Lunatic!

5th day of Sun's Height
455 Years after the Defeat of Discord by the Sisters

Luna paced through the streets, looking for any path an invader might take to infiltrate the city. Alleyways were blocked off with new walls reaching to the nearby roofs, entire blocks of stone and brick houses turned into the foundations for a new fortification surrounding the port city.

“Will these even be useful?” Wind Dancer asked, as she followed behind Luna, stepping lightly from rooftop to rooftop, fluttering her wings briefly with each short jump. “The griffons can all fly. Walls aren’t going to keep them out.”

“The primary purpose of fortifying an area is not to keep attackers away,” Luna said. “It is to give the defenders a common line to stand at and terrain that is to their advantage. The walls will protect them against ranged attacks and, as you said, the griffons will be forced into the air to enter the city, which will leave them exposed to our own arrows.”

“I guess,” Wind Dancer shrugged.

“Given your performance in Everfree, I expect you can hold off most of an army yourself,” Luna said, carefully keeping her tone casual. “Shooting crossbow bolts out of the air is hardly an easy task.”

“It wasn’t that hard,” Wind Dancer said. “The crossbow she was using was as big as I am. I could see where she was aiming from a mile away.”

“And yet, since you were further from her target than she was, you had to fire first and guess at the moment she would take her shot,” Luna said. “Quite impressive, for a normal pony. One could almost call it impossible.”

“Obviously not,” Wind Dancer snorted. “I was just lucky. Some pegasus magic to help guide things a little bit helped.”

“Did it?” Luna questioned. “I wasn’t aware we were training ponies on how to do that.”

“I picked it up on my own,” Wind Dancer said, too quickly.

Luna smiled to herself and started walking again.

~~~***~~~

Silver Tongue shuffled the papers in front of him, as if rearranging them would change the numbers to something he liked better.

“It’s not bad yet, but it’s gonna get bad,” Quel said. The scarred thestral rubbed his snout with a hoof. “The griffons eat twice as much as ponies, so our supplies are going to have to stretch three times as far as we thought. Plus there’s basically no way to forage for food even if we were on the move.”

“Makes me wish we could just use magic to make food out of thin air,” Silver Tongue grumbled. “At least we have spells that can make the seawater potable.”

“I got a bad feeling about this,” Quel muttered. “If we were just here to take out the Emperor, it wouldn’t be that bad. We could run a successful campaign in a month or two as long as we’re willing to make this a headhunting mission instead of a conquest.”

Silver Tongue snorted. “If we waited a year or so, we could have just moved in. These people are on the edge of extinction. The griffons here were just barely hanging on by eating the fish in the bay, and even that is starting to fail them.”

Quel sighed and sat down heavily in front of Silver Tongue’s desk. “I wish there was a good answer here. If we let them starve, we’re the bad guys. If we stay here to help, we’re conquerors. It’s not even just griffons - there are still ponies living here too. Some of them were slaves, but most have lived here their whole lives.”

“There is one bright side,” Silver Tongue noted. “With most of their army dead, they have fewer mouths to feed.”

“I don’t think anyone is going to call that a bright side,” Quel mumbled. “I need to talk to Luna when she gets back. We almost had a riot when we were unloading the food. Some of the griffons were going berserk, and we had to tie them up to keep them from attacking the soldiers and stealing food.”

“She won’t want them killed,” Silver Tongue said. “Not if she wants to have any kind of loyalty from these people at all. They’ve already abandoned their old master to serve her. They’re like mercenaries. Bought loyalty is the weakest kind.”

“Just don’t let them know that,” Quel snorted. “They outnumber our soldiers two to one. If they really decided to fight for it, we’d lose a lot of ponies.”

The doors burst open as Luna walked in, looking at her hooves in thought as she absently used her magic to clear the path.

“Your highness,” Quel said, standing at attention.

“At ease,” Luna muttered, waving a hoof. “I do not intend to stand on ceremony here. I have been speaking with the farmers, and I am disturbed by what I have learned so far. From all indications, this was once a fertile land, if unsuited for many of the crops of Equestria.”

“It’s like the soil was salted,” Silver Tongue said, moving a chair so Luna could sit down. The Princess half-collapsed into it.

“Indeed. It brought back some rather distressing memories of the period after Discord’s reign, when the world nearly collapsed in on itself.” Luna sighed. “I have been taking lessons from the farmers on how to put my own magic into the land to replace what has been lost, but it is quite tiring.”

“It’s puzzling,” Silver Tongue said. He tapped on the desk in thought. “The water table seems fine. We could use a few more wells, especially up on the cliff where the farms were, but we need to fortify the area more than we need them.”

“For now,” Luna agreed. “Once construction of the walls is complete, we will have to shift focus to making this area more sustainable.”

“Why are we even bothering to fortify?” Quel frowned. “We never did this in Equestria. We kept on the move and just hit the enemy constantly. With no reinforcements, staying in one place is just going to thin our supplies.”

“As much as I dislike giving my sister too much credit, the Solar Guard gave us a lot of support in terms of supplies and providing fallback points for the rare occasions when our battles did not go as planned,” Luna sighed. “Here, we have nowhere to go if we fail. If I fortify this city, we will at least have one stronghold to regroup at should the worst occur.”

“It’s a weakness, too, though,” Quel pointed out. “Our enemy has an advantage with numbers and supply lines. We always avoided fair fights, but we’re gonna be forced into one if we have to defend this place.”

“You’re correct,” Luna admitted. “And in many circumstances, I would take your implicit advice and abandon this city to its fate. We could possibly defeat Zephyranthes and return to tame this land.”

“And we’re not doing that… why?” Quel asked.

“Consider what would happen if we left them,” Luna said. “They will all die in weeks, at most.”

“But that’s happening anyway,” Quel pointed out. “It’s not just a problem in this one city, it’s a problem everywhere in this country. The faster we resolve this, the faster we start saving them.”

“You’re correct about that,” Luna nodded. “We do need to resolve this. I am not convinced it is a problem we can resolve with the blade of a sword.”

“We’re vastly unqualified for anything else,” Silver Tongue muttered. “We’re an army, not a team of diplomats. If you wanted to solve things with words, that was something we tried in Canterlot, and failed.”

“It wasn’t our failure,” Luna muttered. “It’s clear that Xaaron was sent with the expectation that he would fail. Even so, I regret not giving him more of a chance. I was blinded by anger, something that is becoming unfortunately more common of late.”

The door opened, and Ryujin walked in, a tray balanced on his back. A metal pot and several cups sat on it, steaming with heat.

“It is a matter of opposites,” Ryujin said.

“You were waiting outside the door for the right moment to make a dramatic entrance, weren’t you?” Silver Tongue asked, smirking.

“You would find it quite difficult to prove that,” Ryujin said, smiling. “It is possible that I was waiting and listening, yes.”

“What do you mean by a matter of opposites?” Luna asked, as Ryujin set the tray down. The Princess started helping him serve the tea, the kirin not objecting to the assistance.

“The world is not balanced,” Ryujin explained. “Or rather, it is quite exquisitely balanced. Take this place, for example. The sky and the land are both barren of life, but water and fire are still as clear and strong as in Equestria. This is because the air and earth are opposites, with a delicate relationship.”

“If they were opposites, then shouldn’t one have grown in strength when the other weakened?” Silver Tongue asked, as he swirled the tea in his cup, not sure what the reddish-orange tea was made from.

“That is one type of balance, and the type most ponies think of,” Ryujin agreed. “That is the balance of scales, or a lever. One side goes down, the other goes up. But in nature, it is more like the balance of four hooves. When things are unbalanced, they eventually crash down to disaster.”

“And the griffons unbalanced things with their constant use of weather magic,” Luna said, thinking. “Which they used to make up for their lack of skill at cultivating crops.”

“Yes, and that weather magic has left a cloud of magic over this land that keeps normal weather patterns from forming,” Ryujin said. “The air was weak, and sought balance, so as the weather magic failed, the magic of the earth came down along with it, and left this land in the state it is in today.”

“And the curse some of the griffons speak of?” Luna asked. “I would not dismiss their concerns so quickly as mere natural order. Zebrican shamans are quite powerful, in ways not even I can match.”

“It is possible,” Ryujin admitted. “It is quite difficult for me to believe that this is entirely a result of natural processes. Normally, magic would move from the earth to the sky and the balance would restore itself.”

“And thunderstorms are used to clear the ambient weather magic,” Luna noted. “One of the reasons we cannot always have nice weather.”

“We can’t know for sure unless we spoke to the Zebricans, but…” Silver Tongue considered. “They might be able to use geomantic rituals, like earth ponies do. The right rituals could drain the magic from the land over a wide area.”

“There isn’t much information on how to cancel them out,” Luna sighed. “Earth ponies tend to keep their rituals as family secrets, and the last unicorn to study geomancy seriously…” Luna shuddered. “She nearly destroyed Equestria with the monster she created. I still can’t stand the sight of mud.”

“It would take hundreds, no, thousands of rituals,” Silver Tongue sighed. “I don’t know if it’s really possible.”

“The griffons have been at war with Zebrica for decades,” Quel said. “More than enough time for a few thousand rituals.”

“If I knew things were this bad, I would have sent an envoy to Zebrica to try and convince them to stop,” Luna said. “It has clearly become a vicious cycle. The griffons attack because they need to steal food because they have overhunted their lands. The Zebricans retaliate by making the Empire less able to recover from the environmental damage done to it with heavy weather management. The griffons are forced to press harder into Zebrica to feed their people, which increases the response from Zebrica…”

“Yes,” Ryujin agreed. “You cannot create peace with violence. You can only create it with peace. In giving your supplies to the griffons of this city, you have already turned them on the path away from becoming an army of raiders and enemies of Equestria, and you are instead making them allies. There is no greater victory than to take an enemy and make him your friend.”

“Yes, my sister said as much,” Luna frowned.

“You and your sister have also been out of balance,” Ryujin noted. “Wars are a great disturbance in the natural cycle of life and death.”

“It is not the war that has driven a wedge between us,” Luna muttered. “It is only our own actions. We both had very different ideas of how we wanted to handle it. My sister always plays the long game. She studies logistics and strategy, and she calculates the results of her actions without passion and without bias. She reduces lives to numbers, and cares more for what will take place in a hundred years than she does about tomorrow.

“I’ve never been able to do that,” Luna continued. “I focus on tactics instead of strategy, and I am willing to take risky options when I find safe options are not to my liking. All other things being equal, if she and I met on the field of battle, I would almost certainly be victorious, but she does not like things being equal.”

“She also doesn’t like fighting,” Quel noted. “She’d try and end things before it got to that point.”

“Yes. In this case, her plan was to remove me from power.” Luna frowned. “I understand her reasoning. She sees me as an element she cannot control, something she cannot calculate so easily, and so she wishes to minimize my impact on her little game. But even if I understand it, I gravely dislike it. We are supposed to be equal, but she is not treating me as such.”

“She’s treating you like a threat to Equestria,” Quel noted.

“Indeed,” Luna agreed. “And that is why we are here. Some day, ponies will look back on these trouble times and remember not just a war, but the founding of a new Lunar Republic!” She stomped a hoof in emphasis, overturning her teacup. “Once I am again in a position of power, I will make peace with my sister. This time apart may do both of us some good, and perhaps if we do not attempt to rule together, she will not feel threatened by me.”

“It’s certainly better than dividing Equestria down the middle,” Quel snorted. “And as much as I dislike some parts of this situation, saving the people of the Empire is a worthy cause. We might even be able to convince some of them to fight with us instead of just taking our supplies in exchange for not trying to stab us.”

“Well, there is no victory greater than turning an enemy into a friend, as I recall,” Luna smiled.

“I’ll see how many of them are willing to march with us,” Quel smiled, turning towards the door. “At least once we eventually start marching. They were willing to form a giant mob to attack you for whatever you were carrying, so I don’t think it’ll take too much convincing.”
Just as he reached the door, it burst open, Wind Dancer flying into the room.

“Princess! We have a problem!” The pegasus yelled, bowling Quel over.

Luna raised an eyebrow. “I don’t hear screaming, so I trust the citizens haven’t begun a revolt.”

“No, it’s worse than that,” Wind Dancer said. “There’s an army coming. Zephyranthes has sent almost all of his troops. They’re going to try and retake the city.”