Lineage

One of the things that overjoyed me about the plan everyone else had drawn up was that my father was going nowhere near the frontlines, by his own choice. He’d freely admit that fieldwork was a young man’s game and that he was perfectly happy to sit in a nice, warm office while the younger men slashed each other to bits. He’d earned his commanding post after all he’d done in his years and we were more than happy to allow him to rest on his laurels for this little venture.

So as the days went by, we sent little forces out into little operations. Khalifa’s girls acted as intelligence gatherers and spies for both Khalifa and Luna, the Alicorn Princess being the much more experienced Spymaster than the brothel owner and after a little bit of ‘coaxing’ on Luna’s part, Khalifa was ‘more than happy’ to let Luna have the higher position. Shining kept in command of small groups of armoured, insignia-less soldiers, having dropped their Equestrian armour due to us not wanting criminal activities tied back to the crowns, and they engaged in skirmish fighting to thin down McGraw’s numbers, torched his arenas and betting locations, and just made a general nuisance for the man.

It then fell to Kalla, showing an extreme, almost savant-like, intelligence when it came to thievery and stealth which she used with expert knowledge to sneak in and steal not only money, but also precious gems, precious metals, manifestos, ledgers, and shipping contracts to make sure that McGraw’s funding and support dropped double digits by the day. Once she’d returned to the tower with the funds, locking the valuables in the treasury, Luna used her skill to mimic and forge new contracts with the people set to be delivering McGraw’s shipments and instead have them deliver directly to us, giving new arms, armour, and equipment to our forces whilst leaving McGraw with none.

And my job was… well, was to mostly sit around and do nothing. It turned out that the personnel we already had would do the job so efficiently that people like Annerose and I really had no reason to be doing anything. In fact, it was even an offer on Luna’s part to just send me home to Equestria due to me being nothing more than a skilled fighter, something we had plenty of already. She even mentioned getting in contact with Zane and asking him to come and assist because, something my father protested as a statement from pure spite, ‘Zane was worth three of me even if he’d lost an arm’. I’d turned down the offer of course, regretting it slightly as boredom crept in, but I still had Annerose to socialise with while Miss Claire and Twilight were away on excavations:

“-and it turns out that after we’d doused the entire fucking place with accelerant,” Annerose continued, talking bite the bite of apple in her mouth as we sat atop the battlements of the tower. “Markus, the stupid cunt, had lost his fucking striking flint.”

“How?” I asked in shock. “I thought all of you did an equipment check before you left?”

“We did, school fucking standard check of course, but remember when we needed to take that swim through the sewers and Markus had to drop a belt to not sink like a rock?” she asked, sipping from a wineskin.

“Yeah… he didn’t,” I said, realising what she was talking about.

“Yup. The spastic twat had dropped the belt with the fucking striking flint in it to save his own life,” Annerose finished, still seemingly angry about it judging by her tone of voice and facial expression. “So the entire class failed the test because of one stupid decision made by one stupid cunt.”

“I suppose it’s kind of realistic,” I shrugged. “I mean, I’ve heard stories of entire strongholds being lost because one soldier didn’t do his job properly.”

“Yeah, I know that and all… still pissed off about the fact we lost out on the House Prize that year,” she growled.

“I don’t think you mentioned those,” I said. “You guys had Houses?”

“Yeah, it’s kind of a trend in posh schools like ours,” she nodded. “The whole school was split into four houses: Brancepeth, Durham, Raby, and Lambton. I was in Durham and had a few friends in the other houses. We were all promised a special prize for whichever house won that event that year and we lost at the last fucking hurdle. Because of that fat bastard and his stupidity.”

“Sounds rough,” I nodded. “What was the prize?”

“Holiday,” she answered. “We were all gonna go visit a Hearth’s Warming Market on the Continent that year, but Raby got it. Wankers.”

“How long ago was this?” I asked.

“Well… I finished school when I was sixteen, happened in year… eight, I think. I would’ve been twelve or thirteen then...so about… thirteen years ago?”

“And you’re still mad about it now?”

“Yes.”

“You’re that petty?”

“Yes. There a fucking problem with that?”

“No, Ma’am, none at all,” I chuckled, looking off to the side of the battlements and staring down at the bleak city.

“You got any good school stories?” she asked after a moment of silence.

“None that you’d find interesting,” I answered.

“Why’s that?” she asked.

“They’re mostly sex stories,” I shrugged.

“Richter, I’m not allergic to sex, y’know? I can talk about it… you just don’t have to be so graphic with the descriptions,” she said, crossing her arms and looking away.

“Alright, fine. I’ll start with a basic one and try to keep it child friendly,” I nodded.

“Get fucked.”

I ignored her insults, chuckling quietly to myself as I thought of a decent one to tell, finding a good one, and giving some background info.

“Since I’m royalty, I was never sent away for an education. Born, raised, and taught everything I needed to know in the halls of my own home,” I began. “I had tutors brought in from all over the world to school me in every boring subject my other family members had, though while they paid attention and did well in their studies, I mostly skipped lessons to have sex.”

“How old were you when that started?” Annerose asked. “Seventeen? Eighteen?”

“Try thirteen or fourteen,” I corrected.

“Fuck off,” she said in disbelief.

“If that’s hard to grasp you’re gonna think I’m imaginary when I start telling you that I fucked some of my teachers at that age,” I said, laughing quietly.

“I don’t believe you,” she said, shaking her head. “There is no fucking way any dignified, self-respecting woman would ever dare consider fucking a thirteen year old boy.”

“You’d be surprised,” I smirked. “But this isn’t a teacher sex story, this is a friend-with-benefits story.”

“You had a friends-with-benefits relationship when you were fourteen?” she asked.

“I had several, if I’m honest,” I nodded.

“How are you not swimming in kids now with that many women?” she asked.

“Oh I am, I just don’t visit the pool very often,” I shrugged. “Anyway, the girl-of-the-month this time was an Andalusian Princess named Calatera, one of my closest friends and favourite girls at the time. Still is now, as a matter of fact. Just a shame she’s married nowadays. But that’s besides the point, even at that age, she was cut from a different cloth to most girls. Long, thick brown hair, almond eyes, and the most beautiful Hispanic skin you’ve ever seen. Had a decent pair of tits for a fourteen year old, too.”

“This is starting to get creepy.”

“Agreed, onto the story. During my usual stint of skipping classes and avoiding everyone by climbing around hard to reach places in the castle, I wandered my way into her room as I was in that wing of the castle at that point and found her absorbed into a book,” I continued. “We talk for a while, jokes happen, friendship happens, and then sex happens, as it usually did. But at about ten minutes into the session, her mother comes knocking at the door.”

“No way,” Annerose nodded.

“Yes way,” I said with a chuckle.

“What did you do?” she asked. “Surely you can’t pull out and get dressed in the time it takes someone to open a door?”

“You cannot,” I nodded. “But you can pull out and hide yourself under the bed on the freezing marble floor.”

“Yikes. Sounds unpleasant,” she commented, drinking from the wineskin again.

“It was. Erection didn’t last too much longer, either,” I chuckled, getting Annerose to roll her eyes in disgust. “So her mother comes in, sits down on the bed, and starts having a heart-to-heart with her daughter about needing to pick a suitor from another country that wasn’t Equestria for the good of her own kingdom. Now obviously our relationship was nowhere close to love, she didn’t lie awake at night dreaming of our wedding day and neither did I. We were fuck buddies and nothing more, so she was open and willing to discuss it… for about two hours.”

“No fucking way,” Annerose said with a slight grin on her face.

“Yup. I’m sat there with a frozen ass and blue balls under her bed for an hour listening to her mom read names of an actual list she’d brought in,” I smirked. “I think the one she ended up marrying when she was about twenty was a guy from Ardennais called Antoinne or something. Don’t remember their monarchs too well as they never had any girls. But yeah, stuck under the bed for an hour.”

“Did you at least finish up with her once her mother had left?” Annerose asked.

“No, because the two left for dress shopping once they were done and left me to crawl out, dress myself, and leave the room alone,” I sighed. “It was not a victory for me that day.”

“I can imagine,” she chuckled.

“She made it up to me a few days later, though,” I nodded, smiling at the good memory. “So all was forgiven.”

“I’m guessing you’ve got a lot of the ‘Almost got caught by their parents’ stories to tell?” she asked, leaning against the stone and crossing her arms.

“I have a good number, yeah,” I nodded. “I have a few more where it’s ‘got caught by the parents’ and a small number of ‘The mother joined in’.”

Annerose glared at me quietly for a long second, eyeing me up and down with a scrutinizing gaze, seconds ticking by as we both remained silent. Finally, after she’d bore a hole through me with her vision, I decided to ask her what she was staring at.

“What? Why are you looking at me like that?”

“I don’t know if you’re lying or not,” she stated flatly. “I’m looking at every nook and cranny of your face to try and get some kind of twitch or quiver to give it away. But there isn’t one, yet I still don’t believe you.”

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” I shrugged.

“Because your mere existence warps my understanding of reality,” Annerose growled. “There aren’t guys with fourteen inch dicks, women don’t throw themselves at guys for sex within seconds of meeting them, and guys don’t get to knock women up after knowing them for three hours.”

“They do in my world,” I chuckled. “And it’s an amazing place to be. It’s like a badly written smut novel but with more brutal violence.”

“That sounds terrible,” she commented.

“I think so too,” I nodded, standing up straight and offering her a hand. “Imma take a wander around, you wanna come for one too?”

“Wander for what exactly?” she asked. “We both know Falketurm isn’t known for its gondola rides and fancy restaurants.”

“I’m not quite sure,” I shrugged. “Maybe run around and see if we run into something interesting. You don’t have to if you don’t want to. After all, you might not wanna ruin that lovely uniform you’ve got on.”

“It’s designed for mobility as well,” she said, taking my hand and pulling herself up with a grunt. “So I’m good for a run around. Anywhere you got in mind?”

“The forests outside the city,” I suggested.

“Dangerous place, that,” Annerose commented. “You sure we’re allowed?”

“We’re both adults with fuck all else to do,” I said with a shrug. “I’m up for hunting and camping, I’ll just tell Luna where we’re going first. It’s not like we’re urgently needed here anyway.”

“Fair enough,” she shrugged after a moment of pause. “There’s a species of moose in the forest I’ve been interested in seeing for a while. This is a great chance to get a good look at it.”

“Good Gods, you’re boring,” I chuckled, heading into the tower with Annerose behind me.

“Hey, you seem to have just as much interest in moose knuckle as I do from what I’ve been told,” she growled.

“Ooh, savage,”