Author's Note

Wow... It's certainly been a while, hasn't it? Lot's o' shit been happening to me in my personal life, but I'm not going to sit here and write a five hundred page memoir about it. The next chapter will be posted much sooner than this one was, now that things for me have finally reached some modicum of stability. See you next time for the conclusion to the pirate arc: "The Battle for Newhaven."

The Deadliest Weapon of All

The vestiges of hope were fading as the magic mirror supplied naught but the queen’s own haggard image looking back at her. “Princess Celestia,” she pleaded for what seemed like the thousandth time, “please, if ever there was a time I needed you, it’s now!” And like so many times before, not so much as a ripple disturbed the smooth surface of the glass. “Celestia, please, this is my darkest hour. This could be my final hour; Newhaven needs your help!” Fluttershy’s frustration grew and grew with each failed attempt. She tried again, then again, and then she tried once more. The mirror’s final report was the countenance of a queen writhing madly in the throes of her frustration. “Damn you!” The oval plate of enchanted glass shattered as the silver frame in which it was recessed collided with the marble floor of the dais.

Nobody in the throne room seemed to notice, however. There were wounded to tend to, crying infants to be soothed, and newly made widows and widowers to be consoled—all far too engrossed in their own miseries to acknowledge hers. Even Violeta, who continued so dutifully to play her violin at the queen’s side, had the courtesy to pretend not to notice the queen’s unqueenly outburst.

Fluttershy sat there for a time with her head in her hooves, mooning down at all the broken shards of glass which lay dispersed in glinting fragments before the throne. She could see a part of herself in each piece. Funny, the mirror’s portrayal of her seemed more accurate, now that it was just as broken and useless as she was.

“My Queen,” Violeta trilled, deviating not from the flow of her mellifluous composition, “your messenger approaches.”

The queen lifted her gaze and noticed the winged scout she had sent out some time ago on reconnaissance ascending the marble steps. When he finally arrived at the apex of the dais, he respectfully doffed his helm and saluted with his head down and his right forehoof over his breast. If he noticed the broken pieces of mirror, he chose not to comment on it. “Your Grace.”

“Give me some good news,” Fluttershy pleaded.

He raised his head. “Just about all those seeking refuge have made it, Your Grace.” He indicated the huge double doors at the opposite end of the throne room. They had been spaced open to allow just enough of a berth to grant access to the queue of haggard, battered sanctuary seekers who were now shuffling their way inside. A few injured soldiers and militiamen were being carried in on litters or hobbled in on crutches. One who was being carried inside, a baker, by the look of his ripped apron, had been dealt a grievous headwound and was babbling incessantly about his cakes burning.

“Don’t mind that one,” commented the scout. “One o’ them sea brigands clubbed the poor guy over the head with his own rolling pin. A sock to the noggin with one o’ them things is like to jumble anyone’s—

—What of the dead?” Fluttershy bulled over him. The news of the baker being knocked senseless was indeed unfortunate, but she had more pressing concerns.

“Ma’am?”

“Were you able to tally them?” elaborated Fluttershy.

“Well …” stalled the scout, as if to consider how he should go about answering the question. “With all the fighting and chaos and whatnot, I don’t think anyone would have been able to count them all in any reasonable amount of time.”

“There were too many to count,” Fluttershy summarized, her heart growing heavy as she imagined the horror her streets had become. Much like the corridors and chambers of her once pristine palace, the dead festooning the halls, their blood and entrails soaking into the rushes. Fluttershy would be forever haunted by the horrors she was forced to bear witness to as Blueblood and his company escorted her to the throne room.

“The situation goes bad for us, your highness.”

“And my husband?” said the queen, presuming to hope.

“King Sombra …” The scout shook his head, a fierce admiration suddenly lending vigor to his dower demeanor.

At this the queen cocked her head to the side in bemusement. “Yes?”

“I’ve never seen anything like it. He’s been dealt wounds that would have killed anyone else a hundred times over, yet he stands, and he fights with the ferocity of a stallion possessed by Aeries himself. His prowess on the battlefield was so fearsome, he forced the enemy to retreat. Piss scared, the lot o’ them were!”

Fluttershy stroked her pregnant belly as she digested the news. A faint smile touched her lips. Such pride she felt. Her husband truly was a beast in equine flesh … But he’s my beast. “What’s my husband doing in preparation for their second strike?” she had to know, half expecting him to be thundering with an inspiring speech to his fighters, a passionately articulated rallying cry that would resonate throughout the ages. Something to be recorded and preserved by scholars and historians the world over.

“Last I saw, he was talking to those friends o’ yours. I would have asked him if he had any messages for you, but I figured the griffons would be bringing up their rearguard any moment, so I hightailed it back.”

“Friends?” Fluttershy scanned the floor to realize Moon Dancer, Sunset Shimmer and Twilight Sparkle were still absent. And just like that she was incensed again. How could she not have noticed earlier? “They promised me they’d be back before the fighting started again!”

“Perhaps they’re still offering aid?”

“Aid? Pray, offering aid to whom?” Fluttershy demanded.

“They’ve decided to stand and fight with the militia, mayhap?”

“They’re not soldiers; they’re not killers; they balk at the very thought of taking a life.”

“My Queen, they’ve been doing a world of good out there: putting out fires, offering aid to the wounded, escorting your citizens to the palace.”

“I understand that, but they might not know what to do when confronted with the reality that they must kill or be killed. Would you send a group of conscientious objectors to the frontlines of a hot combat zone?”

“There’s no such thing as a conscientious objector in the midst of battle, Your Grace,” replied the scout. “looking death in the face has the tendency to make hypocrites of even the staunchest of saints.”

Fluttershy rested back in her throne and massaged her temples. What about a fool who simply doesn’t know when to retreat?

“Your Grace,” the Pegasus volunteered, “would you have me bring them your order to return?”

“As if they’d listen?” Fluttershy smiled cynically at the futility of that notion. She waved her hoof dismissively. “No—no thank you, you’re dismissed. Go, find Winter Lilac, and ask how you can help her with the wounded.”

The Pegasus bowed his head before donning his helm, then turned to descend the dais.

“One last thing,” Fluttershy called out to his back.

The scout turned his head to acknowledge her from over his shoulder. “Ma’am?”

“You’ve seen what it’s like out there. What do you think our chances are?”

“Our chances?”

“Survival,” the queen said flatly.

“Our survival.” The queen’s scout chewed on that for a moment. “I suppose our chances depend on the whims of The Gods.”

The Gods, Fluttershy mused as she watched him leave. The Gods don’t exactly boast an efficacy for preserving those who would attempt to bring the northern realm to heel. Even Celestia must have weighed out the attrition she’d suffer in order to embark upon that venture.

There was a time when Fluttershy had given in to her husband’s cynical notions that Celestia was simply ineffectual and uncaring, but she was beginning to see how one such as Sombra, a stallion with nothing to lose and everything to gain, could jump to such a brash conclusion. There was no risk to consider for him. Only a burning rage and the drive of his ambition. Celestia, however, had the lives of those who fought and lived under her banner to consider. The peninsula suffered, but would extending that suffering to her own people be worth the cost? It was this conundrum The Queen of Newhaven reflected upon.

Her gaze went to Violeta, the beautiful gypsy bard whose music enthralled the hearts of all within attendance. She would still be a slave if her husband hadn’t rescued her. Neigh, she’d be dead. Sombra saved her from her fate when he dashed the walls of that horrible prison in which she and so many others had been consigned to starvation …

Action. Inaction. The former would lead to attrition on an incalculable scale. The latter perpetuated the suffering of the poor souls in a land which would remain forsaken as a result. Fluttershy eventually gave up on what the right answer could have been. Or even if there was one.

Her mind returned to the battle raging beyond her palace’s walls with a growing shadow of fear gnawing at her heart. The scenes of gruesome, bloody combat had taken a toll on her, and the prospect of what was to come shook her to her very core. A siege was a horror to look upon, but the true horrors were what came next should victory favor the besiegers. That's when the celebration would start; the triumphant, trampling over the bodies of the slain, the plundering and pillaging, the cruel revelry of rape and senseless slaughter of noncombatants attempting to flee. Fluttershy tried to force the premonition from her mind, but no matter what she did, all she could envision were those massive throne room doors being blasted into mulch before the enemy rushed in by the scores, an insurmountable wave of bloodthirsty brigands with the intoxicating fire of victory in their blood overwhelming her paltry company and … And her husband was putting his life on the line to ensure that did not come to pass.

Her king was out there, fighting, and making the task of killing him an absolute misery for his foes. That was the one thought that managed to bring her a small bit of grizzly satisfaction. If my husband can be strong, thought she, so can I. If this is the day we depart this world for the next, let us both go down fighting. Fluttershy steeled herself in the resolve that she wouldn’t go down cowering. She was no fighter, but she’d be damned if she didn’t take at least one of those filthy marauders down with her.

Fluttershy turned to Violeta, the ethnic beauty who serenaded her queen so sweetly as she brooded upon her throne. “Miss Viola?”

The bard stayed her bow, smiling. “My queen?”

“May I ask you a favor?”

“Of course, my love.”

“Your dagger, the one you used to put that miserable cur of a husband of yours out of your misery, would you lend it to me?”

“Certainly, Your Grace.” And, without further discussions or inquiries on the matter, she put her violin aside and removed the dagger she kept concealed beneath her skirt, the leather sheath slipping soundlessly from the lacy black garter which kept it girded to her outer thigh. She then presented it to her majesty hilt-first.

Fluttershy inspected it. “Such a small thing,” she mused, turning the blade over in her hoof, a menacing gleam riding along its edge as it caught the light.

“That’s what makes it so deadly,” commented Viola. “The deadliest weapon is not the morning star which stoves the cask, or the axe that cleaves through boiled leather, nor is it the sword which slashes between the joints in the mail.”

“Is that so?” Fluttershy said, inspecting the finely honed edge. “Then, what is?”

“The deadliest weapon of all,” Viola put forth, raising her hoof in a matter-of-fact sort of manner, “is that which remains undetected; it is the scentless poison in the wine, the quarrel loosed from the shadows—

—The dagger beneath the cloak,” Fluttershy finished for her, the sheath whispering coldly against the steel as she housed the blade. “Or mantle.”