Equestrians Veterans Society

I stretched my back, staring out over the stripped out hotel conference room. Celestia walked up behind me and nuzzled my head. “Will you be alright?”

I took a deep breath and looked up towards her. “Yeah, I think so. And uh...thanks for this.”

Celestia smiled down at me. “Do I get a kiss?”

“I don’t really have much of a choice.” I hesitated a bit, but eventually threw my arms around her neck and gave her a quick kiss, lingering on the warm feeling of her lips. She smiled down at me, her soft comforting smile. “Oh knock it off.”

As we pulled away from the kiss I craned my neck to take in the creatures slowly filing into the room and taking seats in the center of the room where a set of chairs were set in a circle facing eachother. Celestia leaned her head against my crown. “You really think this is going to help?”

I nodded. “Can’t hurt. And you never really bring them up much. Not very warlike I guess. Coulda’ fooled me.” Celestia frowned and bopped my crown with her chin. “Hey!”

“Violence isn’t something I like to bring to light, no. Does that mean I don’t care? No!”

I shrugged and looked back to the few arrivals filtering in. Of the ones walking in, I noticed how diverse the group was, a tall griffon wearing a dark navy blue uniform with a few chevrons on the sleeve.

I stuck my hand out and caught the bird. “Sergeant?”

The griffon jerked to the side as if offended by the touch and sudden questioning. “Who the fuck wants to know?” as he swiveled his head to come face to face with Able and Celestia standing no more than a foot behind him wearing a deep scowl that could boil water.. The griffon made a hasty retreat into a low bow.

“I-I’m sorry your majesty, I wasnt aware that royalty would be in attendance to day. Who, may I ask is this… charming fellow accompanying you?” All while still in full bow, this prick knew how to show respect after the fact..

Celestia lifted one hooves “Rise Sergeant, this Able, my husband. He’ll be leading the group today. I believe that many of my citizens can benefit from these meetings. Thank you for choosing to attend sergeant.”

“Sergeant Eagle Eyes, ma’am,” He snapped into an upright position with a crisp salute.

“But most just call me Twenty-Twenty. I’m involved in all of the inspection of all imports and exports coming from The Griffon Empire to the port here in Manehatten. Its an honor to meet you Princes Celestia and Prince Consort Abl-”

“Just Able,” I coughed, as I sidestepped to be a Celestia’s side instead of in front of her. “Never a fan of the title thing.”

The griffon gave me a puzzled look. “Yes Prin- Able. So you’ll be leading this group therapy session?”

“Yep, my idea so, yeah…. If it goes well today, then we might be able to start up more meeting like this” I gave him a shrug of the shoulders and a sidelong glance to a table setup with a variety of food and drinks.

“Got food, got drinks, I’m sure someone here is holding if you needed something heavy.” I swung my arms. “Ham, hay-” I looked over at the card table, filled to the brim with food. “-stuff.”

Twenty-Twenty gave seemed to take special note of the ham at the center of the table, his eyes gleaming with an insatiable hunger. He quickly licked his beak, almost drooling. “Is… is that a real ham? I haven’t had real ham since my last visit to home in the Griffon Empire… If you’ll excuse me, I have to indulge myself.”

I turned to Celestia, who looked a bit confused. “What?”

“The butcher?”

I nodded slowly. “Yeah…?”

Celestia licked her lips and looked towards the window. “Does he still not speak Equestrian?”

I chuckled softly. “Nope.”

I took another glance around the room, taking note of the different peoples milling about the room. I saw a zebra wearing a long white coat that looked like something a doctor would wear. He didn’t fit the bill, maybe a medic, but certainly not a hardened vet.

There was a bat pony with a short, dark red mane and eyes as blue as the deepest ocean with a coat charcoal grey with the Lunar Guard armor jangling at his side.

The one that really caught my eye was a Saddle Arabian. She stood almost as tall as me, an impressive thing for any pony. She reminded me of the smaller horse from back on earth, short brown coat, mid length black mane, and I think green eyes, hard to tell with them covered by her mane.

At that moment, the loud sound of metal on metal moved down the hall and caught my attention. Two guards moved into the room. They must have been off duty, even though they had the body armor, they weren’t wearing their helmets. One of the guards had an armor set I wasn’t familiar with. It was a polished silver that seemed to sparkle all around, the stallion wearing it also seemed to be shimmering along with his armor like some little forest fairy. He also had what looked like crystalline cracks in his coat.

The other guard was a one of Celestia’s, decked out in golden enchanted armor that changed his coat color but without the helmet, her mane was left a sandy blond, with eyes of deep grey. It was unsettling just how damn grey her eyes were, it was like they were pulling all of the light around her face in like deep, endless, voids of nothingness. Her face looked really rough, like she hadn’t slept in years. Her already dark eyes were accented by deep circles running under them, her mane looked like it hadn’t been combed in an even longer time.

Celestia stepped a little closer to me motioning to the guard in gold. “The one in gold is one of the guards I had working under me during the changeling invasion. She’s been having great deal of difficulty dealing with what happened during the invasion.”

I shrugged“Well I make no guarantees, but I really fucking hope these meetings do something. Seen what happens when you don’t talk about war stuff. Ken, Marky, people lose their shit when they don’t let it out.”

Celestia motioned to the guard to come over. The guard snapped away from whatever thought she was locked on and made her way over to us, crossing the circle like the others didn’t even exist. Shes a quick little thing, over before us in a moment.

Celestia smiled down at her. “Taffy Puller, I’m glad to see you made it.”

The mare tapped her hooves on the ground and drew a semicircle on the floor. “Thank you ma’am, not really sure I should be here though--”

Celestia shook her head. “Ah- none of that now, I need my guard strong and healthy, and I’m sorry to say your, problem, is starting to impact your performance.”

The mare pursed her lips, her eyes twisted up and watery. “Yes ma’am, I apologize for the inconvenience I have caus-”

“Ah- no apologizing. The best way to apologize is to get better.” Celestia looked over to me. “Have you met my husband?”

The mare turned to me. Her eyes looked over me for a moment before bolting to the ground. “I haven’t. Hello.”

I knew that look, I’d seen it way too many times before coming to Equestria. “Go have a seat, ya look a little tired.” No one deserved to wear that look, especially not anyone in Equestria.

“The mare nodded a few times and slunk over to the chairs. “Alright, I’ll get out of your way.”

With that done Celestias horn lit and in a flash was gone to perform her daily court duties, leaving my to the roomful of jaded fantasy people, thousand-yard stares burned into their faces. “Alright.” I turned to face the crowd.

Ponies, a griffon, a zebra, all of them sitting, staring at their hooves, or paws as it were. I had no idea what to do, I’d only ever been on the receiving side of this sort of stuff and now here I was, pretending I knew enough to understand these sword wielding horse-people.

There were twenty chairs, only six of them full. The room was overly spacious with a hardwood floor that shined in the sunlight filtering in from the three single, floor to ceiling windows. the walls were a stark white, reflecting light to brighten the room with what little sunlight was coming in. In the corner sat the table loaded with food that was hardly touched by the occupants.

I took one last look around the room, The clock on the wall was reading five past one. It was time to get this party going. I could only guess by the number of shouts and screams whether or not things were going well. “Fuck…. Well, time to get this shit started.”