On Behalf of Soviet Equestria

“This is absolutely absurd!” bellowed the green crystal pony in the gemstone-embroidered cape that stood before Princess Celestia’s throne. “They turned a deaf ear on me at the Crystal Castle, and now I’ve come all the way to Canterlot, and for what? To have the same thing happen again?”

“I’m haven’t given you a deaf ear,” Celestia sighed, rising from the throne and proceeding down the steps.

The caped crystal pony grunted and spat under his breath, looking about the throne room as if he were surveying the place for a good spot to start kicking holes in the walls. This wasn’t the kind of reception he had expected. And though there were two guards watching him closely by the feet of the throne, he wasn’t afraid to openly present his discontent.

“I get it. I understand everything,” the crystal pony said, nodding his head vigorously as he turned away from Celestia. “Emeraldavia doesn’t mean anything to anypony. It’s just some two-bit province in the Crystal Empire that’s too tiny and useless to even think about.”

“I never once said that,” Princess Celestia affirmed.

“But that’s how you think! That’s what everypony thinks!” the crystal pony shouted.

“Count Emerald-Ingot, I must ask you to calm your tone and address me with proper respect.”

“That’s exactly what they told me in the Crystal Castle,” Emerald-Ingot huffed as he narrowed his eyes. “Show them respect, while they’ve never once showed any to me. You know, I understand it, now.” The middle-aged stallion paced the floor, staring down at the reflections that the massive stained-glass windows made in the tiles. “I get why Equusia rose up and declared their independence. I get why there’s a whole bunch of places that call themselves Soviet republics. Because nopony ever showed them any respect, but demanded theirs left and right. And they got sick and tired of it.”

The princess’s ears perked up. That was dangerous language. That was the same sort of thing she had heard from the mouths of the Soviet diplomats. It was the same tone that she perceived in the letters from Equusia that she had received over year ago at the very start of this whole mess, a few months before the war broke out. He was talking like the Reds and their revolutionaries, though without the Party rhetoric. But this situation was peculiar, as these words were coming from a royal.

“I’m supposed to be a count, but it’s been a long while since I’ve felt like one,” Emerald-Ingot continued, his mantle swishing across the floor as he turned abruptly. “I’m like some little colt that keeps getting told he’s too young to do anything important. Told that all his worries are meaningless.”

“When did I say that your worries were meaningless?” Celestia asked, watching the furious count stomp across the floor. Emerald-Ingot stopped and turned to the Princess.

“Well, let’s review the facts of the matter,” the crystal pony answered. “This infernal war between our Empire and Soviet Equestria is being fought on my doorstep. It’s been a year, Your Highness. An entire year. And yet the Crystal Army still hasn’t taken Maremansk. And if you ask me, I don’t think they ever will. The Reds have defended with more dedication and strength than anypony thought possible. Every week, a new skirmish starts, and all it serves to do is move the front back and forth, continually crossing from our side of the border to theirs and back again. And what part of the Crystal Empire is just over the border from Maremansk? Emeraldavia. The imperial army’s camp for the front is based in Emeraldavia, frighteningly close to our Crystalnau. If the Reds push past the border and the Crystal Army gets forced back, the entire city of Crystalnau will become a battlefield. My ponies of Emeraldavia ask me what will become of our home. And I don’t know what to tell them anymore. I’ve gone to the Crystal Castle and I’ve begged at the foot of the throne to call off this useless war. In the beginning, we all thought we could crush Soviet Equestria like some defenseless bug. But now, they’ve grown too large and too organized...”

The crystal pony’s eyes were wide as he turned himself around and stared up at the princess. He couldn’t tell if Celestia was watching him with concern or irritation.

“But they just dismissed me,” Emerald-Ingot lamented. “They turned me away! And when I brought the news back home, everypony went into a panic. But I told them I’d try again. I said I’d go all the way to Canterlot and try again! And here I am. Now, you’ve done the same thing. You’ve dismissed me, and you’ve dismissed everypony in Emeraldavia.”

“The circumstances have changed dramatically,” Celestia affirmed. “A year ago, the Soviets declared their independence from the Crystal Empire. They wanted Canterlot to protect them. That was a lose-lose situation. The Soviet republics appeared out of the blue, but the Crystal Empire has been a subject of Canterlot for as long as anypony can remember. If we suddenly sided with the Reds, the Crystal Empire might have turned on us. And if we didn’t, the Soviets would have pitted themselves against us right then and there. So we waited. We couldn’t do anything else.”

The princess proceeded to the painted window behind the throne and peered out at the spires of Canterlot through the clear pieces of glass in the patchwork.

“Now, the Reds have elected a premier that won’t even acknowledge the crown. If we stop the war, Soviet Equestria persists, and we allow Orlov to spread his rhetoric. And if we don’t stop the war… your Emeraldavia and the rest of the Crystal Empire might be in danger. Once again, we find that both choices are equally problematic.”

Count Emerald-Ingot was thoroughly confused by this answer. To him, there was a very obvious third choice to make, but Celestia hadn’t even mentioned it as a solution to the problem.

“There’s one thing I still don’t understand,” the count said, closing his eyes and shaking his head. “If you’re so concerned about Soviet Equestria’s new premier, but at the same time don’t want Emeraldavia and the rest of the Empire to be at risk, then... why haven’t you lended support and helped the Crystal Empire this whole time?” the count asked, approaching the window. “If Canterlot’s legions hit the Soviets from the south, it would split the Red Army. Then you’d have them struggling between three fronts - the north by Emeraldavia, the south, and along the eastern border with Trotterstan. Then we’d have a better shot at putting this whole mess to bed once and for all!”

The princess gave Emerald-Ingot a hard but sympathetic stare. There was something on the tip of her tongue, but she struggled to speak, for her answer had to be worded carefully.

“I’m not so sure the Crystal Empire is deserving of a helping hoof,” Celestia finally said, walking along the perimeter of the throne room through the delicately-colored rays of light that shined through the castle windows. Emerald-Ingot was in shock. “Over the last few months, I’ve come to realize that the Reds have been right about one thing. The princes of the Empire care only about themselves and do whatever they want, whenever they want. The fact that they turned you away at the Crystal Castle is further proof of the matter. They’ve turned their backs on Canterlot. They mistreat their subjects, and then try to cover it all up. But it’s gone on far too long, and now the Crystal Empire is falling apart. If I order an attack on Soviet Equestria to aid the Empire, it would be something like rewarding and encouraging bad behaviour. We’d almost be saying that anytime they get themselves into a situation like this, Canterlot will just gallop over the hill and fix everything. I hate to admit it, but… the rise of Soviet Equestria is leaching them a valuable lesson.”

“But…” Emerald-Ingot stammered as he followed behind the princess, “But what about the rest of us? I mean, the princes in the capital are one thing. They certainly haven’t done me any favors. But what about somepony like me? What about my subjects? What’s going to happen to us? The Empire has been fighting for a solid year! Isn’t that enough? Haven’t the princes in the capital already learned their lesson?”

“Your visit to the Crystal Castle makes it very clear that they haven’t.”

The count halted as the princess spun around to face him. The two ponies stopped there, eyes locked, in the beams of afternoon light that passed through the windows. Neither Celestia nor Emerald-Ingot, bathed in hues of blue and red from the stained glass, knew what was next to be said. Years ago, nopony would have even dreamed that such a convoluted quandary would have come to be. But now, more than a year after the revolution that rocked the Crystal Empire, the debacle had escalated and become too complicated for straightforward solutions.

“Princess Luna and I believed we had devised a solution. That was months ago. Unfortunately, it didn’t work as we had anticipated. Since then, we’ve tried to-”

The princess stopped mid-sentence in surprise when Count Emerald-Ingot suddenly turned from her and slowly started walking away. He stared blindly ahead at the doors of the throne room as if he were in some sort of confounded daze, walking without thinking. But as he continued along, his sluggish pace became steadier and faster, and the length of his strides aggrandized. His brow wrinkled as his blind stare transformed into a pronounced grimace.

“Came all this way for nothing…” the count seethed through clenched teeth. “Waste of my time.”

His pace was swift now, almost a charge, as he crossed the throne room. Emerald-Ingot’s mantle flapped and swished across the floor behind him, light dancing off the emeralds embedded within. The count heard the princess call out to him, but he didn’t listen to what she was saying. A blind rage had taken over, and all he only could put his mind toward leaving Canterlot Castle.

“Equusia got sick and tired of the princes in the capital walking all over them. So they up and left the Empire. And you know what? Good for them.”

Celestia had left her spot by the window now and was following Emerald-Ingot across the room.

“What are you doing?” she called out to him.

“Nopony wants to listen? Fine. I’ll take matters into my own hooves,” the count huffed.

Count Emerald-Ingot reached the doors of the throne room and shoved them open. He stormed out past the nonplussed guards waiting in the corridor. The two armor-clad white stallions shot each other a confused glance and peered through the doorway, where they found a dismayed-looking Princess Celestia watching the crystal pony in the emerald-studded cloak make haste for his entourage outside the castle.

*    *    *

The Party Congress convened exactly one week after Count Emerald-Ingot’s visit to Canterlot. It proceeded according to its planned agenda until a courier from the Stalliongrad central telegraph exchange arrived at the Hall of the Council of Ministers, bearing a message from beyond the borders.

When Vladimir Orlov, the new Party chairman, read the message, he couldn’t believe what had been written. He went through it a second and third time, asking himself whether he had somehow misinterpreted the strange news. And when he realised that he made no mistake, he was almost laughing as he approached the podium before the Council to read the message:

Esteemed members of the Soviet Equestrian Party Congress,

    I have composed this letter to inform you that the province of Emeraldavia has left the patrimony of the Crystal Empire. Our independent princedom hereby affirms that we are at peace with the Federative Soviet Equestrian Republic of Equusia, as well as the sister republics of Belequus, Trotterstan, Mustangistan, and Grazerbaijan.

    We would like to offer our cooperation on the removal of the Crystal Army from the border region between Crystalnau and Maremansk, as the imperial soldiers on our soil are now violating our sovereignty. We have the provisions, ability, and willpower to strike the imperial camps south of Crystalnau in synchronization with the actions of the Red Army as it fights on the border. We need only a message with appropriate details.

    The Crystal Empire will be informed of our secession in eight days time. As of now, Soviet Equestria alone has been made privy to this information.

    If you are supportive of a joint effort, I ask that you please react while we still possess the element of surprise. Direct your communication to the telegraph exchange of Maremansk. My messengers are already waiting to deliver your response to Crystalnau.

    I applaud your spirit and conviction in your fight against heartless tyranny.

Warm regards,

Crown Prince Emerald-Ingot of Emeraldavia

When Orlov finished reading, the entire auditorium of flabbergasted deputies engaged one another in quiet discussion. Mareinskiy and Alexander Palominov were seated among them, engrossed in a conversation of their own.

“Looks like Emerald-Ingot finally had enough,” the cream-colored stallion whispered to his comrade with a grin. “Wasn’t any secret that he never got along with the rest of the imperials.”

“Or he just jumped at the chance to call himself a prince,” Palominov countered.

“Either way… you think Orlov will consider it?”

“I don’t know,” the brown earth pony replied. “Imperial or not… Emerald-Ingot is still a royal. But then again… ‘The enemy of my enemy...’ You know how it goes.”