around the collar that could be brought up the forelegs of a non-flying pony and grasped in the teeth of one or two escort pegasi, who would then fly their passenger much like a kite. It was a very uncomfortable position, and even though the passenger could be carried unconscious at nearly the top speed of the carrying pegasi, it had never become very popular among the ground-bound ponies for obvious reasons.

Ch 11 - The Heir

Diplomacy by Other Means
The Heir

“Wisdom consists of knowing how to distinguish the nature of trouble, and in choosing the lesser evil.”
— N. Marechiavelli, The Princess

A Thousand Years Ago…

The young Night Pegasus Pumpernickel huddled uncomfortably on top of a cloud filled with squalling little dark colts and fillies, trying not to tremble in fear. Queen Luna had blessed them almost casually just a few hours ago, and he still marveled at the silky grey coat and batwings that had replaced his own pegasus body parts. Now the distant night sky was filled with fighting, the crackle of spells and the screams of the wounded making him fully aware of his role in the battle.

Foalsitter. He was old enough to fight for the Queen, not just watch a cloud full of little squalling brats while all the excitement took place miles away. He watched a flaming ball plummet out of the sky in the distance and shuddered at the thought of that burning creature being one of his parents, or a friend.

Really. He was not afraid. Maybe the little ponies on the cloud were, but he was going to be a Royal Guard for the new Queen. Guards did not fear. Guards were brave.

Even so, he watched the fight with a growing lump of ice in his belly that even the end of the battle did not calm. He loved Luna with all of his heart, as well as Celestia, and the clash of the two sisters ripped at his soul. It was wrong. It was so horribly wrong.

He put his new membranous wings to use, emerging from the concealment of the cloud to push the little ponies on it farther away from the now quiet battle site. They should not see the blood and violence of war. The little ones had been entrusted into his hooves to protect, and he was going to see his task through to completion. Just a little further, and they would be safe. Just a little further…

The explosion of magic behind him was felt more than seen, but a glance over his shoulder revealed the blazing fury of falling pegasi, each spark seemingly consumed in ebon fire until all that rained down on the battlefield was glowing dust. The ground around the Queen blazed with fire, each burning torch a faithful follower of Luna, the glittering wave of magic flowing from them to a single point in the center that could only be her. Every instinct in him screamed to fly to his Queen, to protect her, to sacrifice his life in her defense. To die for her.

But something far deeper in him forced his wings to keep beating, to keep pushing the cloud full of children away from that growing spell of fire and destruction. The little golden eyes of his brother and the other tiny colts and fillies reflected the expanding spell as they looked back, a glittering malevolence that seemed to pursue him through their eyes.

The unstoppable embrace of the spell tugged at his heart, tearing at the magic that Luna had used to transform his body, but he redoubled his wingbeats even as the light from the stars began to dim and his breath faltered.

“You will not die,” he gasped while flying, hearing the wings of the vengeful Royal Guard behind him. “You will be safe. I promise.”

--~-~-~--*--~-~-~--

In the forest that covered the Misty Mountains, there was a small clearing, and from that small clearing rose a Royal Guard chariot. It ascended cautiously to the treeline, pointing to the west, and the illusionary safety of the far off Crystal Empire. The two Royal Guards in the harness spread their wings, one of feathers, the other not, but each of them with identical grim visages and controlled reactions, acting as if there were only one mind behind the two bodies. They hesitated as two of their passengers shifted positions: one taking her place behind the chariot with wings prepared to add her best effort to their speed, the other with the dim green light of magic barely visible on her horn, until the slow-moving chariot cleared the last treetop.

“Go.”

The word was softly spoken, barely above normal conversational levels, but before the word could echo back from the nearby trees, all three winged ponies burst into furious motion. The safety harness was the only thing that kept Primrose from sliding out the back of the chariot, and the plan would have worked if only the chariot had been slightly lighter.

There was no warning as two griffons loomed out of the shadows ahead, but both drivers reacted in perfect synchronization, yanking their flight into a sharp climb that hammered the bottom of the chariot into the griffons with a violent thud. The resulting lurch threw Primrose to the end of her safety straps twice, once on impact, the second time as the chariot leveled off and rocketed forward to accelerate out of the ambush area. It was a stunningly effective maneuver, one that would have earned high marks at the Academy for ingenuity and audacity, but it was hampered by the weight of the corpse, which slowed their escape just a fraction.

As two more griffons plunged out of the night sky.

--~-~-~--*--~-~-~--

Redoubtable was just a fraction of a second slower to react to the sudden ambush than Pumpernickel, yanking his neck to one side before the cruel hooked beak plunged down, but unable to avoid the grasp of steel gauntlets that sank talons into his shoulders while hind claws raked downwards along his back in a spray of sparks. With an unearthly shriek, Duke Plummets jabbed down repeatedly with his beak at Redoubtable’s vulnerable neck, hammering away with stunning blows but unable to penetrate the thick armor that protected it. To one side, he could vaguely see Pumpernickel with one foreleg wrapped around the neck ruff of his ambusher, and the other armored hoof smashing repeatedly into his beak. There was an abstract look of calm in the dark pegasus’ face, as if this was some sort of test at the Academy and he was scoring points with every steel-clad punch.

“Lumpy!” screamed Redoubtable as that sharp beak plunged down again. “Little help here?”

* * *

Calm swirled around Pumpernickel with the glitter of starlight and the crisp night wind in his nose, giving a surreal aspect to the rumbling screams of the griffons and a distinctive double-thump of hind hooves meeting griffon chest from behind him that he was able to identify as his wife putting her earth pony training to good use against a griffon who expected more of a pegasus combat move instead. The griffon diving down at the back of his head seemed to move slowly, as if flying through tar, and it seemed laughably easy to dodge to one side of his plunge with a foreleg twisting back, over his ruff, and around his feathered neck in a perfect chokehold just as if he had been practicing it for years. He drove an armored forehoof repeatedly into the griffon’s head, taking strange pleasure in the way the enchantments on the golden helmet sparked with every hit, dispersing the impact enough that he did not have to pull his blows. There was no screaming fire in his heart, burning to destroy, or frozen ice flowing through his nerves, but instead a warm glow guided his actions, not controlling, not overpowering, but suggesting options.

The scream for assistance from his fellow guard shook him loose from his exploration of this strange new sensation, switching his steel-shod blows to the head into a driving hoof to the breastbone to paralyze the griffon’s breathing for a short while, but still allowing the stunned griffon enough control to land instead of crashing to his death in the trees. Duke Plummets raised one gauntleted claw and raked it deliberately from Redoubtable’s wing root to the tip in a spray of blood and feathers that caused his claw to hesitate for just one moment too long within reach of Pumpernickel.

He bit it.

The sharp tang of griffon blood filled Pumpernickel’s mouth along with the grating sensation from Duke Plummet’s silver armband as it raked across his teeth. They struggled as Plummets struck down with his other gauntleted claw in an explosion of sparks and blood, driving steel claws through Redoubtable’s Royal Guard armor as if consumed by the desire to kill his first opponent before turning to the other. A flare of green light blasted the griffon away, leaving Pumpernickel with only the silver bracelet in his teeth as the world spun around them. Redoubtable gave a weak flap with one damaged wing, the other a streaming red mess of mangled feathers and flesh, trying to level out the chariot before they crashed.

But it was too late.

* * *

There had been nothing in her diplomatic training that prepared Primrose for the experience of rising slowly through the night air of a small forest clearing before the world exploded into chaos. Icy wind streaming by the chariot carried the anguished battle screams of the two griffons before they smashed into the underside of the chariot just under her hooves, flinging her up into the air at the extent of her safety harness, only to nearly slide out the back as they accelerated into the darkness. She had almost breathed a sigh of relief while trying to struggle back to her hooves when the two screaming griffons had dropped out of the sky on top of Red and Lumpy, completely missing the third one who had attempted to attack Laminia and gotten two hooves upside his breastbone for his trouble. The chariot lurched from side to side as the guards fought, only straightening out for an instant as she fired a stunning spell at the griffon. He was almost too big to miss, but for a chilling moment as he tumbled backwards, just passing over her head, she thought she had shot Red by mistake. The world continued to spin as she held on tight and tried to stabilize the chariot with magic, Redoubtable hanging from his harness like a bloody dead weight that she could not take her eyes away from in horror. Trees flashed by, and then a gravel stretch of damp streambed slammed into the bottom of the chariot, thankfully right side up and with no snaps and crunches of broken bones.

She was out of her safety harness almost before the vehicle had stopped moving, flinging herself over the front end to attend to the grievous wounds covering her coltfriend. The rest of the world vanished as she applied her magic to holding back the welling blood, trying not to look at the punctured armor and bloody feathers scattered all around, staining the dirty gravel red with his flowing life. Healing magic took as much out of the caster as it gave to the recipient, but her concentration was difficult to maintain as the sounds of landing griffons sounded from all around and they drew close.

* * *

Gravel sprayed in every direction as Pumpernickel skidded to a halt, struggling to unhitch himself from the stubborn chariot even as the world slowed its spinning from his recent tumble through the sky. It would have been nice to call their landing on the damp gravel bar besides the mountain stream planned or even intentional, but it had been a matter of pure luck, not skill. For some reason, he still held the silver bracelet between his teeth, the metallic tang serving the purpose of masking the taste of blood and feathers. Griffons settled to the ground in all directions around them, drawing near but still keeping a respectful distance from the three ponies who held themselves in close proximity. Redoubtable struggled to stand up even while Primrose kept him pinned to the ground, her magic holding closed several gaping wounds that would have been the death of him in a few minutes if not for her healing spells. Pumpernickel braced himself to their sides, a chill sweeping over him in the darkness as he looked up to where Duke Plummets was gliding to a landing.

“You will not die,” he whispered into the moonlit night.

Laminia dangled from one talon, the griffon’s powerful claw having grasped her under the armor by the front of the throat and holding her helpless despite the best effort of her steel-clad front hooves scratching at that powerful grip.

“You will be safe,” whispered Pumpernickel. “I promise.”

The big griffon landed on the ground a few trots away near a collection of griffons, still holding Laminia in front of him like some sort of obscene trophy. A few tense chuckles echoed back and forth between the griffons, their helmeted eyes glowing green in the night while Duke Plummets casually looked around the dry streambed and the three ponies remaining. Blood streaked his feathers with silver moonlight and reflected green magic, and he licked his beak in anticipation, seeming to savor the taste. Plummets seemed unaware of the way his other talon was clutched tightly to his chest, smeared with griffon blood and the white chips of bone from his wound. Instead he turned in an almost gentle manner to capture Primrose in his intense gaze. But before he could speak, Pumpernickel threw the silver bracelet onto the gravel and snarled in a series of tenor chirps and squawks that seemed to shake the surrounding trees.

“”

Ch 12 - Audacity

Diplomacy by Other Means
Audacity

“Any pony who tries to be good all the time is bound to come to ruin among the great number who are not good. Hence a princess who wants to keep her authority must learn how not to be good, and use that knowledge, or refrain from using it, as necessity requires.”
— N. Marechiavelli, The Princess

Duke Plummets sat gracefully on the gravel bar of the trickling streambed, perched on his hind legs with Laminia dangling helplessly in his grip. Pumpernickel’s words seemed to strike the griffon as amusing, and he chuckled even as he lifted Laminia up in front of him and shook her gently, making a soft clattering as pieces of her armor bumped into each other.

“You challenge me? You’re a pony. What kind of fool do you take me for, pony?” He gave the struggling mare another shake just for emphasis, trying to get a rise out of Pumpernickel, who remained unmoving and impassive as he responded.

“Under the provisions of the Treaty of Rosebuds, I accuse you of the murder of an Equestrian citizen, Stargazer of the village of Toenail.” This time the laughter spread among the rest of the griffons, although a suddenly serious Plummets quit swinging Laminia quite so casually and focused on Pumpernickel with intent as he continued. “As a duly appointed representative of the Diarchy of Equestria, I hereby request permission from the Aerie of the Misty Mountains to take you into custody, to serve trial for your crimes.”

“No,” snarled Plummets, starting to move around to the right in an awkward hopping motion, matched by Pumpernickel step for step as they circled the fallen chariot. “That worthless whore returned to her village. If she’s not there, she must have gone to another one of the pony towns to lift her tail for her daily oats.”

“You killed her.” Pumpernickel’s cold voice was lacking in any emotion, and the scattered laughter among the griffons died out as they glanced back and forth among themselves. “You tore her throat out in your room and then cast her cold body into the forest to rot!”

“Lies!” snapped Plummets, his eyes darting to the wrapped bundle inside the carriage, and the green glow that had begun to surround the straps tying it down. “All lies.”

Stargazer’s body made a peculiar thudding noise as it rolled out of the carriage and out of the concealing sheet, or perhaps it was the sound of a dozen griffons all inhaling at the same time. When she stopped rolling, the razor-sharp wound that ended her life wound up facing the sky in some obscene parody of a mouth, gaping wide in a silent scream that drew all of the griffon’s attention in a mixed display of instinctual hunger and learned revulsion. The ripped hole in her chest seemed small by comparison, but as griffon eyes looked back and forth between the corpse and Plummets, unasked questions filled the night air.

“Murderer,” snapped Pumpernickel. “Vulture. Eater of the Dead. How low have the mighty race of Griffons sunk to eat from the corpse of another sentient being?”

“I-I didn’t…” Plummets’ voice seemed to catch momentarily, and the tint of green glowing from his enchanted goggles changed ever so slightly to match Primrose’s horn aura. “I didn’t mean to kill her. I was just so angry when she told me.”

Pumpernickel never took his eyes off the tall griffon. “Told you what?”

“She was pregnant. I was just going to hit her like I always did, but I opened my claws at the last second. Ripped her throat right out and bled all over my floor. Inconsiderate bitch. But the blood. Oh, her blood tasted so sweet.”

“Was that when you ate from her cold decaying corpse?”

“No!” Plummets scowled at the bloodless body lying pale in the moonlight. “The eldest have the right to the first bite of the kill. My father was so angry at me the next day. Said it was clumsy, and he had taught me better. He was the one who tore open her chest and removed her liver. It was cold, but it was delicious.” The tall griffon seemed to have forgotten he was holding Laminia in one claw, focusing his attention back onto Pumpernickel with unnatural intensity.

“What was to become of us when we were returned to the Council Circle?”

“Breakfast,” breathed Plummets. “Your blood is to give our tircels strength! We shall feed upon your entrails before descending upon our Crystal City, and then the true feasting will begin.”

With one armored hoof planted solidly in front of himself, Pumpernickel looked up at the griffon and spoke in a loud and very clear voice. “By your own confession you have admitted to the murder of an Equestrian citizen, conspiracy to commit murder of an Equestrian ambassador, and desecration of a corpse. Under the provisions of the Treaty of Rosebuds, I hereby formally place you under arrest pending trial. Will you come along peacefully?”

The duke threw back his head and laughed, a victorious bray that the dozen griffons followed along with various degrees of reluctance, and more than one retching sound from the surrounding bushes. “You arrogant worm! I regret the necessity of spreading your blood around the gravel here instead of taking your body back to the Council Circle. The power in your blood must be far greater than that little whimpering coward. I shall drink it from your cooling body before—”

Pumpernickel’s stentorian tenor cut through the night air with a note of command that stopped Plummets in mid-sentence. “Then by Section 5, subsection B of the Treaty of Rosebuds I hereby declare you a fugitive from Equestrian justice, and am empowered by the treaty to request and require any griffon citizen of your aerie to aid in your capture, or be charged as an accessory to your admitted crimes.”

“You’re serious, aren’t you? You actually believe any of these weak-willed sycophants would betray me in order to obey a pony?” Plummets slammed Laminia firmly against the chariot while still keeping his deadly grip around her neck. One convulsive rip from his armored talons would tear her throat out, but Pumpernickel never wavered in his gaze, keeping his eyes fixed solidly on Plummets’ face even as the griffon looked around at his hesitant followers.

“Father drove away anygriffon who would oppose him years ago, long before I was even aware he was my father. Only the weak remain. Why else do you think I need your blood to light the ancient fire in their bellies again?”

“Abandon this idiotic attack,” said Pumpernickel just as calmly as if there were only the two of them, without a slowly closing circle of griffons. “Surrender, and I won’t kill you.”

“Kill me?” Duke Plummets chuckled grimly. “Even if you could scratch me before my tircels tore you to shreds, the Royal Guard does not kill.”

“There is one exception,” said Ambassador Primrose, rising to her hooves beside a battered and bloody Redoubtable. The Royal Guard had lost considerable skin and feathers down one wing, but the crimson tide of blood had been magically stanched, and the deep puncture wounds across his back no longer threatened his life. The low green glow of a spell around her horn flickered out, although the spell she was casting had not been wrapped around her guard for some time. Instead, Duke Plummets gave a startled blink as the truth spell stopped.

“When commanded by a Princess, in her own voice, the Royal Guard can kill.” Primrose looked up at the stunned griffon, the blood of her coltfriend still splattered across his chest.

“Kill him, Optio Pumpernickel.”

Plummets lashed out to catch the incoming guard with a full swipe that would have taken his head off if it connected, but the dark thunderbolt of armored pony twisted in midair as he crashed into the big griffon, catching the descending claws in a spray of sparks and blood across his armored back. Laminia hit the damp streambed with a crunch and gasped for breath as her husband grappled with Plummets above her, the two combatants stumbling backwards across the loose gravel. The Nocturne had the griffon by the head, twisting his heavy neck around with his hind hooves braced on Plummet’s feathered chest for leverage while the griffon tried for a grip of his own, hampered by his injured arm. The two of them strained against each other, Pumpernickel with the better grip around the griffon’s neck, Plummets with the advantage of strength. Even the surrounding griffons paused as the two combatants struggled, the sound of straining muscles and tendons the only noise in the dark streambed.

Until there was an explosive crack of broken vertebrae, and one body thrashed out his life on the damp gravel.

* * *

* * *

By the time the griffons had finished gathering around, the body had quit its macabre dance of death and lay quietly, with wings outstretched and face-down in a trickle of muddy water. One griffon reached out a gauntleted claw, but stopped before touching the body, as if in fear he would stand back up again and resume the fight. “He’s dead.”

“Good!” Pumpernickel spat into the gravel and continued sucking in heaving gasps of air. “Who’s next?”

The murmur of low chirps and squawks between the griffons suddenly was broken by a stentorian voice, even deeper than Pumpernickel’s. “The Heir is dead. Long live the Heir!” A hefty griffon with blood-red plumes down the side of his face picked up the silver bracelet from where it had rolled and held it out to the stunned Royal Guard, who took it much the same way as if it were as a ticking bomb.

“You can’t be serious,” shouted a slender griffon, stepping forward out of the circle of griffons in the direction of Pumpernickel. “He’s a pony! This is out—”

A pair of other griffons, who Pumpernickel recognized as the somewhat ruffled pair who had attacked them in the ambassadorial corridor, stepped up to either side of the slim griffon. Sweeping backwards in a synchronized motion that yanked the footing out from underneath him, they brought armored talons up behind his head to grab his ruff and proceeded to ram his head, beak first, into the gravel streambed.

“Forgive the interruption, Heir Pumpernickel,” said the first one in a sharp tenor, yanking one struggling claw up behind the suffocating griffon and twisting it sharply. “Our cousin Glossy Pinions can be a bit verbal.”

“We promise it won’t happen again,” said the other in a pleasant alto voice, sitting down firmly on his head and ramming Glossy’s beak farther into the gravel.

“Particularly if you don’t leave him a little breathing space, dear,” said the first griffon.

“No great loss,” said the second with a firmer pressure to the back of the trapped griffon’s head. “He’s only a third cousin.”

“Let him up,” growled Pumpernickel, flexing his wings and walking over to the couple as Glossy Pinions pulled his beak out of the gravel and began to cough. “You want this?”

Glossy looked at the silver bracelet that Pumpernickel dangled in front of his nose with a natural avarice that fairly glowed through the enchanted eyepieces of his goggles, although that abruptly faded as Pumpernickel added in Griffon, “”

The space around the two grew slightly as all of the griffons took at least one step back. Glossy licked his beak, looking first at Pumpernickel, then the corpse laying in the muddy stream.

“Long live the Heir?”

“Better.” The newly-minted heir passed the bracelet back to back to his wife and glared at the rest of the griffons. “Anypony else?” A quiet chorus of generalized negativity filled the air and Pumpernickel turned to the ambassador, still sitting at the side of her badly-wounded coltfriend.

“He’ll be fine,” said Primrose as Laminia slipped up to her side, still holding her throat but breathing heavily. “Nothing broken that a few weeks tied to a hospital bed won’t fix. What about you?” added the ambassador in a much lower voice.

Pumpernickel glowered. “I don’t trust any of this bunch to fly you back to the Crystal Empire without somepony riding herd on them. And that really only leaves one option.”

“We serve the Princesses,” whispered Primrose with a glance behind her guard.

“Glossy Pinions,” said Pumpernickel in a loud voice that seemed to rebound from the forest around them. Behind him, the griffon in question froze, his wings half-extended as if he were nearly ready to dart into the sky. “If you even think about running, I’ll kill you. If you get away, I’ll track you down and break every bone in your body before killing you.” The big Nocturne guard turned around in a deliberate fashion, seeming somehow larger in the moonlight as he glared at the suddenly shaking griffon.

“We’re going back to the Council Circle. I’ll need two of you to volunteer to fly the chariot, you there, and you.” His hoof pointed straight at Glossy, who took a moment to check if perhaps there was another griffon just standing behind him who was more qualified.

There was not.

* * *

The chariot bumped unevenly as it was flown through the dangerous downdrafts around the mountain, with both griffons in the ill-fitting harnesses paying nearly all of their attention on the sky ahead. Behind them in the passenger compartment rode a mismatched set of ponies. The corpse of Stargazer had been wrapped up and strapped back down rather solemnly by the remaining griffons with whispered words that reminded Pumpernickel of the songs from their funeral rites. Beside the body was Redoubtable, wrapped up in conjured bandages to the point where it was difficult to tell his white coat from his wrappings. He was awake, although one wing was strapped down solidly and the other half-plucked wing held tightly against his flanks despite his instinctive drive to fly. He was as silent as his marefriend, but there was a faint green glow to Primrose’s horn that showed the diplomat was busier than she looked.

Pumpernickel did not have to look to tell his wife was flying a few lengths above and behind the chariot and its griffon drivers; the frequent uneasy glances of the griffons would have made her location obvious even if he could not feel the flame of her anger burning on the back of his neck like the sun. He was so lost in his thoughts that a quiet voice speaking in the back of his mind caught him by surprise.

Pumpernickel? Can you hear me?

Keeping his face set in an impassive glare at nogriffon in particular, he attempted to focus his mind the way he had been trained in the Academy. The communication spell was a tricky one, and that Ambassador Primrose was able to do it at all, let alone in this situation, spoke well about her willpower and ability to function under pressure.

Yes. I hear you, Ambassador.

Good. What do you have planned for when we get to the griffon Council Circle? You can’t be seriously thinking about attacking the Wingmaster, are you?

No. I need him to attack me first.

There was a very long pause, long enough for Pumpernickel to almost think the ambassador had dropped the spell, but when her voice resumed in the back of his head it was anything but calm.

Are you insane! He’ll rip you apart! You don’t think that stunt you tried with Plummets is going to work on him, do you?

Pumpernickel paused, just breathing in the chill mountain air as they approached the lights of the griffon Council Circle, set into a low bowl-like structure against the mountain. For one brief moment he wished the whole area could have been covered in a glass dome so the chariot could crash through it in a burst of splinters and noise. As it was, the entrance he had planned into the flock of griffons was going to be talked about for years after his death, an immortality of sorts among their kind that his ancient namesake had achieved.

I didn’t think it was going to work on Plummets, and it almost didn’t. I had to kill him dead, with no fallback position or hesitation, and in a way that would destroy his reputation among his flock. If I had fought him normally, I would have lost, and even if I had managed to take a solid chunk out of him, the Wingmaster would still take the rest of his flock and attack the Crystal Empire. I only had one chance, and I got lucky.

That’s not going to work against Wingmaster Talon. He’s a lot older and a lot more experienced, plus you killed his son. He’s going to kill you.

I know. Regardless of what we say or do, we’re all dead now. The only thing left is to stop the attack. The Wingmaster will not permit anygriffon else to lead, so if I can cripple him up enough, the invasion will be cancelled.

And when you die?

Despite his every intention, Pumpernickel glanced over his shoulder to take a last look at his grim-faced wife flying behind him. There was a solid set to her jaw that indicated she knew just exactly what was going to happen, and a determination that ‘Until death do us part’ was a mutual oath.

I’ll give you enough time for one shot. Make it count.

Their ears popped as the chariot began to descend. Their nervous drivers were aiming for a landing where he had ordered, while the griffons in the Council Circle were still looking around for Duke Plummets. It was a narrow moment of indecision that Pumpernickel had gambled would last long enough for them to do what needed to be done, and he tried not to think about how many things could go wrong with his sketchy plan. It seemed to take forever for the pickets above the gathering to circle away from their descent, but he took a long deep breath of the crisp mountain air as they parted in front of the chariot, expecting that the dozen griffons were bringing their prisoners back to the Wingmaster instead of bringing him the executioner of his son.

“L'audace, l'audace, toujours l'audace,” he whispered into the wind as the Council Circle grew near and the sounds of angry griffons surrounded him. “They soon will know just how much of their blood it takes to kill a Royal Guard.”

Ch 13 - Diplomatic Language

Diplomacy by Other Means
Diplomatic Language

“If an injury has to be done, it should be so severe that vengeance need not be feared.”
— N. Marechiavelli, The Princess

The screeching of angry griffons made any conversation impossible as the chariot wobbled to the sands in the center of the Council Circle, surrounded on all sides by not only griffons of the Misty Mountain aerie, but the scattered colors of other flocks who nearly filled the inner ring of perches and steps. It took little effort for Pumpernickel to imagine all three rings of the whole circle filled with ancient griffons, sharpening their beaks and preparing for war, but time had treated this portion of the griffon’s legacy poorly. The second and third ring of perches was mossy and overgrown, even falling down in places, but the torches that surrounded the inner circle only left that portion of their faded legacy unseen in the darkness.

Sitting on the tallest perch was the massive form of Wingmaster Talon, glaring down at the grounded chariot with only a few flickers of his golden eyes as he looked for the expected form of his son, who had not appeared along with the prisoners. Ambassador Primrose stepped out of the chariot as the two griffon drivers struggled out of their harness and headed for the ground-bound observers around the edge of the circle. She stood in the sand, looking up in the torchlit circle as the screech and roar of griffons continued, seeming so alone.

Until the scattered clouds parted with a burst of magic and a beam of silver moonlight illuminated her like a spotlight.

“Wingmaster, control your flock!”

Echoes from the ambassador's booming voice shook tiny bits of frost from the surrounding trees and cliffs with little skittering noises like spiders that whispered through the abrupt silence. The air of repressed violence that had filled the circle went out like an extinguished candle, although there were quiet whispers as the ambassador spoke again.

“Abandon your foolish attack, Wingmaster! Your actions have only brought shame to the noble race of Griffons, and will destroy everyone who follows you on this senseless attack. Two lives have already been lost to your hatred of the Equestrian ponies; do not feed your thirst for blood with more deaths of your own kind.”

“You speak to us of blood?” bellowed the huge griffon, rising up on the perch to glare down on the unmoving pale pony, who glared back with an iron determination. “We griffons have cowered under the petty laws and regulations of your pony princess for far too long! We have the blood of warriors in our veins, not farmers! Groveling in the dirt is for cowards and weaklings who should be ruled! By us!”

“The tyranny of the strong is a dead end, Wingmaster. All of the races of Equestria united in Harmony are far stronger than any one alone. Emperor Ripping Claw knows this, and has fought long and hard to integrate the proud race of Griffons into other societies. Even your own daughter Gilda has profited from her time at the pegasus flight camp—”

“She befriended a pony!” screeched Talon with such volume that even the griffons who had started to whisper among themselves became silent. “We are meant to rule over them, not take them as lovers!”

In the shocked silence that followed, the soft noise of breathing was almost deafening. “So that was the reason you were so angry at your son.” Primrose removed the cloth-wrapped corpse from the chariot and unwound it to reveal the pale body of Stargazer and her terrible wounds, causing a low whispering to begin among the surrounding griffons.

“When he murdered Stargazer, he went to you to hide his crime. But that wasn’t enough for you. She had to be debased, degraded into something not worthy of being murdered. So you ripped the liver from her cold body and ate it, and made him eat it too.”

“It’s t-true, Grandfather,” said Sunny, rising from her perch by his side despite trembling like a leaf. “I s-saw the two of you take her wrapped b-body out into the forest and dump it. Her b-blood and hair was all over his floor. How could you do that? He murdered my friend!”

“He did nothing wrong!” bellowed Talon. “Ponies are our food! They were made to be eaten!” Turning with a snarl to the ambassador, he shouted, “Where is my son?”

“Your son was a murderer and an eater of the dead,” growled Primrose. “As such, he was a traitor to the Griffon empire and a criminal to all of Equestria. His confession was witnessed by all the griffons who came with us, he was rightfully challenged for his position of Heir, and was killed in honorable combat.”

“No!” Wingmaster Talon rose to his rear paws with wings outstretched and casting a murderous glare around the small group of griffons who seemed to have clustered together in a defensive flocking instinct. “Which one of you cowards and misfits had the claws to challenge my son!”

“I did.” Pumpernickel stepped forward onto the sands, feeling the crunch underhoof as the familiar sound of the Royal Guard sparring ring, only this time, success or failure would be measured in blood, not points. “Your son was unfit for the position of Heir, a coward and a traitor to all griffons.” He relaxed his control just enough to show a shadow of the insane grin he was suppressing. “”

Talon’s eyes bulged from rage as he ripped a chunk of rotten wood from his perch and flung it into the darkness. “Kill them—”

“Stop! The challenge for leadership has been made!” The crash of amplified sound from the ambassador knocked several of the griffons back on their perches, and she continued, “Unless your Wingmaster is indeed a coward, and sends his children to kill that which he fears.”

The sound of griffons whispering among themselves grew to a dull roar, with only the occasional scraps of words being audible on the sandy floor of the circle, but Pumpernickel could hear “challenge” and “tradition” repeated in a repetitive cycle that built until the Wingmaster once again rose to his hindpaws and bellowed for silence.

“What is the name of the worm who claims to have killed my son?” growled Talon.

“There is no claim, Wingmaster,” snapped Pumpernickel, his voice ringing out in the circle like the snarl of some uncaged beast. “I broke his neck with my own hooves, the same way I will break your neck if you do not turn aside from your suicidal path. I am a Defender of the Flock to Princess Luna, Optio of the Royal Guard, and my name is Pumpernickel.”

This time the noise of uneasy griffons was too loud for any order to be imposed by the bellowing roar of the Wingmaster. The big griffon darted up into the air with sweeps of his massive wings, lashing out at the noisemakers until he returned to his high perch in the resulting silence. All the while, Pumpernickel watched the Wingmaster with narrowed eyes, observing the way he flew and the motions he made when striking his disobedient flock.

He was fast. Faster than any griffon or pony guard Pumpernickel had ever fought before. Once he came within reach of those steel-clad talons, it would not matter how much armor he was wearing, or what enchantments it carried. There was only one way to do what needed to be done, and it went against every instinct he had nurtured since he first put on the armor of the Night Guard. He steeled himself to the concept while watching the huge griffon bring order to his flock and turn back to the arrogant ponies below.

“So this is Celestia’s plan, then. To slay me with one of her champions.” The big griffon’s eyes darted to Laminia, who was still sitting beside the chariot and snickering uncontrollably. “What? You think this is a joke?”

“No!” gasped Laminia between wheezes of laughter. “Just. Champion. Him?” One wavering hoof pointed at her husband while she struggled for breath.

“The Nocturne Pumpernickel is anything but a champion of Celestia,” shouted Ambassador Primrose, causing the whispering among the griffons to hush for a moment. “He is simply a member of Luna’s Night Guard.”

“Not a simple member,” shouted a powerfully-built griffon wearing green and gold for colors as he stood up on his perch. “I traveled to Canterlot at the command of Emperor Ripping Claw, and faced Luna’s guards in their Ring of Combat. They are honorable opponents, strong and true. The Night Guard Pumpernickel faced me twice in the ring, and I defeated him both times.”

Pumpernickel could not help but try to place the colors of the griffon, and it took little effort to remember his sparring matches with the fierce Imperial Guard. He noticed the griffon did not mention just how long it took for him to be pounded into the ground, or how many of his fellow Imperial Guards he had fought that same day. The big griffon sat down on his perch, still looking at the furious Wingmaster and without a single glance at his former opponent.

“He is correct, Wingmaster,” shouted Pumpernickel. “We of Luna’s ambassadorial party were not chosen for our skills. We were chosen to be disposable. I have sparred in many matches, but I have never defeated an opponent until tonight. Do you fear to fight a mere pony for leadership of your flock? Will you call for your vultures to fall upon us while you shake in fear on your high perch? How long will our bodies lie rotting on the sands before you dare to approach and take the bite you are due?”

“Silence!” The Wingmaster rose up on his perch and glared down at several griffons who had spread their wings and were prepared to attack, causing them to sullenly tuck their wings back along their flanks and glare back. “I shall not argue with canned food.”

Pumpernickel stepped forward, one hoof raised to his neck as he unfastened his breastplate and let it fall to the sandy ground with a soft thud. “If you fear me so, allow me to bare my flesh to your beak. What will it take for the dry blood of griffons to flow in your ancient veins, vulture?” The backplate slid from his flanks, joining the rest of the armor with a clang. “Will you only hobble down from your perch when I am dead and rotting on the—”

The attack came almost without warning, an explosion of speed from the huge griffon that covered half of the distance between them before Pumpernickel could blink.

Ch 14 - Justice

Diplomacy by Other Means
Justice

“It is better to be impetuous than cautious, because fortune is a hen; and it is necessary, if one wants to hold her down, to beat her and strike her down.”
— Gilbert Griffon’s translation of The Princess into the Noble Tongue)

Sand sprayed as Pumpernickel dove to one side, feeling the fire of outstretched talons rake through his mane and the sting of airborne sand as the Wingmaster turned for a second strike. Without the armor, Pumpernickel felt almost weightless, and the lines of agony running down his back gave silent testimony to his fate if he had not shed the heavy weight. He sprang into the air, yanking his stubby tail up a mere moment before the Wingmaster slashed through the space he had just occupied. Instinct, or perhaps a whim caused him to kick out blindly as he climbed, feeling the shock as enchanted steel horseshoes struck the Wingmaster’s helmet squarely and the competing enchantments flared in a burst of sparks.

His wings itched for altitude while his mind countered the impulse into a sharp turn, cutting so closely to the watching griffons that more than one fell off their perches dodging for cover. Given a straight line to charge, the big griffon would hit him like a sledgehammer and rip him to bloody giblets. As it was, he barely had the time to roll inverted after his turn and tuck his wings up into a plunge to the sand as the Wingmaster slashed back in a fierce turn-and-swing maneuver.

Pausing only an infinitesimal moment to glance at the huge griffon, Pumpernickel reversed his tumble with a heave of his wings, rolling backwards along the sand as the Wingmaster pounced again, only this time not finding the sand-covered Night Guard maneuvering to receive his charge, but rolling underneath his lunge with a powerful double-buck that struck home on the griffon’s underside in a solid thump underlaid with the small popping of ribs as steel met bone, and bone barely lost. A plunging talon missed disemboweling Pumpernickel in the confusion, tracing a line of fire along the Nocturne’s own ribs. Vaulting into the sky to avoid the second hard-driven talon, he banked again in a sharp turn, keeping above and inside the Wingmaster’s own ascent.

Laughter bubbled up in his throat as he met the griffon’s fierce scowl with a smile, held on the side of sanity by the thinnest of threads. His mind was a swirling chaotic mess of emotions and thoughts, providing only suggestions to the instinctive reactions of his body. Blood ran in clotting streams down his hide, gummed together by the sand and scattering red droplets below as he flew. The Wingmaster seemed relatively untouched by the brief fight so far except for a cracked lens on his helmet where a chance blow had gone through and a few missing feathers on one wing. Pumpernickel could land dozens of solid blows on the tough old bird without crippling him, but one swipe of those steel-clad talons in the wrong place and the fight would be over. They swung together again in a clash of steel, griffon claws against the steel vambraces of the guard as they plummeted to the ground with watching griffons scattering for cover. This time they both hit the ground hard, but Pumpernickel managed to twist around to the top before impact and rebound off the griffon’s chest, away from the inevitable swipe of claws that followed ramming his hooves in the Wingmaster’s gut.

The screeching and screaming of the surrounding griffons had grown to an ear-splitting level, and he nearly missed the errant draft of air that preceded a golden-eyed griffon with bare talons sweeping down from above. They cut across his back and down one wing in ragged lines of pain, ripping and tearing at his hide where the steel talons of the Wingmaster had merely sliced, but the griffon was caught before ripping a second set of bloody cuts by Gilda. A thunderbolt of white and tan landed on the back of the first griffon and proceeded to pound it mercilessly about the head while screaming, “Don’t. Interfere. In. The. Challenge!”

Gilda looked up from her disciplinary action with a savage glare, her eyes shifting to one side just fractionally enough to give him warning and fling his body sideways, dodging the Wingmaster’s lunge at his back at the cost of only a few hairs from his tail. A second griffon launched herself forward at the guard, only to be clocked rather solidly by a pair of griffons who proceeded to ram her beak forcefully into the sand in a familiar manner. Any surge of pleasure he treasured at the sight of the explosion of violence among the spectators was abruptly snatched away as the roaring Wingmaster burst out of the chaos, and it was all Pumpernickel could do to avoid the titanic swipe he took on the way by.

“Die, pony!” The fierce swing barely ticked the tip of Pumpernickel’s wing, but it sent the Nocturne pinwheeling across the circle. One unfortunate griffon who had just raised himself up on his perch in preparation to leaping into the fray met both back hooves of the flying guard, knocking him backwards into the decaying wood as Pumpernickel rebounded in a straight line with every bit of energy his injured wings could generate. The big griffon was just a hair slower on his turn back into the fight, catching Pumpernickel’s hard-driven hoof to the side of the head in an explosion of sparks as his helmet’s enchantments flared—

And the broken eyepiece shattered, driving shards deep into the Wingmaster’s eye.

The resulting backhanded slap struck the guard squarely, knocking Pumpernickel across the circle again as Talon bellowed in agony. By chance, he skidded to a halt in a spray of sand next to the chariot where the other ponies had taken refuge when the fight had started. The three of them, four if you counted the awkward corpse, were rolled underneath the Royal Guard chariot and peering out at the chaotic battle that had broken out.

“Now?” snapped Ambassador Primrose, her horn glowing green while she focused on the Wingmaster, who was still clawing at his face in fury.

“No,” gasped Pumpernickel as he sucked in heaving breaths of air, staggering to his hooves in the bloody sand. “Don’t interfere… Until I’m… Dead!” He staggered back into the air, leaving clumps of red in his wake and with sand caked to his clotting wounds, but staying in a direct line of fire between Primrose and the Wingmaster.

“Can’t get a good shot,” snarled Primrose, bending her neck right and left as the guard accelerated against his target. “Who does that idiot think he is?”

“Justice,” whispered Laminia as she turned the shiny silver bracelet that signified his position in her hooves.

* * *

Princess Sun Shines hesitated at the edge of the Wingmaster’s perch, unable to fly down into the chaotic fight that was spreading up into the perches of the lower rungs. It was a traditional Challenge, and both Father and Grandfather had always taught her that following tradition was the most important part of being a leader. Interfering in a Challenge was a horrible crime with terrible punishments, and even though Grandfather had done horrible things, it was not right to interfere. The Challenge would degrade into chaos as it had many times before, and the resulting bloody secession wars that had been the hallmark of ancient Griffon history had left may aeries charnel pits of death and hatred, abandoned to this day.

“Princess Sunny, what should we do?” A small group of nervous griffons clustered around the Wingmaster’s perch, obviously wanting to fly down into the fight, but unsure on what side they should dive in. They were looking at her in a way she had never seen relatives act before, not looking down as if she were doing something vaguely cute and adorable, but in a near-panic, searching for somegriffon to tell them what to do. The silver ring that indicated her position suddenly felt as heavy as Stargazer’s corpse down in the chaotic circle, but she raised the claw with that symbol on it up so that the group of griffons could see it glitter in the moonlight before screeching in as loud a voice as she could manage.

“”

The nervous griffons seemed to gain confidence in her words and darted off into the growing brawl, except for one griffon who stayed behind with a rather terrified glance back and forth between the fight and her little griffon princess. “Um. Sunny? What if they don’t listen to us?”

Sunny’s golden eyes narrowed, her pinfeathered wings stretching out as if she were preparing to launch herself into the melee with tiny sharp beak and needle-pointed claws. “”

“Yes Ma’am! I mean Your Highness!” The last griffon darted off to carry out Princess Sunny’s command as the little griffon resumed her fierce stance, concealing the doubt she felt in her heart as her Grandfather and her friend battled to the death, and she could not decide which she wanted to die.

* * *

There existed nothing but fire and Talon.

Pumpernickel had lost track of the number of times the big griffon had cut him in sweeping darts and dashes as they passed each other. Each pass had added another line of pain that wrapped his body in a tracery of fire as they struck each other, leaving more blood on the sand among the scattered feathers and ripped hairs. Every opportunity he took to roll across the sand packed more of the gritty substance into his open cuts and slashes, holding his lifeblood in temporarily by clotting the gashes while bringing the fight down to an altitude where the Wingmaster was weakest. The Wingmaster’s bones had cracked under the relentless pounding Pumpernickel had given in return for his wounds, the snap and crunch of boney uncinate processes and the underlying ribs sounding like music to his tattered ears. Even when the inevitable happened, when the Wingmaster would finally manage to lay a solid blow on the guard and spread his cooling body parts across the bloody sand in a disemboweling slash, the griffon would not be able to fly with his flock to descend upon the helpless ponies of the lowlands.

They would be safe.

His duty as a Royal Guard was over.

But there was one more thing that needed to be done before he could die.

His duty as the Heir.

The sounds and shapes of fighting griffons around the circle were only fuzzy blurs to his perception, meaningless creatures who stayed clear of their bloody battle and dove for cover whenever either of them moved in their direction. Only one griffon burned in the back of his mind, a small griffon fledgeling standing all alone on her perch while watching the Challenge with scorching eyes. He could feel her hatred as if she were a blazing bonfire in the chill night, a rage so much like the touch of Nightmare on his own soul. Her only friend had been taken by the Wingmaster’s son, and her body desecrated by the both of them. Given time, the Wingmaster could use that hatred to turn the innocent little fledgeling into a twisted parody of himself, a beast who would be as much a danger as the monster he was fighting now.

Talon had to die.

Both of their attacks were slowing with their brutal injuries, but all Talon would have to do to survive would be to back off and let Pumpernickel bleed to death. It had to be quick, before his reactions slowed too much for the desperate gamble to work.

His bloody wings pumped air to accelerate into the roaring griffon, both armored forehooves batting away the steel-bladed claws that swept down, feeling the air flex as Talon’s beak plunged forward—

And Pumpernickel jammed his wing forward, directly into the oncoming beak.

Brutal inertia jerked the guard violently into a sharp pivot around the bloody hole in his wing, coming around in an accelerating arc. Both armored rear hooves rose as he smashed into Talon’s back, driving their enchanted steel with deadly aim into the center of the Wingmaster’s spine.

The sound of shattered bone froze the onlooking griffons as their Wingmaster spasmed, flinging the bloody Night Guard across the sand in pure reflex before thrashing in agony with a piercing shriek.

Across the ring, Pumpernickel staggered to his hooves with a fierce growl. One wing hung nearly limp, the bloody sand-caked membrane showing a hole big enough to put two hooves through, while one of his vambraces had been torn completely from a bloody shin and glittered in two pieces next to the Wingmaster, the protective runes still glowing a dull red as they expired. With one wing dragging the sand in a bloody trail, Pumpernickel fixed his eyes on the mortally-wounded griffon and began to limp forward in slow, inexorable hoofsteps, snarling out words as he walked.

“Wingmaster. Surrender your position and I shall be merciful.”

“Pony!” spat Talon, crabbing sideways on the sand as his hind legs and wings failed to respond. Somewhere in the fight, the broken helmet had been clawed free and the bloody ruin of one eye dripped unmentionable fluids onto the sand even as the other golden orb was riveted on the oncoming guard. “I will not surrender to your kind. Kill him! Kill him, you worthless cowards!”

“Stop!” The voice was small and weak, but all of the griffons turned to look up at Sunny, who held onto her perch with pinfeathered wings outspread. “Do not interfere with the Challenge.”

There was silence in the circle as the griffons looked back and forth between each other. Finally, one griffon who had been poised to leap looked over at Gilda before sitting down with a thud into the sand, clearing his throat in the crisp, dry air and speaking in a wavering voice.

“I respect the Challenge.” After a moment, another griffon beside him repeated the action, and then another, until all the griffons were sitting in nervous balls of coiled tension, including Gilda, who was last to sit.

Traditionally, a successful griffon leadership challenge would last for a week until it was permitted to bring another challenge against the victor. From the eager glances between the onlooking griffons, there would be no week for Pumpernickel, nor even a single minute to breathe before having to face a second fresh challenger.

It did not matter. They were all dead anyway. Once the griffons finished tearing him into ribbons, their bloodlust would cascade over onto the remainder of the diplomatic mission. His friends. His wife. Their unborn colt. The only thing that would survive would be their memory, and the knowledge that a single Night Guard had beaten their Wingmaster in a fair fight. It was not a legacy that Pumpernickel had ever thought would be associated with him, but it was going to be told to every griffon in Equestria and beyond. The first pony Wingmaster. And the shortest-lived one too.

Turning to Talon, Pumpernickel announced, “Wingmaster, your flock has more honor than you. I ask you a second time, surrender your position, and I shall be merciful.”

“If you want my position, little pony, come and take it.” His tongue licked the blood off his beak and the Wingmaster snarled, “Delicious pony.”

“A third time I implore you, Wingmaster. Surrender.” Pumpernickel stopped just outside of Talon’s reach, his face as immobile as stone as he looked down on the fallen griffon king.

“Die, pony!” Talon lunged forward as far as his forelegs could move his body, jabbing his beak at Pumpernickel’s unarmored chest. Two steel-clad hooves landed on top of his head before he got even halfway there, knocking the griffon to the sand.

Then the hooves descended again, and the Wingmaster of the Misty Mountain aerie was no more.

Ch 15 - Succession Fight

Diplomacy by Other Means
Succession Fight

“Ambition is so powerful a passion in the griffon breast, that however high they reach, they are never satisfied.”
— N. Marechiavelli, The Princess

“Wingmaster! I challenge you!” Gilda uncoiled like a spring from her crouch, flashing across the circle ahead of the other oncoming griffons with such speed as to even make her father look slow. Even though he was expecting the massed attack, Pumpernickel barely managed to turn with one foreleg to parry the descending naked talons, feeling the bite of her attack deflect off the enchanted steel vambrace and across his armored face in a spray of sparks. There was no posturing or roaring on Gilda’s part, so very much unlike her father. Front and rear claws slashed out in lightning strikes, much lighter than the broadsword-like blows of Talon, but met in a flurry of blocks and parries as Pumpernickel tumbled across the sand with his opponent and the rest of the griffons dove for cover.

At one time in his youth, Pumpernickel had been drafted into bathing his sister’s pampered cat, a ‘rehabilitated’ alley cat who had an extra toe on each forepaw, smelled of trash cans and alleyways, and who had a tendency to view Pumpernickel’s property as a litterbox. At first it had seemed easy, with the soapy tub of water and all of the little cat scrubby brushes and shampoos laid out in even rows.

Then he had added the cat to the water.

Fat, lazy Muffins had transformed upon entering the soapy water, emerging as a vicious beast with carnivorous jaws and twenty-two razor-edged weapons to use against the creature who had dared to lay a hoof on her. It had been a narrow decision in the bathroom with all of his big sisters giggling outside the door, but after having been clawed a dozen or more times, he found holding the cat under the water for a limited amount of time to be an acceptable strategy. The secret then, as it was now, was to keep the proper distance away from the claws. Too close and Muffins would clamp on with all four paws to bite; too far away and she was able to select her attacking spot for maximum bloodshed.

Talons and hooves flew and clashed as they tumbled, each seeking their own advantage. She was fast, even faster than Talon, but her blows lacked the bone-crushing impact or the bladed steel gauntlets that his favorites wore. There was an extravagance to her rapid attacks that plucked a chord at his heart, a flamboyance of attacks and slashes that was more like a dance than combat. The feeling incited a second wind that filled his leaden limbs with energy, a song of conflict which flowed around his bloody hide and tattered wings with the knowledge that there was no need to hold anything back. This would be his final battle, the end of his life in service to the Princess of the Moon, and it would be glorious.

Sparks flew from every piece of his armor he still wore as she struck and he countered, the slash of claws across his helmet, the leonine rear paws that ripped towards his bare belly, and the bludgeoning of wings across his face. It was obvious that she had a lot of experience fighting other griffons, but there was something else that he could see, a pattern in her attacks while they were wrapped up in the ball of rolling combat that crossed back and forth across the circle without ever approaching the fallen Royal Guard chariot…

...without approaching the chariot where the three remaining members of the diplomatic mission were hiding.

In a flash, he realized just what Gilda was doing. The surrounding angry griffons had retreated from their advance and were mesmerized by the ongoing fight between their former princess and the pony who had killed her father. Every lightning blow and counter was occupying their full attention, and there was little doubt to which combatant they were expecting to die. When Gilda killed him, she would become Wingmaster, and as such, should be able to order the other griffons away from murdering the rest of the diplomatic mission. And his wife.

He would be dead, but Laminia would survive. And so would his son.

Hollow laughter echoed through the circle despite the pain as he swung under a talon, trapping it between two bloody hooves and twisting it behind Gilda’s back. The joint lock was a cast-iron bear to maintain as she writhed around in response, but it gave him a split second to pin her solidly to the sand and whisper by one ear, “Thanks.”

“D’mention it,” she snapped in response, driving a sharp elbow back into his ribs and turning the joint lock into a throw that neatly tossed him all the way across the circle. The griffon was only a heartbeat behind his impact, landing with a deadly swipe at his neck that would have ended the fight if he had not caught it on one vambrace and twisted into a counterblow that scattered feathers and bits of splintered claws in all directions. They spun in place, nearly in the bottom section of perches when a young griffon from the crowd lunged forward, grabbing Pumpernickel by the head and heaving backwards, leaving the guard off-balance and vulnerable.

“Get him, Princess!” shouted the griffon, raking one hind paw down Pumpernickel’s ragged wing as he struggled to restrain the weakened Night Guard.

With a ripping screech, Gilda leapt on the other griffon, driving one bunched claw into his throat before vaulting over Pumpernickel’s back and twisting one of the griffon’s wings up in a horribly painful-looking position. It left the sensitive portion of the griffon’s underwing exposed in an action that just could not be accidental, and Pumpernickel grinned in anticipation. One armored hoof was driven solidly into the exact spot on the rebellious griffon’s ribs, making him suddenly lose interest in interfering with the fight, content to simply curl up on the sand and whimper.

Gilda whirled upright, with tattered wings spread wide just out of swiping range and with a furious glare that could have peeled paint. “Wingmaster, control your flock!”

“I’m busy!” he snarled back. “Isn’t that the job of the Heir?” A sudden realization swept over both of the combatants, and they each avoided looking up into the stands at the little griffon princess, only a small fraction of the size of the rest of her flock. It was the job of the Heirs to protect the Challenge in the event the Wingmaster was involved, but Sunny would survive about as long as one solid swipe from her larger flockmates. The two of them glared at each other instead, each dripping with blood and broken feathers, although Pumpernickel was much the worse for wear. The surrounding griffons shrieked in agitation, beginning to descend from the perches they had so briefly occupied and starting to crowd back into the circle.

“You killed the one adult Heir, even though he was a worthless piece of filth,” she responded with a snarl, spitting a stream of blood to one side. “Good riddance. Now, control your flock, Wingmaster!”

“Yeah. Gimmie just a minute.” Turning slightly away from Gilda and swaying slightly on his hooves, he looked up into the eyes of the surrounding griffons and spat blood and pieces of feathers onto the sand. The slow approach of the griffons came to an abrupt stop as the blood-soaked guard looked from one edge of the crowd to the other with a fierce glare, as if he were looking for a snack during his break from combat.

“” Pumpernickel stopped with a contemplative look before turning back to Gilda. “Is there a word in Griffon for ‘an orderly line?’”

“Naa,” scoffed Gilda after a snort of pained laughter and one chipped claw braced against her ribs. “Closest you’re going to get is unless you want to use profanity. Think I’ll just sit here while you beat some sense into their thick heads.”

A thin titter of suppressed laughter went around the surrounding griffons, growing slightly louder as both Gilda and Pumpernickel joined in, both with substantial restraint from their injuries. “So we can take a break during a Challenge?”

“Sure,” said Gilda with a dismissive wave. “You’re the Wingmaster. You get to make the rules.”

“Good. I hereby declare a break in this Challenge until we’re ready to continue? Sound good?” Pumpernickel wiped away a bloody feather that had gotten stuck in one eyebrow and waited while Gilda appeared to consider the offer.

“Deal. How long?”

Pumpernickel turned to look at the body of the old Wingmaster, seeming so much smaller in the stillness of death. “How long do you think it will take me to settle my flock after I pick an Heir capable of knocking beaks together?”

“This bunch of hard-headed morons?” Gilda scoffed and ran her chipped claws through her crest, shaking out the loose and broken feathers it collected. “I don’t envy anygriffon the job. What idiot are you going to pick?”

A year of living with Laminia was like a lifetime of experience compressed into every minute. It only took a small nod of Pumpernickel’s head for his wife to toss the silver bracelet that signified the position of Heir over in their direction. Gilda snatched it out of midair and turned a skeptical look at her current Wingmaster. “You’re kidding, right?”

“No.” Pumpernickel staggered a little, extending his bloody wings for stability before nodding at Talon’s body. “Send your father to rest with his ancestors. It is not right that he is trampled underhoof like carrion.”

There was a crunch of sandy hoofsteps behind him, and a faint green glow of healing magic surrounded the bloody guard. Pumpernickel almost crumpled to his knees in agony as tiny bits of sand all over his body dug into exposed nerves, pressed together by the temporary spell that held arteries and veins closed until more serious measures could be taken. The dripping of crimson from his wounds stopped, although the red haze of agonizing pain still remained unabated as Laminia moved to one side and Ambassador Primrose to the other. They remained silent, but he could feel the trembling from his wife as she barely touched the tip of one wing to his flank.

After a moment to recover, Pumpernickel continued while trying not to grit his teeth. “There is more than one who needs laid to rest, Princess Gilda. What of your step-brother?”

Gilda turned, quickly at first, then slower as she rubbed her bruised neck. Regarding the small cluster of griffons who had witnessed the fight with Plummets and who had been staying out of the fight, she asked, “Is it true? Did my step-brother murder my niece's best friend?”

Glossy Pinions stepped forward, his head held low as he spoke. “Yes, Princess Gilda. He bragged of it in front of us all. He was proud of his deed.” The griffon spat to one side, as did every griffon in the group. “He was without honor. We left him to rot for the beasts after he was slain by the Pumpernickel.”

“Let him rot,” said Gilda with a significant pause afterwards.

“Let him rot,” intoned the surrounding griffons with various degrees of reluctance, following the obvious prompt by the Heir.

“I shall see to the burial of Stargazer—” started Gilda, only to be cut off by a small voice.

“No!” Sunny paused at the edge of her perch, obviously wanting to fly down into the circle, but after a moment she returned to her pose. Behind her, Pumpernickel could see Sunny’s father hesitate as if he were unwilling to fly forward and support his daughter, but after a sharp breath, he flapped forward and rested quietly behind her.

“No. She was my friend. As Second Heir, I demand to be responsible for her.” The little griffon swallowed before looking at the chariot where the cloth-wrapped bundle remained. “My father and I will take her to the village, and also bring the ones who dared to attack Ambassador Primrose. The ponies deserve to know what happened.”

“And what of my flock who dared to attack an ambassador?” asked Pumpernickel, still amazed at how natural the words ‘my flock’ felt in his mouth. Perhaps it was the feeling of his loose teeth which indicated the price that had been paid for those few words. And the cost.

Sunny glared at the group of griffons who had followed her uncle, watching with narrowed eyes as they all cringed in response. “I shall decide their full punishment. This shall only be the start, Wingmaster.”

Pumpernickel nodded slightly with a hidden wince. “So you have requested, so it shall be done.”

Gilda nodded back at Pumpernickel, only deeper. “With your permission, Wingmaster, I will organize my father’s funeral.”

“Go, Heir to the Misty Mountain Aerie. Take your father to the ancestors. I will remain behind.”

“Yeah, probably a good idea, Lumpy. I mean, Wingmaster Lumpy.”

“Take care of your dead. Then we will speak of what will follow. Guard well the flock, Heirs.”

“Fly strong, Wingmaster.” Gilda nodded, and Pumpernickel turned to walk away from the bloody circle with two self-appointed griffons leading the way back to the aerie.

Ambassador Primrose, her horn still glowing a faint green to hold together Pumpernickel’s tattered body, brushed up against him in order to whisper in one ear, “What next, ‘Wingmaster’?”

Taking a breath to compose himself after the painful sand-filled coat of the ambassador had quit rubbing against his bloody slashes, Pumpernickel responded, “We’re going to walk, not run, nice and slow back to the diplomatic suite, and close the door.”

Laminia added, “And I’m going to put about a dress and a half worth of stitches into my ongoing craft project. If you weren’t so beat up, Lumpy, I’d…” She swallowed and walked a few steps before continuing, “You lean on me and Primrose will help your plucked partner.”

Lack of blood was making the world spin in slow revolutions, but the opportunity was too good to pass up. He could always blame his injuries later, now that there was going to be a later. “What if I want to lean against this lovely young mare, and let you assist Red?”

It hurt to smile, even more when Laminia poked him in the side, but he could not help grinning through the pain when Redoubtable growled in a rather exaggerated fashion, “Rose, I think you can turn off his anesthesia spell now before it gives him any more brain damage. Don’t make me crawl over there and kick your flank, Lumpy.”

“That’s Wingmaster Lumpy to you, commoner. You may kiss my hoof when you’re feeling better.”

The amused snort from his friend was worth the pain, even better when Redoubtable responded, “And you can kiss my—”

Author's Note

A male bird is very much unlike a pony in terms of reproductive equipment. Instead of hanging down below, they’re under the ribs on each side, well protected by the wings. That is, unless a certain griffon princess is to twist said wings above their head, allowing a certain Night Guard to get a good solid hoof-strike on the respective spot.

Ch 16 - Honor Among Griffons

Diplomacy by Other Means
Honor Among Griffons

“A pony who is used to acting in one way never changes; she must come to ruin when the times, in changing, are no longer in harmony with her ways.”
— N. Marechiavelli, The Princess

“I said, let me out of bed so I can talk with her. Now!” Pumpernickel fought briefly with his wife, neither of them using anywhere near their full strength due to his injuries. Long lines of stitching swept and curled around his body in pinkish stripes where his grey coat had been shaved away around the puckered stitches to prevent infection, lending to a somewhat pink zebra appearance to the battered guard, or perhaps that of a Frankenpony’s monster. His wings were still wrapped in a long white bandage and each one secured to his sides, but small dots of dried brown blood traced their way across their wrappings in straight lines and ornate circles like some obscene dot-to-dot puzzle awaiting a child with a pen.

One ear remained stubbornly shortened by a fraction of an inch, as well as the outside edge of the other, leading to a lopsided appearance when examined closely. Laminia had suggested balancing by selective trimming, only to be overruled by Redoubtable citing Royal Guard regulations on intentional body modification surgery. Now both of those battered ears folded back as he regarded his wife with a piercing glare. “I promise not to get into any more fights. The way I feel now, Sunny could probably beat me up.”

“You stubborn, rock-headed… MALE!” With one final glare, Laminia pulled back the sheets and offered a hoof up for her husband, with one last growl. “If you pull out any of your stitches, I’m sewing you into the bed.”

The faint green aura of an anesthesia spell turned low surrounded him as he placed one hoof gingerly onto the floor, eventually standing up and turning to address the little griffon fledgeling who stood by the door.

“Good morning, Princess Sunny.”

“Good afternoon, Lumpy.” There was an exceedingly long time before the little griffon lowered her head. “I mean, good afternoon, Wingmaster Pumpernickel.”

The warm interior of the diplomatic quarters seemed filled with eyes, from Ambassador Primrose, who was supposedly applying little bits of antibiotic cream to Redoubtable in one corner, to Laminia, who had withdrawn a few paces and stood nearly immobile with her golden eyes fixed on Princess Sunny. The rustling of griffon feathers outside the door was evidence of larger guardians, a strange presence of deadly force that comforted rather than unnerved him. Pumpernickel’s world had been turned on end over the last several days, but little Sunny had lost both her best friend and her grandfather, and she was the one who was most important at the moment.

“I’m afraid we’re going to have to keep this short, Princess Sunny. May I ask why you needed to see me?” Pumpernickel tried his best to put as much authority into his voice as possible, but all he could hear was the rasping and croaking that resulted from the aftereffects of the healing and anesthesia spells from Primrose. The spells may have saved his life and kept him from screaming in constant pain, but there still was something weird about them that made him occasionally feel as if he were growing a beak and feathers.

“Yeah. I just wanted to say… We took Stargazer to the village and I met with Mayor Berry, her mother, and told her all about what happened.” The words seemed to cascade out of the little griffon like a mountain avalanche, in a solid rumble of thoughts that would not be stopped until she reached the end. “About Grandfather, and that bastard, Bravely Plummets, and the Challenge, and how S-stargazer d-died.” She took a quick breath and continued before Pumpernickel could even think of interrupting. “And how much she meant to me, and how you were the Wingmaster of our aerie now, which she asked a lot of questions about, and I just wanted to say… I’m sorry. I hated you so much when you killed Grandfather, but I’ve had some time to think about it since then, and… I can accept you as Wingmaster of my flock now. I will be a good Second Heir to you, and will help guide our flock to greatness.”

“Do you hate me now?” Pumpernickel had to ask, and the little griffon’s head hung lower as she responded.

“No. I am a loyal Heir, and I can not hate our Wingmaster.”

“Liar.” Laminia stepped forward with her wings half-extended, scowling down at the little cringing griffon. “You hate him. You despise his every speck of being.”

“No,” whimpered Sunny, cowering backwards and trying to cover her head with pinfeathered wings.

“My husband killed your grandfather. Blood demands blood. No griffon would surrender their right to vengeance this easily.”

Sunny curled up into a ball with her claws over the sides of her head, repeating over and over, “No. Not me.” Laminia ignored her protests, moving right up to the little princess and taking one of her claws in her hooves. With a twist and a shrug, the Nocturne mare shucked out of her Night Guard breastplate and pressed the claw against her warm bare chest with each of the four needle-sharp talons pricking slightly against her skin.

“Feel my heart beat beneath your talons. Deep inside my body, I am growing a foal, just like Stargazer. Will someday my offspring be forced to face your kind in battle, shedding her blood to quench your hatred?”

Sunny’s beak moved, but no words came out while Laminia continued.

“You were sent here by your Aunt Gilda and your father. You were ordered to say these words, while your heart believes something completely different. Lumpy took away the one griffon who ever took time to be with you, the one griffon who you believed cared about you. He killed Talon just to save the lives of hundreds of ponies you have never met.”

The little griffon snatched her claws away from Laminia and looked up with a fierce snarl. “Why are you saying these things to me? Wingmaster, make her stop!”

Pumpernickel shook his head in a short arc, his pleasant smile having long since turned into an emotionless expression suitable for the herbivorous ruler of a flock of omnivores. “I would stop her if she were wrong. She’s not. It’s her special talent, after all. She heals broken hearts.”

Laminia stepped forward until her nose was almost touching the fuzzy tufts that graced Sunny’s head. “You can’t help but hate him for what he did. No matter how small that hate is now, it will sit in your heart and fester like an infected wound as you grow up. You will find yourself even more alone, as everypony — everygriffon shuns you for the hatred you carry.”

The ruffled feathers that covered Sunny’s shoulders flattened as her eyes softened. “Why are you doing this to me? How can you know what I’m feeling?”

Laminia extended a wing across the floor of the diplomatic quarters and rotated it so that a faint ragged line down the middle seemed to glitter in the lights. Her voice lowered as she stretched her other wing around the little griffon and embraced her with the gentle touch of a mother.

“Because I know that feeling in your heart. I was born a cripple, my wing deformed and ugly. Our kind was created by Luna during her descent into madness, built from the unlimited power of Nightmare and Darkness, but we are not perfect. Occasionally there are… defects in her creations. I considered that sole imperfection to be the reason for my miserable life, leaving the hatred to eat at my soul and fill my nights with thoughts of revenge. When Luna returned, I was certain our Night Eternal would return, and she would rule…”

Laminia paused, looking away for a moment. When she turned back, her voice was barely audible, and a tear dripped from her eye to splash on the top of the little griffon’s head.

“I let the darkness in my soul control my actions, and tried to return the Nightmare to our Princess of the Night. But for the actions of two whom I despised, both my husband and the Princess of the Day, Princess Luna would have been destroyed, and the world would have perished in darkness.”

Sunny looked up in confusion, her head cocked to one side as she regarded both Laminia and Pumpernickel. “I don’t understand. If you screwed up that badly, why are you here? Is this a punishment? And what happened to your wing?”

“No.” Laminia brushed back a feathery plume from the little griffon’s head while flickering a quick look at Pumpernickel that caused him to shut his mouth and remain silent. “We are here because we asked. It is a reward, as we have been rewarded before. For betraying Celestia, she healed my wing. For nearly destroying Princess Luna, she made me her Hoofmaiden. For despising your Wingmaster, he made me his bride.”

Sunny stared in open-beaked amazement. “Ponies are weird.”

Pumpernickel nodded a bit too energetically for his stitches. “Yes. Very astute. Now, Princess Sun Shines on the Misty Mountains at Dawn Through Early Morning Hazy Skies, as your Wingmaster, I have something to say to you. But first, I need to send for your father, and my First Heir.”

Raising his voice slightly, Pumpernickel turned to the door into the ambassador’s quarters and continued, “Will you two please come inside?”

Ambassador Sharp Edge came shuffling into the room, having the grace to look somewhat embarrassed at eavesdropping on the Wingmaster and his daughter. Right on his heels limped Princess Gilda, the bracelet of office shining proudly on her wrist with a number of bandages and splints on her other limbs, including a rather wide one on a hind leg that Pumpernickel could remember biting in a particularly innovative set of moves that he had no intention of repeating any time soon.

“Wingmaster,” said Gilda with a pained bow. “Are you wanting to continue our Challenge now?”

“No. Not at present. I have quite a few things to do first.”

“Well, good.” Gilda snapped her beak and rolled her eyes. “You would not believe the number of idiots who want to fight me once I have dispatched—” She cleared her throat and scowled “—that pathetic patchwork pony. I’m halfway tempted to yield my Challenge just so they can feel one of your huge dammed hooves smashing into their chest.”

“Really?” Pumpernickel’s tone was as dry as dust, and Gilda looked up at him with narrowed eyes.

“No. You killed my father. If he was wrong or not, it doesn’t matter. I’m going to kill you in the Challenge ring.” Golden griffon eyes matched with yellow pony eyes, neither of them blinking until Pumpernickel deliberately turned to Sunny.

“Princess Sun Shines, it has become clear to me that you cannot be trusted within my aerie.”

“But Aunt Gilda said she’s going to kill you.” Sunny looked back and forth. “Is weirdness contagious?”

“Naa,” scoffed Gilda with a ruffle to the top of Sunny’s head. “I’m just letting the dumb bastard know just exactly where we stand. I don’t hate him. I just hate what he did. And I’m going to kill him for it someday, once we both have time to finish our little discussion. Now, you on the other claw…” The griffon princess glanced briefly at Laminia before continuing. “You’re a problem.”

“Just a moment, Princess,” interrupted Pumpernickel. “This is my responsibility, at least until we finish our ‘discussion.’ Princess Sun Shines is a threat to this aerie. She has lied about her hatred to its Wingmaster, and that kind of deceit in my aerie cannot be tolerated. But first, I need to speak to her father, Ambassador Sharp Edge.

The smaller griffon tircel stepped forward and bowed with only one worried look at his daughter before turning his blue eyes towards Pumpernickel, his face an unreadable mask. “Speak, Wingmaster. I am at your command.”

“I’ll make this short. There is a new city of ponies that has sprung into existence beyond our borders. I hereby appoint you ambassador to the Crystal Empire. You depart next week.” The ambassador did not move a muscle except to relax his stance slightly, as if a great weight had been taken off his shoulders. In turn, Pumpernickel fought to keep a smile off his face as he turned back to the worried little griffon, who was trying to hide her head under her stubby wings.

“Princess Sun Shines, it has become clear to me that you cannot be trusted within my aerie. However since you are my Second Heir, rather than banish you from our mountains, I have a task for you that shall be completed to my satisfaction before I permit you to return to my aerie.” At a subtle cough from Gilda, Pumpernickel added, “I mean our aerie. You are to go with your father to the Crystal Empire for the next six months, and study the magic they use to protect their city.”

One unhappy eye looked up at him from between her pinfeathered wings. “You mean like a spy?”

“No. Like a student. A friendship student, much like Twilight Sparkle. You are to go there and make friends among the ponies. I’ll have Ambassador Primrose write you an introductory letter for Princess Cadence and Prince Consort Shining Armor. I’m certain they will wish for you to stay in the palace with them.”

As she tucked her wings back in place, a second eye looked up, glittering with a tiny spark of happiness coming out of the gloom. “The palace? The Crystal Palace? I read about it from the report our spy… I mean the courier that took your letter there. It’s all crystal and sparkles like diamond, just like all the ponies there?” Suspicion clouded the glitter of joy as a thought occurred to Sunny. “This is supposed to be a punishment?”

Ambassador Primrose cleared her throat. “From certain estimates in the report I read, the sparkling is an effect that comes from long exposure to the magic of their kingdom. Perhaps when you return to the aerie, the sparkle will remain for a few weeks. There are statues in the city that indicate griffons once played a major role in their kingdom, so perhaps a nearby griffon aerie, like this one, would prosper greatly through trade and cultural exchange. Having an heir present in their kingdom would give such an aerie a great amount of leverage in any negotiations. In my professional and completely neutral opinion, of course.”

“Y-you would do that? For us? For me?” Sunny looked around the room in total bafflement. “Ponies aren’t just weird, they’re crazy.” Pumpernickel kept the smile off his face, but got the feeling that it was leaking out around his eyes when the little griffon bowed with her pinfeathered wings outspread. “I accept my punishment, Wingmaster. May I be dismissed? We are taking my grandfather to the Crypt in the Sky so that he may join the ancestors, and I need to supervise the preparations.”

“You may go, Princess Sunny. May your wings never falter.”

“May your flight be swift and true, Wingmaster.” The little griffon paused at the door to look back. “Are you coming, Father?”

“In a minute, Sunny. Go on.” Once the sound of the little griffon scurrying off with her bodyguard had faded to silence, Ambassador Sharp Edge turned to his Wingmaster with a short nod.

“You take the one who hates you and plots to overthrow you and give her the Crystal City she dreamed of. Ponies are not just weird, they’re outright bizarre. How in all of the stars did you get sent on this diplomatic mission?”

“I asked,” answered Pumpernickel with a pained shrug.

“And he beat up Luna in the sparring ring,” volunteered Laminia.

Pumpernickel spared a very dry glower for his chuckling wife. “Let the Princess of the Night beat you up one time and you never hear the end of it.”

“Twice if you count the time you busted her in the face with a door. Come to think of it, she promoted you for that fiasco, and sent you here after you bit her in the sparring ring, so what in Equestria are you going to do for an encore?”

Laminia’s subdued chuckles were abruptly cut off as Gilda said, “As the new Wingmaster, he will eventually have to visit the Imperial Court, and swear fealty to Emperor Ripping Claw. Tell me when you go. I want to watch.”

Sunny’s father blinked a few times while digesting the idea. “Well, I should go get ready for the funeral too. With your permission, Wingmaster?”

“Granted,” said Pumpernickel at the exact same moment as Gilda. The two of them kept straight faces as the diplomat jogged away, leaping into the air as he crossed the ambassadorial balcony and flying up into the afternoon sky.

Gilda was the first to crack with an explosive snort of laughter. “Oh, the poor cracked egg. Just wait until he meets Pinkie Pie.”

“Yeah, that’s one pony who makes you feel sane no matter how crazy you are.” Pumpernickel shook his head and sighed. “On a serious note, I’m glad they’re gone. I need to talk to you privately.” It took a number of pointed glares to get the other three ponies to reluctantly leave the room, some with more degrees of reluctance than others, but eventually the room was empty except for the rather odd Wingmaster and his First Heir.

“So. Lumpy. Just us, then?” Gilda raised one tufted eyebrow as Pumpernickel limped to the door and shut it firmly.

“Just us. Or as I would prefer to think of it, justice.” Pumpernickel situated himself back on the cushion with great care before continuing. “Ponies, as a rule, are polite, and take great care not to offend anypony else. Griffons, not so much.”

“Yeah, yeah. You dweebs are so polite it’s sickening sometimes. Get on with it, Lumpy. I’ve got a funeral to attend.” Gilda pulled out a file and began putting an edge on one talon which was splintered less than the rest. The Royal Guard vambraces and helmet had done a number on her razor sharp nails, leaving most of them ragged and torn to various extents.

“That’s Wingmaster Pumpernickel, if you don’t want me to beat your head flat against the floor in here.” Gilda looked up abruptly to see Pumpernickel nose to beak with her. The nail file dropped unnoticed to the floor and Gilda tried to back up, only to have the Nocturne match her, step for step. “You were Talon’s Heir before he demoted you. All the signs were there that showed he was planning an attack on the Crystal Empire, an attack that would have eventually destroyed the entire aerie. You had a duty to your family, and you were just going to watch them die rather than challenge your father for an action you knew was wrong.”

“He would have killed me. He would have ripped my freaking head off, you loon!” Gilda’s tail hit the wall of the room, but Pumpernickel did not stop advancing until his nose touched her beak.

“Then you would have died with honor! Plummets is rotting out in a streambank now because you didn’t have the claws to stand up to your father. He would have killed Sunny the moment he thought she knew about the murder. Stargazer died because of your inaction. And I’ll kill you rather than let you be Wingmaster of this aerie.”

“Now?” Gilda swallowed, looking into those pitiless golden eyes so near to her own.

“No.” Pumpernickel backed off a pace. “I’m giving you a year. From what I remember of Griffon Law, I need to make a trip to Emperor Ripping Claw to swear fealty within a year or the title of Wingmaster passes to the Heir. You run this aerie well enough that I’m satisfied, and I’ll make sure Royal Guard business keeps me out of that court. Screw up, and I’ll make a special trip right away.”

Gilda glanced over at the door before looking back at Pumpernickel with a weak sneer. “You don’t have the claws to kill me. I could kick your pony ass all over the circle any day of the week.”

Pumpernickel’s eyes narrowed. “Try me. They’re taking one body up to the Crypt in the Sky today. Won’t be any trouble to make it two. Right here. Right now. Just us.”

It took long moments before Gilda lowered her head with a growl. “I’m still going to kill you for killing my father. Just not today. I’ve got a funeral to attend.”

“You better practice up then, Heir. As I recall, that tall tircel with the violet plumes and the orange tail ribbon was in the exchange program between our militaries. I fought him in the ring about four or five times. He’ll be a good one to practice with, once you get healed up.”

“I suppose you’ll be practicing too?” The only answer she got was a thin smile, and she turned to limp towards the door. “Well, I better get to the funeral. With your permission, Wingmaster?”

“Go and bury your dead, Princess Gilda. And consider your future. May your wings never falter.”

“May your flight be swift and true, Wingmaster.” Gilda paused after opening the door, her wings half-outstretched to fly away while she called back over her shoulder, “And may that flight carry you far, far away from here.”

Pumpernickel stood and watched the griffon princess soar up into the sky and away while the other three members of the diplomatic group filed back into the room. Redoubtable made a special point to look him over as if to check for additional bite and claw marks that might need another few yards of stitches, before hobbling back over to his bed and lying down with the greatest of care.

Primrose and Laminia stood and watched him watching them until Laminia could not stand the silence any more. “Well, Lumpy. Did you two set a date for trying to kill each other or did you propose? Because if you’re going to add one more female to our marriage, you’ll have to get special permission from Princess Luna, and we’re going to need a bigger apartment.”

“Neither. No wedding dates and no more funerals. We’ll be leaving for the Crystal Empire tomorrow. That is, if it is acceptable to you, Your Excellency?”

Ambassador Primrose rolled her eyes. “Yes, of course, Your Highness.”

Pumpernickel winced, keeping his eyes closed for an extended amount of time. “One more thing to add to my list. Now can I get you to help me back to bed? If I stand up for one more minute, I think I’m going to fall over dead. I think I know what a quilt feels like now.”

Laminia giggled as she guided her husband to the bed, suspended in Primrose’s magic. “That’s what I forgot. I should have saved a few little pieces of your hide for the baby quilt.”

“That… is disgusting.” Pumpernickel took the tucking in and fussing over in stride, deeply grateful that most of his stitches were on his sides and top instead of the bottom, but before he settled down on his pillow, he looked up at Primrose in wide-eyed alarm. “What do you think Princess Luna is going to say?”

The ambassador closed her eyes for a moment and smiled. “I’m not sure, but I would be willing to bet you will be able to hear it when she gets my letter.”

* * *

Princess Luna took the letter from the delivery griffon with a respectful bow and thanked him in accented Griffon before sending him on his way. There were several sheets of thick paper in the letter, wrapped in a security enchantment that took her only a moment to release so that she could begin reading. The moon had just been put away for the morning, and so she took her time, picking her way down the lines with the occasional ‘hmm’ or ‘tragic’ before reaching the end and folding the sheets back up. It took only a few moments for her to pen instructions and pass them to the guard outside her chambers before traveling over to the breakfast nook to meet her sister.

The letter was a great source of conversation between the two sisters, with many helpful suggestions and options passed between the two of them before Celestia departed for her morning appointments and Luna returned to her bedchambers, although with a brief detour to examine the new sign she had ordered for her Hoofmaiden’s small apartment across the hall. She had always considered the Hoofmaiden’s quarters to be far too small for one pony to occupy, let alone a married couple, and if they both survived until the birth of their foal, the tiny little closet would become far too small. There was an underused storage room next to it that would make expansion easy without having to fall back upon dimensional extension spells, which always felt a bit like cheating to Luna. Her remodeling ‘suggestion’ to the two of them for the room had been repeatedly turned down as being too low a priority for their position.

Well, now they would not be able to use that excuse. She took a moment to review results of her note before heading to bed, secure in the knowledge that her night had been quite productive. Behind her, a brand new sign hung next to the Hoofmaiden’s quarters, the glistening letters still slightly damp from the castle printing shop.

The Royal Bedchambers of Their Majesties
Wingmaster Pumpernickel
Queen Consort Laminia
of the Aerie of the Misty Mountains and Surrounding Territory
(Knock before entering)

Ch 17 - Inheritance

Diplomacy by Other Means
Inheritance

“Nevertheless a princess ought to inspire fear in such a way that, if she does not win love, she avoids hatred; because she can endure very well being feared whilst she is not hated, which will always be as long as she abstains from the property of her citizens and subjects and from their mates. But when it is necessary for her to proceed against the life of somepony, she must do it on proper justification and for manifest cause, but above all things she must keep her hooves off the property of others, because ponies more quickly forget the death of their sire than the loss of their patrimony.”
— N. Marechiavelli, The Princess

On the roof of the griffon fortress, four ponies gathered around a chariot in preparation for their departure. Redoubtable curled up in the passenger compartment, carefully attaching his safety harness while attempting not to bump his bandaged wings against the sides of the carriage, while Ambassador Primrose took her place at his side.

Two Nocturne took their places at the front with considerable scrutiny by the dozens of griffons closely observing. Laminia slid into her place almost effortlessly, the click of the harness across her shoulders loud in the morning air, while her husband remained in his place next to the griffons.

No armor hung across Pumpernickel’s broad frame this morning, only a black jacket in the colors of mourning that did little to hide the long puckered lines of stitches that covered so much of his body, and was only emphasized by the wide stripes of shaved coat that followed each slash in order to prevent the hundreds of stitches from becoming infected. Even his half-furled wings had not escaped Laminia’s needle, with neatly aligned lines of surgical thread that seemingly wandered all over those dark membranes, and in particular a large patch on his right wing that looked almost crocheted into a doily. With a little heart in the middle.

Gilda and Sunny stepped forward, each bowing in front of their odd Wingmaster, followed by every other griffon in the aerie dropping to one knee in a wave of multicolored feathers behind them. If one or two were a bit slow in showing respect, it was carefully ignored as Princess Gilda, First Heir to the Wingmaster, stood up and addressed Pumpernickel.

“Wingmaster Pumpernickel…” She faded off for a moment with a peculiar look on her face. “It still sounds funny.”

“Princess Gilda, anytime you want to pick up where we left off, I’m ready,” said Pumpernickel in return, with a tiny smile twitching at the corners of his mouth.

“Yeah, that sounds funny too,” she groused, ruffling her feathers in a wave down her neck that showed Gilda’s own stitchwork and bandages across a vivid collection of bruises. “Dash will never let me live it down. Anywho, Father has been placed in the Crypt of the Sky as you have commanded, Wingmaster, and we shall grieve him until the setting of the sun today. Another messenger has been dispatched to the Crystal Empire with the letter your associate provided, and that should be it.”

“You think you can keep my aerie in line while I’m gone?” asked Pumpernickel, with a pointed glance into the multicolored crowd that had one or two griffons suddenly shifting uncomfortably.

“Yeah. Don’t think I’ll have to do as much thumping as Father, but if I can’t thump some sense into the more stubborn ones, I’ll send ‘em to you.”

Pumpernickel nodded before turning to the bright-eyed little griffon to Gilda’s side. “Princess Sunny, how did your responsibility go?”

The little griffon spread her pinfeathered wings wide and bowed, just as calmly and sincerely as if Pumpernickel had been Princess Luna. It even made the big guard take just a second to flicker a glance behind himself just in case there was a real princess there, but no such luck.

“I have carried out your command, Wingmaster Pumpernickel. The conspirators have been turned over to the city elders of Toenail, and their fate is being determined. The mayor seems to be vacillating between having them on town weather detail or using them as messenger pigeons. From the dry state of the town, I suggested the former.”

Pumpernickel could not help but smile a little. “Large words for such a little princess. Did you attend the funeral of your friend, Stargazer?”

The little wings retracted and Sunny shuffled a little closer to Gilda, who extended a wing over her niece. “She taught the words to me. The funeral was very touching. And weird.” Little golden eyes peeked out from under Gilda’s tattered wing. “Do you know the earth ponies put dirt over their dead?”

“Not all of them,” assured Pumpernickel with a nod of his head. “I expect to be in the Crystal Empire for a few days or weeks. Perhaps you can stop by once your father gets settled into his new job, and we can… talk.”

“Thank you, Wingmaster,” said the little griffon. “I shall not forget what you did to my Grandfather, but maybe someday I can forgive you. A little. Forgiveness is not really in our blood.”

Pumpernickel shrugged painfully. “It’s a pony thing.”

Gilda nodded back with a pained wince of her own. “Perhaps it can become a griffon thing too. Goodbye, Wingmaster. May your wings never falter.”

“May your flight be swift and true, Princesses. Guard well the aerie.”

The Wingmaster of the Misty Mountains Aerie saluted his flock and turned to the waiting chariot, buckling himself into the straps without a single displayed wince of pain. In minutes, the Night Guard chariot sprung into the air, the two Nocturne at the harness flapping in perfect harmony as they followed their guide out of the treacherous mountain gusts and into the smooth air of the waiting plains, headed home.

* * *

No words were spoken as the chariot flew onwards, the heavily bandaged Royal Guard and the Ambassador standing flank by flank while the scenery below changed from the forested mountains to the lumpy foothills. In a short time, the landscape below finally straightened out into the patchy brown and white of the plains, where untended snow melted unevenly into the dirt around a narrow road winding its way west in the direction of the distant Crystal Empire.

“Optio Pumpernickel. Land.” One spotless rose-tinted hoof pointed at the road below, and even though Pumpernickel turned his head to look at the ambassador as if to protest, he turned back to the flight with both Nocturne landing the chariot on the damp road just as neatly as if Princess Luna was watching. Primrose stepped out of the chariot and up to Pumpernickel, standing almost nose to nose with the stern stallion before speaking.

“Optio Pumpernickel, in Luna’s name I am commanding you to get your ragged ass into the chariot next to that broken-down bum who calls himself my coltfriend just as soon as I’ve inspected your stitches and made sure you haven’t injured yourself with this damned-fool stunt. Do you understand, or do I need to have your wife spell it out for you letter by letter in more stitches across your flank while I turn off the anesthesia spell?”

“Yes’um!” Pumpernickel gave no resistance to having the harness lifted off his back, which had started to show dark spots through the jacket, and after an exhaustive inspection of his wounds, he meekly took his place next to his fellow guard.

“Tough luck, old pal,” said Redoubtable. “Looks like you’re stuck here with me for the rest of the groundbound trip.”

“It could be worse,” rumbled Pumpernickel, trying not to chuckle while watching Primrose struggle with the unfamiliar harness straps. “We get to ride all the way back to the Crystal Empire, and look at some of the finest flanks in Equestria all the while during the trip.”

“And get paid for it, old buddy. Don’t forget that.” Redoubtable cocked his head at their feminine drivers. “Time and a half for deployment, isn’t that right, dear?”

“Shutup, Red,” growled Primrose, trying unsuccessfully to fasten a strap.

“Don’t forget combat pay and the injury bonus, old pal of mine.” Pumpernickel waved a hoof in the air as if he were working the beads of an imaginary abacus. “Triple pay for that, I believe. You know, if we pooled our bonus, we could buy our own chariot so our marefriends could pull us all around Canterlot whenever they wanted, Red.”

“Excellent idea, my bat-winged buddy. Why, I can see it now. All of our guard friends in amazement at our awesome ride, and of course the finest fillies in Equestria in the harness.”

“Red,” growled Primrose, pulling the final strap closed with her teeth.

“Yes, Red,” chastised Pumpernickel lightly. “You should be ashamed of yourself. We should get something nice for the girls too, like one of those frilly saddles from that unmarked store down by the airship docks.”

“Now that you’re an old married geezer, Lumpy, wouldn’t you want to buy something in a nice velvet hackamore and surcingle?”

“You mean the ones with all the straps?” asked Pumpernickel with a broad smile. “Why wait? I’ll bet there’s a store or two in the Crystal Empire with kinky outfits that haven’t been seen in Canterlot in eons.”

“Lumpy!” howled Laminia, grabbing for her harness straps before being stopped by Primrose.

“Let it go, dear. They’re just being stallions. Let’s get going.” The two mares began to trot down the road, their passengers pausing in their comments to get a less painful position as the carriage bounced along the road, seemingly hitting every pothole and rock.

“You know, Lumpy, our deployment pay doesn’t — oof — stop until we return to our point of origin.” Redoubtable cocked an eyebrow at his fellow guard while bracing himself for more potholes. “So once we get to the Crystal Empire, there’s nothing keeping us from having the girls pull us all over the city, looking for the right tack shop while we recover.”

“Could take days,” suggested Pumpernickel.

“Or weeks,” said Redoubtable.

“We could invite Shining Armor to ride along with us.”

“If anypony knows where the kinky shops are in town, he’s our stallion. Plus he’s a Royal Guard Captain, so he’ll be more sympathetic. Might even buy something sparkly for his wife.”

Primrose huffed, her breath forming a small cloud in the brisk morning air. “Are those two idiots going to do that all the way back to the Crystal Empire?”

“Yes,” said Laminia with a smile and a shake of her head. “And back to Canterlot, if we don’t dump them into a soggy snowdrift first.”

“Hey!” objected Pumpernickel. “Wounded stallions back here. And could you flick your tail a little more, dear? It improves the view.”

“I hadn’t noticed, oh ancient creaky elder of mine,” said Redoubtable, looking between Laminia and Primrose. “Dear, do you think you could trouble yourself to wave your tail a bit during the trip too? Lumpy is right, it looks very fetching. On you! Not Lumpy’s wife. Ooo, and you blush well, too.”

The sound of laughter followed the chariot as it rattled down the country road, on the way to the Crystal Empire and home. And if a little of the laughter sounded from up above, as if three players in a game of Fate and Destiny were enjoying the result, well, nopony paid any attention.

The Princess by Fauxsquared on Deviantart (used by permission)

Ch 18 - Full Circle

Diplomacy by Other Means
Full Circle

“When a newly acquired State has been accustomed, as I have said, to live under its own laws and in freedom, there are three methods whereby it may be held. The first is to destroy it; the second, to go and reside there in person; the third, to suffer it to live on under its own laws, subjecting it to a tribute, and entrusting its government to a few of the inhabitants who will keep the rest your friends.”
— N. Marechiavelli, The Princess

Royal Guard Commander Buttercup looked across his office with an expression of confusion mixed with frustration that was the only thing that kept him from breaking out in hysterical laughter. Over the centuries, there had been a least a half-dozen Guard Commanders who had left their post wrapped in a straitjacket, and he was starting to think that was the only way out of the situation he found himself in now.

Standing nervously by one of the chairs was his ‘favorite’ Optio, Pumpernickel, who in this situation was the least weird thing in the room. Little dark dots of nearly healed stitches criss-crossed his entire body along lines shaved into his silky coat, making him look a little like a Nocturne who had been pieced together from corpses and given life in some mad unicorn’s castle. His armor was still absent, since he was theoretically on sick leave until the last of the stitches were removed, and without it he should have seemed smaller in some fashion. Instead he bulked with a commanding presence the young guard had never radiated before, with the other three occupants of the room giving him deferential looks, and darned if Buttercup had not nearly saluted first when the mismatched group had entered the room.

The second weird presence in the room was Pumpernickel’s wife, Hoofmaiden Laminia, who sat in perfect tranquility next to her husband while wrapped in the steel of a Night Guard. There was a distinctive gap allowing for expansion at the bottom of the curvey armor, and Buttercup was starting to think she intended on wearing it every day until she gave birth. Hopefully, she would emerge from her steel shell in the delivery room before the foal emerged, but he was beginning to wonder.

And the third and fourth strange things…

Pumpernickel straightened up at a nod from his superior officer and saluted. “Optio Pumpernickel of the Royal Guard, Night Division, hereby presents two Guard Candidates for inspection by the Commander. Cadet Candidate Radiant Dawn Touching The Mountains With Golden Light, Cadet Candidate Brilliant Lightning Stabbing Through The Clouds To Ignite The Trees, step forward!”

The two big griffons stood up and stepped forward, triggering an instinctive impulse to step back in the Guard Commander that he successfully hid. “We have petitioned the Wingmaster of our aerie for permission to join the Royal Guard of Equestria, and serve the Princesses with honor,” they chorused simultaneously. “Long Live Princess Celestia and Princess Luna.”

Commander Buttercup made as if to respond, paused, walked outside his office door and looked around, and then came back inside. “You two are serious, aren’t you?”

“Yes, sir!” The taller female regarded him levelly, blinking her green eyes once in the lamplight that filled the commander’s office. There was a subdued glimmer of gold from one primary feather that matched the smaller male’s wing, and they wore identical archaic golden helms with the night vision enchanted eyepieces pushed up on their foreheads, but other than that, the griffons were naked. Naked clawed leonine paws, naked talons, naked razor-sharp beaks…

The Guard Commander pulled himself away from that line of thought and shook his head. “I thought it was bad when Optio Pumpernickel came back from his mission and reported in. Did you know there are four, yes, four new legal ponies in the Night Guard dedicated to the paperwork caused by the antics of this—” Buttercup considered the extremely nearby positions of the new Cadet Candidates, as well as their supposed diet and changed his next word “—armored idiot?

“And now if I let you two into the Academy, the Griffon Empire will shit a brick, no, a whole street full of bricks. The War Council will scream, the various aeries will all collectively moult on top of me, and that’s not half of what the pegasus clans will say. I’m going to find a big steaming pile of mixed poo on my doorstep every day until you two retire, at the very least. Are you positive your Wingmaster can’t be convinced otherwise?”

Both griffons looked over at Pumpernickel, who shifted uncomfortably before responding. “The Wingmaster’s heir argued until she was blue in the face, and then Gilda sent them here. I tried to talk them out of it, but you know how bad I am at convincing anypony to do anything.”

The commander shot a vicious look at Pumpernickel, before plunking back down at his desk. “Well, it’s your funeral. You two mated?”

“One year and three months.”

“One year and four months, Stabby.”

“I thought we agreed not to count that first month, Dawn.”

Both griffons stiffened to an immediate halt as Pumpernickel cleared his throat. “Sorry, sir. Allergies.”

“Yeah,” muttered Buttercup. “First mares, now this. Next Academy class starts next week, so try not to kill anypony. Next thing you know, the Royal Guard will be letting in Minotaurs like the Municipal Guard. Welcome to the Academy, Cadets. Dismissed.”

One griffon elbowed the other. “That was a joke, Stabby.”

“But I thought the Wingmaster said they were going to have Minotaurs in this class, Dawn. It would certainly make it more interesting.” The male griffon cocked his head at the commander, only to have Pumpernickel clear his throat again.

“Dismissed means get out,” said Pumpernickel, gesturing at the door.

“Beg pardon, Wingmaster,” said Dawn with a deep bow and a curl of one wing.

To her side, Brilliant Lightning duplicated her motion. “As new Cadets, we have much to learn.”

“Then I suggest we start now,” said Pumpernickel, walking out the door. “We’ll start at the bookstore. Once we pick up the thirty or so books you will need to read before class starts, we can get your reading list for class, your quarters picked out, measurements, armor polish, and an introduction to all the other wonderful toys you’re going to learn to hate over the next two years. Then…”

The Commander watched them leave with a growing sense of relief. Both griffons would be under the command of the Academy Commander until graduation, and since that was two years in the future, the possibility of Buttercup’s retirement was looking better and better. Upon his retirement, the Academy Commander was slated to move up into his position, and a very promising Lieutenant Commander of the Night Guards slated to move up to the Academy, and so on, and so forth. It reminded Buttercup of his own early formative years in the Night Guard, which had not been nearly as exciting as Pumpernickel’s, but perhaps with a bit of polish, the young Nocturne could continue to grow, and maybe someday he could be Commander Pumpernickel of the Night Guard.

Commander Buttercup shook his head and laughed at the thought.

Ch 3 - Royal Control

Diplomacy by Other Means
Royal Control

“The first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the ponies she has around her.”
— N. Marechiavelli, The Princess

It irked Princess Luna that her sister was still able to manipulate ponies so easily, a talent that had only grown over the centuries of imprisonment that had separated them. There was no doubt in her mind that Celestia trusted her, and trusted the Nocturne who had guarded her so well over those long years, but her recent words still brought ripples of fear down her flowing mane in little sparkles of disturbed stars and nebulae. No matter how much others trusted their Princess of the Night, there was still a shadow in her own heart. At least with this action she could vanquish the darkness in others’ hearts that she could not eliminate in her own.

Her eyes searched the sea of shocked faces surrounding the sparring ring, surprised at finding the remaining two ponies she needed to speak with this evening. With a growing fear twinging at her belly, she nodded to them and announced, “Diplomat Primrose. Lieutenant Redoubtable. We need to speak with thee also. Approach.”

It only took a few moments for them all to gather around: Optio Pumpernickel in his most uncomfortable resting stance, still dripping with stale sweat. Hoofmaiden Laminia, who had taken her place at his side with her draconic wings furled behind her and head bowed, awaiting whatever Luna would command. The pegasus Lieutenant Redoubtable and Celestia’s unicorn diplomat Primrose, who stood closely together as if it were still a secret that they had been spending a great deal of time together beneath her night sky while paying no attention to her beautiful stars. It still gave Luna a disconcerting twinge to see dissimilar ponies as couples, when during the time of her corruption to Nightmare Moon, it was almost unknown.

And then there was a fifth pony, who was beginning to annoy her.

“Commander Buttercup. You have my leave to speak.” Luna’s voice was cold and stern, and the elderly Nocturne lowered his golden eyes to give a polite bow, the lowest a serving Royal Guard was permitted to give. They had clashed several times since her return, both when she had insisted on the introduction of mares into the Night Guard, and earlier when Pumpernickel had infringed on his authority on her behalf, even though Pumpernickel’s actions had come uncomfortably close to treason. The Guard Commander was fiercely loyal but highly opinionated, with ideas about what his Princess would wish that frequently clashed against her will. Still, he fairly bubbled with concern, and she had learned through several hard lessons that the Equestria she lived in now was much more acceptive of criticizing their rulers than long ago. And it even seemed to work better, although she still had her doubts.

“Your Highness, I must protest. Your condition is still delicate, and I do not believe it would be advisable for—”

“I did spar with my guard on these very grounds long before your race existed, Commander Buttercup. At one time in my depravity, I accepted none to my service who could not stand against me for a full minute. Many a mortal shell was broken upon these sands in those dark times, and you may be fully assured that we do not plan on returning to those blood-soaked traditions. I wear the pads that my own hoofmaiden did craft for me, and give you my word that I shall restrain my blows to those of mortals. Now be off with—” Luna scowled only slightly around the corners of her lips, her restraint keeping her normal tranquil mask in place, but somewhat strained. “I mean, will that be acceptable to you, Commander?”

The elderly Nocturne pursed his lips and stroked his mustache in thought. “If I must, Your Highness.”

“Nay, guardstallion.” Luna scowled at the commander, meeting his eyes firmly and without an outward twinge of the uncertainty she felt. “I shall not pursue this course without thy approval. Thou wert placed in this position not simply as a puppet, but as a wise pony who knows the limits and capacity of my guard. Optio Pumpernickel may be an ‘obstinate bastard’ in your opinion, but I believe it is within his capacity to release the strength I can sense within him without harm. Now. For the last time. Do you agree?”

From Commander Buttercup’s expression, it appeared as if he had just inhaled a bug during a high-speed flight. A word traveled around inside his face, moving from cheek to cheek as he considered the concept of his liege getting into the sparring ring to do physical violence, or perhaps have it done to her. It took several uncomfortable glances at Luna and his two guards before he finally spoke.

“Yes.”

“Good. Now be off with you. I shall have words with thy subordinates. Private words.”

* * *

Once the commander had retreated to a safe distance, a hazy indigo bubble of a privacy spell formed around the five ponies remaining. The noise from outside cut off abruptly, and only dim shadows could be seen of the ponies watching. In short, succinct words, Luna described the situation with the griffon aerie, paying specific attention to how Primrose reacted to the news. To Luna’s relief, the unicorn diplomat merely nodded along as if it were a situation she had been keeping informed about, with an intense look about her muzzle that Celestia got whenever she was keeping track of a great number of difficult options to a complicated problem. Once Luna had finished her briefing, Primrose gave a sharp nod to the princess and paused with a questioning look.

“Speak, Lady Primrose. My sister doth place great weight upon your skills in this mission.”

“Thank you, Your Highness.” Primrose shifted uncomfortably with a glance around at the very undiplomatic area before shrugging her shoulders back. “Are you familiar with the history of the mission your sister sent to this same aerie in very similar conditions some two centuries ago?”

“Yes,” said Luna in a flat voice that gave little indication of the fear that scurried around in her mind, scratching to be let out.

“And you still want me to go? I mean, the ambassadorial mission was nearly wiped out by the Griffons back then.”

“Nearly?” said Luna and Pumpernickel in perfect harmony, each looking at the other after their outburst. The Princess of the Night composed herself first, with her face as still as stone. “Ahem. I was of the belief that the entire mission had been slain by the griffons.”

“No, my great, great to the somethingth grandmother Morning Glory was an assistant on that mission. She lived to negotiate the Treaty of Rosebuds with the Misty Mountain aerie. I found her records back when I was researching my genealogy, and she’s the one who inspired me to become a diplomat.” The unicorn looked thoughtfully at Pumpernickel, who had turned his head to look away from anypony. “Come to think of it, her diary mentioned a Night Guard named Pumpernickel who saved her life. Relative of yours?”

“Yes,” said Luna in a flat tone before Pumpernickel had a chance to reply. “But that is neither here nor there. If we are to entrust the life of our diplomat to our guard, we must be certain of their minds. Redoubtable and Pumpernickel, thou art two of my most swift and resourceful guards, but before you are to take up this task, we must confront certain concerns thy Guard Commander doth have that parallel mine own.”

“Me?” said Pumpernickel, turning to face Luna with downcast eyes. “You should select somepony else then. Dandelion, maybe. He’s almost as fast as I am, and a lot smarter.”

For a moment, Luna considered his suggestion. It would be so easy to simply pass him over and send another in his place, somepony who would not bear the burden of his namesake having been killed on a previous mission. It would place her guard at a lesser station, where he could be observed until he could once again be trusted. If he ever was. It would be the easy choice, the decision that would not threaten to leave her hoofmaiden a widow, or make Luna relive that terrible night of blood and murder in her mind. It would be a first step in a direction she was unwilling to take. Again.

“No,” said Luna, her voice firming just short of a royal command. “This mission demands the best, and we shall not tolerate weakness in our guard. Thou shalt test thy mettle against your Princess of the Night in honored combat and prove thyself worthy of the task, or thou shalt be dismissed from the Royal Guard.”

The Nocturne stallion’s head yanked up as abruptly as if it had been kicked, and huge unbelieving golden eyes stared into her own.

“I would rather die than leave my Princess,” he breathed.

Far better to live, my child. Live and grow without this infernal weight of duty we place upon your fragile shoulders. Take your wife and flee my side to a place where you might find happiness instead of constant sorrow and pain.

Princess Luna turned away as the privacy bubble surrounding them vanished. “You have five minutes to prepare.”

* * *

Luna stood on the sparring mark, preparing her mind for the fight even as her hoofmaiden fussed over her pads, adjusting them properly over tense shoulders and trembling neck. Speaking in a voice so quiet that even the princess could barely hear, Laminia talked half to herself, and half to Luna as she worked to tighten straps that were already perfectly tight.

“...can’t believe you two idiots are going to go beat each other up over this stupid thing. I swear stallions have only two brain cells but that does not excuse your behavior princess...”

Beyond the muttering mare, her husband was being attended by nearly the entire medical facility of the sparring rings, as carefully as if they were embalming the body before a funeral. Pumpernickel seemed oddly calm, with his eyes closed, and his breathing regular while they applied new tape to his pads and washed off old sweat. Normally the observation stands would have more than one Night Guard exchanging casual wagers with each other over the outcome of the fight, but this evening even the compulsive betters were leaning against the fence in silence, their eyes flickering between the battered stallion they had all met at least once in the ring and their Princess of the Night.

Luna had not been exaggerating when she had spoken about those terrible times when she had faced ponies in the ring who had died by her hooves, and being in this place only made the ghosts seem real, on the other side of a thin sheet of reality where they could watch her every action. When Pumpernickel stepped away from the medics and strode to his starting spot, there was a firmness in his shoulders Luna had never seen before, as well as a set to his jaw that matched his sparkling eyes. Even Laminia stumbled a bit on the way to her seat behind the observation screen when she looked at her husband.

With a measured breath, Luna relaxed as much as she could to open her perceptions to the arena. Like glowing stars, the tiny flecks of her own soul that she had woven into her beloved Nocturne surrounded her on all sides. Their heat was nearly palpable, a gentle touch of familiarity that brought peace to her chaotic mind and focus for the coming fight. Her guard seemed to glow with the same internal fire within his own bubble of tranquility, relaxed and waiting. Watching her as she watched him. There was no outward sign of the awkward tension that he had constantly displayed ever since the first day he had come to her attention, and that worried her somewhat.

The announcer spoke, calling out the limitations of the upcoming fight and other meaningless babble. There was only one thing that mattered in a battle, and that was winning. To see your opponent dragged out by his heels while you savored the fruits of your — No!

This was a bad idea. She should stop it. Somepony was going to get hurt. Even remaining stationary as Pumpernickel normally did during his bouts would do the guardstallion little good if she were to strike him with her full strength. Even weakened by centuries in the moon, she was still too strong. Even now. Even after months of recovery, learning again how to simply be again, she was going to lose control. She was going to hurt him.

“Three minutes. Fight!”

As if that were touching the trigger of a highly stressed spring, Pumpernickel flung himself forward nearly too rapidly to be seen. It was only sheer reflex that allowed Princess Luna to bring up one padded foreleg to block his blow with a force that seemed to travel all the way to her flank, and even then her guardstallion had the audacity to flick her in the face with his tail as he flew by.

Spinning around in a spray of scattered sand caught a glimpse of Pumpernickel in a sharp wingover, obviously intending another shot at his ground-bound opponent. With a violent shove of her wings, Luna launched herself into the air, having to almost immediately bank into a tight turn to prevent wandering outside the confining boundaries of the sparring ring. Her guard spun into a counter-cyclical circling himself, and the two combatants eyed each other for a moment.

Luna felt her heart thud against her ribs, the strong beat of her wings sweeping through the air as she matched Pumpernickel’s circular course exactly. A red flush tinged her cheeks in exhilaration as her left foreleg throbbed and tingled in a sensation she had long forgotten.

Joy.

Laughter burst from her lips as she tumbled to her left, meeting the guardstallion in the center of the ring in a burst of strikes and counter-strikes, each blow met with a counter or dodge as they tumbled through the air, spreading their wings only an instant before striking the sandy ground. This time she took to the air with a mighty swoop, skimming only inches away from the screen that separated the observers and the combatants as she climbed to the very top of the ring and pounced. Pumpernickel met her descending assault with a twisting kick she had never seen before, catching her a glancing blow just over the right shoulder. Even the subdued pain of impact only caused Luna to hesitate in her own blow by a tiny fraction, but it was enough for the stallion to catch her hoof on his helmet instead of his chin, and he flipped twice before stabilizing himself on his wings.

I had forgotten this. All the time I spent in the moon, I had concentrated so much on my flaws and crimes that I never remembered the joy of matching my hooves against another just for the thrill of the competition. This is better than cake, better than love, even better than mating!

Well, almost.

There was a tendency for her own tail to raise as she felt the repetitive impacts of hoof against padding echo through her body, an urge that she carefully fought down. After all, this was no longer the age where a Princess could take one of her married stallions in public without rather dire consequences, including a very frosty reaction from Laminia and an acerbic lecture from Celestia. Not to mention the reaction of the Royals, who would beleaguer her with disapproving letters and words for years.

Pumpernickel fought with a controlled ferocity that defied her every expectation, his every blow was pure and accurate, his parries brisk, and when he tumbled away from her own blows, not a single trace of anger or hatred marred his features. Only the grim serious look of concentration that brought him back repeatedly against her defenses in a flurry of hooves and teeth that would have pressed her to fully defend against even in her best of days. The rhythm of their blows grew as a song, the ringing of hoof against padded steel growing as they matched themselves against each other in a rising crescendo. It was music. It was art. It was very difficult to keep her tail down.

The rest of the ponies watching faded into the background as they fought, only the stallion and the mare existing in a violent dance of sweaty bodies that dated back to the creation of their kind. Time did not exist, her terrible history did not matter, the ghosts of the Nocturne’s ancestors faded away as ghosts do in the light. There was only—

Pain!

Ch 9 - A Time For Family

Diplomacy by Other Means
A Time for Family

“For Time, driving all things before it, may bring with it evil as well as good.”
— N. Marechiavelli, The Princess

“Wait! Don’t go.” Laminia paused at the doorway within reach of the griffon ambassador, who had turned to withdraw after giving his news.

“I’m sorry, young miss. I was given strict instructions by Duke Plummets to take his message to your ambassador, and not to engage in conversation.” A row of feathers sticking up on the back of his neck was the only visible sign of the stress Ambassador Sharp Edge showed, but abject worry about losing his only child could be heard plainly in his voice.

“Then don’t talk, just listen. You know how worried your daughter is about losing her friend, and don’t give me that crap about ponies not being friends like that overstuffed chicken Plummets who visited us last night.”

The ambassador thrashed his tail back and forth before giving a short nod.

“She’s pregnant, did you know that?” At Sharp Edge’s brief shake of his head, Laminia continued, ”You don’t know where Stargazer is either, do you? She’s not at the village, and I’m pretty sure about that being as I talked to half of the ponies there. And she certainly didn’t sprout wings and fly away. That leaves her somewhere out on the mountain among the trees. Alone. Pregnant. Beaten.”

The ambassador did not shift from his departing stance, but tried to look away from Laminia as if he were hoping for a noise from the silent corridor which would give him an excuse to leave. “Duke Plummets says she’s probably hiding in the fortress somewhere, and her grandfather agrees. There are dozens of old rooms boarded up for centuries that they like to play in.” The griffon ambassador fidgeted, clamping his beak shut with a loud snap.

Laminia would not quit looking him in the eyes, holding the griffon entranced despite his best efforts to look away. “You don’t believe him.”

His words emerged as if there were great pressure behind them. “He wears the silver bracelet of the heir apparent. It was the will of the Wingmaster that he be promoted to the position when my sister-in-law Gilda was… demoted.”

“Actually I was busted.” A second griffon emerged from the hallway on silent paws, nodding once to the bowing griffon ambassador before turning back to give a rather grim-looking guard behind her a nod, making him fade back down the corridor to prevent any other unexpected visitors or eavesdroppers.

There was a faint ring of thinning feathers around Gilda’s forearm that showed the location of the bracelet she used to wear, and a look of concern that mirrored that of her ambassador. She patted her brother-in-law on the back once before punching him in the shoulder. Hard.

“Hey Sharpy, next time that blowhard Plummets tells you to do something, don’t argue. It makes him suspicious.”

“Yes, Your Highness.” Ambassador Sharp Edge got up off the floor and rubbed his shoulder while Gilda pushed forward with a wink into the ambassadorial balcony.

“Now, Ambassador Primrose. No doubt a couple of my dad’s goons are watching us from some cloud out there, so I need you to shout a little and get angry with me, ‘K?”

“What is the meaning of this?” blustered Primrose, moving directly forward in front of the griffon with Redoubtable and Laminia directly to her sides. “What are you trying to do?”

“I’m trying to save your ungrateful life,” growled the griffon princess with a sudden fluffing up of her white neck ruff. “After they get done searching the castle and don’t find my little niece anywhere, Dad’s gonna get ideas about where she is. You want him storming down here with his goons or not?”

“B-but this is an embassy,” stuttered Primrose.

“A pony embassy,” snapped Gilda. “Dad’s never been all to happy with ponies. Just about shit a brick when I told him about Dash, ripped my bracelet right off and gave it to Plummets. If he gets in one of his moods like he’s been in lately, he’ll tear somepony’s head off looking for Sunny.”

“He can try,” snarled Pumpernickel, his ears flattening against his head with the sensation of a fiery snake uncoiling in his chest.

“Pops would go through you like a—” The griffon made what was intended to be an intimidating glance at the arrogant guard, but remained staring into Pumpernickel's eyes until Laminia gave her husband a swift kick in the ankle.

“Sorry,” muttered Pumpernickel, looking down at the floor and trying to calm himself down. The effort was wasted as the dirty circle of stones in the middle of the balcony caught his eye, and the screams of the dying seemed to echo through the centuries and into his flattened ears.

“Anyway,” continued Gilda after a brief pause and a second nervous look at Pumpernickel, finally turning to face Ambassador Primrose again. “You need to let me in to search the apartment, rummage around for a while, and send a screaming letter of protest to Dad back with Sharpy. That way he doesn’t need to find out just how many of my relatives are needed to take your armored idiots down.”

Pumpernickel was not even aware of opening his mouth before Laminia stuck one armored hoof into it to suppress his response. Once Gilda and Ambassador Primrose had gone into the apartment and the sound of vigorous searching trickled out from the open door, his wife finally removed her hoof and grabbed him firmly by both ears.

“Listen to me. I said, listen to me, you big lunk! That’s better.” Laminia’s eyes sparkled in the afternoon sunshine, faint little flecks of blue and green dancing in their depths through her watery squint in the bright light. The tinted lenses of her helmet were up on her forehead, like her husband, and she leaned forward to touch noses while continuing to talk. “They’re just worried. You would be too, if Sunny were your little filly, and we were in Canterlot. I doubt you’d be as diplomatic as Princess Gilda.”

A stray glint of sunlight from her helmet made Pumpernickel blink, and he swallowed dryly. “No. I’d be too busy keeping you from killing somepony. Somegriffon.”

“Damned straight.” She leaned forward and pressed her forehead against her husband with a mutual click of armor that only seemed to increase the tension. “I’m afraid. I’m afraid of the griffons, I’m afraid of what may have happened to that little filly griffon, but most of all, I’m afraid of what’s happening to you.”

“I shouldn’t have dragged you into this,” muttered Pumpernickel.

“Oh, Lumpy. I didn’t have any choice in the matter ever since that first time I kissed you.” She kissed him gently on the lips as if to remind him, a warm touch upon his cold face.

“As I recall, you kicked me in the head right after that.”

“Only because you were being a complete ass.” She kissed him again, for a long, long time.

--~-~-~--*--~-~-~--

As the moon softly rose into the sky, the two Nocturne stirred awake, unable to resist the siren call that had been embedded into their beings when Nightmare Moon had created their race a thousand years ago. The magic of married mornings swirled around the bed as awakening ponies touched, their limbs intertwined under the sheets in a passionate embrace that could only have one end result in their present circumstances.

“Yeouch!” Pumpernickel tumbled out of the bed, taking the sheets with him as he landed in a tangled lump on the floor and fought for escape.

“I’msorry! Sorry! I didn’t mean it you know I didn’t mean it I’m sorry Lumpy! It’s the hormones.”

One last corner of sheet later, he looked up into the sorrowful golden eyes of his spouse, and Pumpernickel laughed, a bright red blotch of toothmarks forming on his neck. “I’m never going to get used to sleeping with a pregnant wife.”

“Sorry. It’s instinct.” Laminia spat out a hair and gave a look at the door before sighing. “I’d drag you back into bed and apologize, if it wasn’t such bad timing.”

“Yeah.” He tossed the sheets back on the bed and when his wife fought her own way out from under them, she found a warm kiss waiting for her. “I promise. Later.”

The sounds of claws hammering on the outside door echoed through the ambassadorial quarters, ensuring that later was going to be further delayed.

* * *

“The King of the Misty Mountain Aerie would like to inform you that his granddaughter, Princess Sun Shines, has been found, and that the negotiations over the return of the ancestral home of the griffons, the Crystal Gryphon Empire, as well as reparations due our aerie for its damage at the hooves of the Sun Queen, Celestia, will resume at dawn tomorrow.”

Ambassador Primrose nodded at the griffon messenger, who was flanked by Gilda and a second large griffon. The soft light of a pair of lanterns highlighted the griffons in sparkling glints of silver and gold in the ice crystals frozen in their feathers, and there was an honest glint of relief in Gilda’s golden eyes.

“Please inform Wingmaster Talon of our great relief at the return of his granddaughter, and that we are looking forward to seeing him at the negotiating table tomorrow morning.” The messenger gave a little nod, reminding Pumpernickel somehow of a chicken pecking at a piece of grain, before scuttling out of the door with the larger griffon at his heels. Gilda paused after them and closed the door silently before turning to the ambassador.

“Good thing you dweebs didn’t try anything stupid. Pops has like a half-primary of tercels perched on clouds and ledges to watch your window. Not enough to go looking for my niece, but enough to play gargoyle. Sorry about that,” she added with a grumble.

“How is Sunny?” asked Primrose, giving a quelling glance at Pumpernickel, who was just moments from asking the same question.

“That’s what has me worried. She’s been all fidgety about her little pony friend since we got back from Canterlot, but ever since Aunt Puffy Billows found her out in the forest, all she does is mope. Her father can’t get a word out of her, and my dad won’t let her out of wing’s length.”

“Where was she found?” asked Laminia in a perfectly flat voice that made Pumpernickel blink and look at his suddenly serious wife.

“How in the heck should I know?” Gilda glanced between Pumpernickel and Laminia and opened a foreclaw in frustration. “She was all covered in stickers and weeds and crap. Puffy said she was headed for the downstairs door when she found her. Dad wouldn’t let me go out and look for her today, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t strongarm the relatives into looking.”

Redoubtable walked over to the balcony ledge and looked out into the moonlit night. “Awful lot of snow out there for her to be covered in weeds.”

“Winter Wrap-Up is running way slow this year. We mostly just let it melt off and slosh down the mountain.” Gilda looked out into the moonlight and scowled. “Look, I gotta get back to Dad or he’s going to pop a blood vessel. My cousin Boulders is going to stay out in front of your door tonight and make sure you’re not disturbed. You better stay inside. It’s dangerous for you out there.”

“What kind of weeds? Were any of them yellow?” There was no emotion at all in Laminia’s voice, and Gilda stopped cold in the middle of her departure, a look of nervous tension on her face as she looked back at the Nocturne mare.

“Some yellow foofy things, yeah. And a couple thorny white ones too, I remember Puffy complaining about them.” Gilda gave one last look at the immobile mare before nodding at the ambassador and leaving, the door slamming a bit louder than expected.

Just as soon as Gilda had departed, Laminia turned on her heel and vanished inside the apartment, the sound of armor being rapidly discarded the only clue to her actions. After a few minutes of both Primrose and Redoubtable looking at him pointedly, Pumpernickel squared his shoulders and poked his nose in the door.

“Dear?”

“Busy.”

Pumpernickel looked back at the ambassador. “She said she’s — Okay, I’ll ask again.” Bracing himself, he held up a hoof to stop her as she left the apartment, moving so that his bulk would shield his wife from the view of their cloud-bound watchers outside. “What are you doing, dear?”

“The weeds? Horsenettle and sundrops. I remember seeing a little patch of them when we were flying up here. It seemed like such a pretty little place tucked away under a southern ledge of the mountain, and I was hoping we could visit when we left.” Laminia stuffed a map that looked suspiciously like the area around the fortress into her saddlebag before arranging the ratty brown cloak on top of it. “I’m going to look.”

“What if I say ‘No’ to your plan?” asked Primrose softly, her coat shining in the lamplight and tail blowing in a soft breeze, looking eerily like Celestia standing on the balcony for one heart-stopping moment.

“Your Excellency, that little griffon has neither mother or sister, just one battered and pregnant pony friend out there in the forest somewhere. I don’t care if you speak with Luna’s voice, if you’re going to order me to stay here, you can just go to—”

“Stop.” Primrose nodded. “Be careful.”

“If I was going to be careful, I wouldn’t be crawling out into the woods full of griffons, now would I?” grumbled Laminia before yanking open the outside door and glaring at the griffon guard it revealed. “Well?”

“You’ll vant a light,” rumbled Boulders, the big Germane griffon, handing over a small firefly lantern. “Und keep der hood up on der cloak. She’s my second cousin, vunce removed, und I vorry about her little friend too.”

--~-~-~--*--~-~-~--

There was no flaw in the guard position that Pumpernickel held in perfect silence in front of the ambassadorial quarters, no movement other than the regular intake and outflow of breath, and the occasional blink. Every motion, every noise, every flicker of light was evaluated and comprehended in the perfect harmony that flowed through the room. No bat flying past a silent star was unnoticed, no uncomfortable rustle of the griffon guard outside their corridor door went unheard. It was the only way Pumpernickel could separate his duty from his heart, as every fibre of his being not involved in the defense of the embassy yearned to be out in the darkness with his wife in search for the lost pony. Distant clouds with observant griffons had their watchers replaced as bored tired griffons returned to their nests, exchanged for simply bored griffons, watching a scene that could have been a painting hanging on the wall for all the motion it included.

The griffon who arrived in the corridor outside and talked with Boulders thought his words were quiet enough to be inaudible through the door, but Pumpernickel could hear every word as clearly as if they had been standing right in front of him.

“The meeting in the Council Chamber is getting out of claw. Wingmaster Talon wants you there to keep order.”

“But I vas ordered to guard dis door.”

“Well, now you’re going to be guarding something worthwhile, instead of a bunch of lousy ponies. So get going.”

“As you command, Prince Plummets.”

There was a sharp sound as if a griffon had slapped another one across the face. “That’s Duke Plummets, as long as the old bird lives. Now move it.”

The sound of departing talons scratching on stone echoed hollowly through the empty corridors, but it took several minutes before the even fainter sound of a key entering the lock could be heard.

“Halt! Who goes there?” The words emerged from Pumpernickel automatically, pitched low enough not to disturb Primrose and Redoubtable, who were catching a few hours rest before resuming tomorrow’s exhausting negotiations, but the only response he got was the faint scratching of talons as the second griffon departed.

Time passed slowly, a glacial turn of stars in the moonlit darkness until he heard another noise in the corridor, this one familiar in such a way that it was all he could do not to run to the door and fling it open. Instead, he settled for moving close to the door and arranging his body to block the view any outside watcher would have of his returning wife, much the same way he had done for her departure.

When Laminia opened the door and slipped inside, a wave of shock and fear flowed through his body like lightning. She was white and cold under her soft grey coat, and her beautiful face twisted in a look of pure agony. The door had barely gotten closed before she looked up at him and whispered in a voice rough from hours of crying.

“Kill them, my husband. Kill them all.”