Twilight Falls On Equestria

KRRKAW!KRRRRAWK! KAW!

“Worst alar-“
KRRRRRAAAAAAWK! KRAWK!

“WORST ALARM IN EXISTENCE…but effective…” I muttered to no one in particular. Shy could have found any animal in Everfree forest to wake me up. A lark, a mockingbird, anything would have been fine! Instead she gives me a cockatrice. The thing sounds like a choking buzzard. She said it was the only reliable animal to wake me up an hour before dawn. I guess beggars can’t be choosers.

I groggily stepped out of my bed. Waking up this early isn’t fun but it sure beats having to deal with all the other ponies on my way for my morning dip in the communal baths. As I began my descent to the ground floor of my apartment I noticed that Alectrona hadn’t moved from her perch.

“Come along then, beast. We haven’t got all day”, I called up to her.

She snapped to attention and gave me a quizzical look, still remaining firmly seated next to the windowsill.

“Fine then, stay home”, I remarked as I left the building.

What a strange creature, that cockatrice. Every day at 5:00 am it’s up and roaring, yet its morning routines are entirely unpredictable. Today, I guess it decided to stay in. Maybe there will be rain soon.

The streets were empty at this hour. It makes sense; there was yet no light in the sky. In Lunarian Territory there is only night. There is the “daytime” of night which occurs when the moon rises and falls, and then there is true night. This is the time during which there is no light at all being produced naturally in the sky. We navigate the town and our homes with torches and candles in order to keep from having accidents.

As I neared the bathing pool I noticed the moon begin to rise. It slowly inched up along the horizon, painting the land in a soft blue tinged light. In this light my dark blue fur completely camouflaged me. I blended in perfectly with the grass around me. The same applies to my mane. Blue is a rather common theme with me nowadays. I used to have a purplish coat with a red and white mix for my mane and tail, but such luxuries must be forfeited during wartime. In the soft blue light of day at night, you'd hardly want to look like a giant red target, now would you? So I dyed my fur. It's not exactly something I'm proud of, but what's a pony going to do, right? I guess that may contribute to why I go to these early morning baths. We wouldn't want a member of the interior council to look anything less than his best. An early bath, then a quick change into uniform and nopony is given any time to question my curiously consistent colouration. A pony in my position must maintain his appearances and having gossip spread about me, no matter how harmless, could be compromising. Ergo, early mornings suit me fine. Call me anti-social but I have things to do and I would prefer not to be hindered by such frivolities!

I approached the pool and unfurled my wings as I prepared to jump in. The first jolt is always the worst.

*SPLASH*

“Just as freezing as expected” I muttered under my breath as I rubbed my hooves together to warm myself. I would say the same thing to myself each morning. It helped to keep the idea fresh in my mind for my next meeting with Trixie. Hopefully if I can bug her frequently enough she will get one of her unicorns to magic up some heated water for this thing. Until then I guess I’ll just have to tough out these cold dips. At least they wake me up.

The moon was now completely visible. Full as always. Ever since Luna separated night from day the light of the moon seemed to be constant. No waxing or waning. Just one ever present disc. She said it was possible because she matched the path of the moon with the path of the sun that Celestia had set out. Her moon would always perfectly reflect the light of her sun.

“Even at war they seem to be working together” I chuckled to myself as I cleaned the dirt out of the feathers of my wings. Ponies were beginning to file out of their homes now. I took that as my cue to vacate the pool and make my way home as quickly as possible before being waylaid by some idle ponies looking for a conversation with one of the Shadowbolts. I stepped out of the pool, shook myself dry and began to part my mane with my wings. I’ll never understand how earth ponies groom themselves. Unicorns have their magic, and pegasi have our wings, but earth ponies have nothing! I guess that’s just one of the secrets of the universe that will forever remain unsolved.

As I pondered this mystery I noticed a page cantering in my general direction.

“Great”, I thought as I finished cleaning up.

“I guess I can’t avoid all conversations. At least this one is with a soldier. Perhaps he will be giving me useful information”.

“Good morning, sir”, he said as he approached. The boy kneeled before me, much to my disappointment. Another greenhorn. Getting a message out of him will be like pulling out teeth.

“I am sorry to interrupt your bathing, sir, but I have an urgent message from Luna. See, I was going to tell you this message at your home, but by the time I arrived you had already left. I wasn’t sure if you were going to come back so I asked your landlady where you went and she told me that you went for your morning bath at the pool. So I came running and that’s why I’m here so—“

“If this message is so urgent just spit it out. I could have gone to Luna and asked her for the contents myself in the time you’ve just spent blabbering.”

“Right, sorry, sir. So, sorry. It won’t happen again! I’ll be sure of it, I know better now!”

“I’m still waiting.” I seethed as I began to walk away from him.

“Ah okay! Right! Princess Luna would like you to make your way to the castle as soon as possible. There is an urgent meeting of the interior council that is to take place as soon as all of the members are assembled.”

“Is that all?”

“Yes, sir”

“Good boy, you may go back to your regular duties now.”

“Thank you, sir”

Greenhorns are all the same. Yes, sir. No, sir. May I have some more, sir? It would be cute if I didn’t have to command them in skirmishes. The minute danger is real they just piss themselves and cry for mum. I guess that’s why I’M the one commanding them and not Shy. Goodness knows, she’d probably kiss their boo-boos and give them all purple hearts for trying. Oh well. I got my message. I guess I may as well head off to the castle. It’s only a ten minute canter from here, if I gallop I could make it in half the time and perhaps avoid any further awkward situations.

* * *

As I approached the gates of the azure palace I made sure not to make eye contact with any of the ponies of the court that were mulling about. The palace looked just as impressive as ever. It was fashioned by Fluttershy by hollowing out the base of the largest tree in Everfree Forest. The hollow base made for the grand hall and the numerous council rooms and congress. She also fashioned a stairwell of fungus along some of the outer branches. These led to the royal chambers and the chambers of several of Luna's protege. Those ponies who were under the tutelage of Luna to lead if she fell in battle or through illness received bed and board in exchange for their service.

As I walked through the grand hall I became uncomfortably aware of the fact that I was most likely already late for this meeting, though I could hardly be blamed. It’s not as if I knew that the messenger would be coming for me so early in the morning. Hopefully they didn’t start without me. A matter urgent enough to warrant a pre-moonrise meeting would definitely be something that had to be dealt with quickly.

As I entered the council room I saw the rest of the council assembled and discussing certain matters amongst themselves. The room was rectangular. It fit the entire council comfortably whilst not being too large. The ceiling was incredibly high as Luna wished for a skylight and being that the council is directly in the center of the tree that meant hollowing it out straight through to the top. The integrity of the tree was kept by artificial pillars made by trixie. These things were built to last a millenia. However, the pillars were not my focus today, the round council table and its current occupants were. I could not discern anything specific from their discussions for upon my entry they stopped discussing and turned their gazes to me.

Trixie spoke first. “I see the mighty Sylvan Cloverhoof has finally decided to show up”.

“I was taking my morning bath. Please pardon my lateness, Luna, I hope that the meeting did not begin in my absence.”

“It did not. We will now take our attendance seeing as all members of the council have arrived”

“Minister of Supplies, present” said Applejack

“Minister of Common Welfare, present” chimed Shy

“Minister of Technology, present” Trixie sighed

“Minister of Defence, present” I said at last.

“Do we really have to do this before every meeting?” whined Trixie.

“There are only five of us here! I think we would know if anyone was missing.”

Luna paused for a moment. Perhaps she too did not think this ceremony was necessary. Or maybe she did not give it too much thought. “We do this because it is royal tradition. Every council no matter how small has always done attendance, ours shall be no different”, she said.

“Now, on to more pressing matters. It has been three years. I think it is safe to say very few, if any, new ponies will be joining us in the future. With that in mind we have a very large problem. Celestia secured Cloudsdale’s support at the beginning of the war. Our only pegasi are defectors or criminals. Not only are these low quality soldiers, but they are far too few to make a decent air force.”

“Excuse me, but I am one of those criminals you just passed off as ‘low quality’”, I asserted.

“You know what I mean, Sylvan. For every one of you there are a dozen cutpurses and cowards. We just don’t have the numbers or power to fight Celestia’s air superiority.”

“But we have the ground secured!” piped in Fluttershy.

“All the nice forest creatures were more than happy to fight for us when they learned that Celestia wanted to kill me. None of her troops can advance very far into our territory without being ambushed.”

“That’s all well and good but it just leaves us in a state of stagnancy.”

“Is that so bad? So few ponies get hurt when there are no large offensives”

“You want this war to end, don’t you?”

“Well… yes.”

“Then we need large offensives.”

“I’m sorry…”

This meeting seems to be going about as well as most of them. Why would Luna call us out here so early if it was just to discuss the same thing we always discuss at these meetings. Air control is what will make or break our position in this war. We’ve tried everything from magic, to flying machines, to recruitment flights by the shadowbolts. None of these worked. One almost killed one of my flyboys.

“Luna, we know the problem. Do you have a new solution?” Applejack asked.

Straight and to the point. I always liked that about AJ. She had things to do, much like me, and would rather be doing them than wasting time.

“Right. Well, there is one last aspect of aerial control that we have yet to try to obtain.” Luna began.

“You can come out of hiding now Fleetwing.” She called out. Out of the shadows of one of the pillars a gryphon came walking.

He looked rather scrawny. He had beady eyes and the typical brown and white coat of a gryphon. His beak was slightly crooked and he appeared to be in a state of permanent agitation. This was our secret weapon? A gryphon with an anxiety disorder?!

“With all due respect, Luna” I began as he took his place, “What can this one gryphon do to turn the tide of the war for the skies?”

“Let me answer that question”, Fleetwing responded. His voice was nasally, most likely due to a sinus problem caused by that crooked beak of his. Fantastic, could he be any more pathetic?

“I am the ambassador of Eaglerock Plateau. The gryphons there have been neutral to this war for the past three years. Recently, a new Roost Leader came into power. He took a great deal of interest in your conflict. After all, Equestria and Eaglerock are ancient Allies. Watching your land fall into chaos is most certainly not in the best interest of our people. I and two other gryphons were sent to each of your warring factions in order to discern exactly which side is most deserving of the Gryphons' support in this conflict.”

The table went silent. This was the chance we had been waiting for. A real viable solution to our greatest challenge in this war. Applejack could always keep us supplied with food, Trixie and Fluttershy could always keep us hidden and comfortable, and I could always defend us when things got dicey, but none of us could ever envision the ability to perform counterattacks on Solurnian soil! How should we proceed? That was the question on everypony’s mind.

“I have arranged for the most appropriate of my ministers to give you a tour of our land and a description of our cause. Hopefully he will be able to convince you to support it” Luna said.

“Mhmm, yes. Hopefully. So who is the minister assigned to me?”

“Sylvan.”

The four of us stared at Luna in absolute shock.

“Me? You’re kidding right? Are you out of your mind?! Why not Shy! She’s the… the people pony! She would be much better at chatting with the ambassador!”

“I would appreciate it if you spoke in a more respectful tone, young one. You are my subordinate and you will follow my commands. Besides, I have another job for Fluttershy. One that is much too dangerous to take the ambassador on.

“What job do you have for me, Miss Luna?”

“You will try to coax the Hydra out of the Bog again today.”

“I already told you, he won’t listen to me. Something is wrong with him. It’s as if his ears are stuffed with wax”

“We can still try. What do we have to lose, right?”

“Right. I’ll get right to it. Am I still required here?”

“No, you may leave”

“Okay, see you soon everyone”

With that Fluttershy left the room. I was still furious with Luna for putting me in such and awkward position. “I am a general! Not a chauffeur! I have jobs that must be done, troops that must be trained, patrols that must be overseen. How can I do these things if I must also entertain this gryphon?”

“I’m right here you know…” Fleetwing remarked as he became quite aware of my lack of enthusiasm.

“I mean no disrespect to you, gryphon—“

“Fleetwing”

“—Fleetwing. However, I am under qualified. I simply cannot be trusted to effectively convey our ideals to you.”

“On the contrary”, interjected Luna, “I have absolute confidence in your abilities. You are my most dedicated general, and one of my first followers. Who better than you to show the ambassador what we stand for?

“But—“

“No further discussion. You may take your leave now with Sir Fleetwing.”

“Luna, Ple—”

“NO FURTHER DISCUSSION”

So I left. This is starting to be a rather unpleasant day.