Chapter 1 - bad memories
The silence of war - chapter one
I stand before the grave of a man i once knew as my friend and my captain, he was taken from my squad far too soon and he was gone before anyone could do anything or even knew what was going on. Shining armour, the name of a man who was loved by everyone he trained and especially those in his squad, he will be missed for as long as his squad remains.
"Hey shining.... it's been quite some time since I came here and I guess you could say since I talked to you..... me and the guys have really matured since you died...... but some of us still believe that peace is an option, that our enemies will show us mercy.... that will never happen, this is war. They all need to know that" the words.... they seemed to come out so easily, as if the hardened soldier I was trained to be was gone and my old happier self was back. Whenever I'm here at his grave words become so easy to speak, maybe it's because I'm talking to the only person I've ever considered family or maybe it's just because it makes me feel like he's still here.... listening to everything I say.
"I still remember that day, the day you died as if it happened mere moments ago" I say those words with tears welling up in my eyes and beginning to fall to the stone floor as a flash of lightning tore through the sky and the rain slammed down on me like the barrages of gryphon archers.
(Flashback)
I stood with my sword clashed against the blade of a gryphon as I tried to make my way towards shining. I kicked the gryphon in the side of the knee forcing it's leg to bend as it snapped before I grabbed the gryphons blade and rammed it through it's body diagonally starting at the neck and ending below the ribs before I kicked the now dead gryphon to the floor. I charge forward through the gryphon forces occasionally being hit with a slash or stab, I burst into a rather open area and I see a minotaur with its foot planted firmly on shinings head before crushing shinings head into red paste and brain matter.
"CAPTAIN!" my roar of rage and anguish caught the attention of the minotaur and it turned as I began charging towards it. I sheathed my sword and pulled out two combat knives as I charged the minotaur and I jumped up at the minotaur with a look of pure rage plastered on my face with tears pouring out of my rage filled blood hungry eyes. I ram both of my knives into each side of the minotaurs neck with it looking like an x with blood blasting from the minotaurs neck like a geyser.
I land on the floor and draw my sword before slicing diagonally across the minotaurs chest before I spun around in 360 and did the same in the opposite direction forming an x on the minotaurs chest before I rammed my sword straight through the minotaurs chest. I fall to the floor on top of the minotaurs corpse as I hammer my fists into its skull sending blood flying everywhere as the minotaurs skull started caving in.
(Flashback end)
I turn from the grave as I begin walking off drawing a sword as I did and I looked upon the golden hilted very well crafted blade the harboured a ruby on its pommel and I smiled before sheathing the blade.
"So long as I carry your sword you will never be forgotten" the words seemed to echo and radiate around the graveyard as I walked through the gate and began my hike back towards the castle.
Chapter three - and so it begins
The silence of war - chapter 3
I walked into the training ground the sounds of swords clashing magic blasts and arrows flying filling my ears as a small smile found its way across my face with my eyes and armour shining in the beautiful rays of celestias sun. The recruits spotted me standing with the smile still etched to my normally serious face and they all formed a line in front of me and saluted with their own smiles arising on their faces.
"I'm here to give you recruits a speech so why don't you idiots stop smiling so I can get to it" the tone used as I spoke those words seemed to be one filled with anger and high amounts of irritation, all of that simply because they were smiling? Ridiculous right?
"OKay here goes. This war has been going on for the past 7 and a half years with all of the recruits hell even most of the non recruits thinking that peace is still an option despite what our enemies have done. You all need to stop living your stupid fantasies and grow up. Peace is not an option and it never will be and that is what I'm meant to be teaching you because if I don't then you will struggle to kill your enemies and you will all die. Just like shining did. The element bearers. They thought peace was an option and look what happened to them, they're dead. Every single one of them is dead all because they thought that peace was an option during this god forsaken war. If you don't get it through your heads that peace isn't an option then every single one of you is going to die and it won't be anyone elses fault but your own. Now then ont-" my speech was cut short as the castle started shaking as if an earthquake was occuring right beneath our feet, but that was impossible unless. We were under attack. I looked at the recruits and sighed.
"All of you into the barracks and grab your weapons. We're under attack" I ordered my men and they all nodded as they ran inside the barracks to obtain their weapons and their armor. I walked into my office and picked up the sword I had resting against the wall and strapping it to my back next to shinings sword. I left my office soon after and stood before the recruits and I smiled as we marched out of the training grounds and began to march through the castle halls.
Chapter two - the long but short talk
The silence of war - chapter 2
I walked down the empty halls of this once great castle, my eyes trailing along the walls in order to look at the old windows and even older paintings before my feet took me to the throne room and I found myself gazing upon some of the finest works of art this castle has ever held within it. Those works of art being the windows showing the accomplishments of the now deceased bearers of the elements of harmony with the final window being one of the deceased element bearers being put to rest. I turned at the sound of the rooms doors opening before the sight of one princess celestia greeted me and I smiled gently in a rather happy yet greeting way.
"Good morning princess" the words came out so easily but I guess after years of saying the same words that eventually you'd begin speaking them with no issues, as if you were programmed to say those words every morning at a specific moment and time.
"Good morning captain" the princess always said those words now, for the past two years I had taken my best friends place as the guard captain but for some reason unlike with everyone else, I can't bring myself to stop celestia from calling me captain. Maybe it's because of her calm beautiful motherly tone or maybe it's just because it feels right being called such a thing by a superior or maybe just maybe, it's because I'm glad that celestia smiles whenever she calls me by my title, she never smiles now and the only times she genuinely does is when she's with her sister or when she's with me and refers to me as captain. Sometimes she even refers to me as 'her captain' and she always changes to an oddly flirty tone when doing that but we'd both laugh it off mere moments later as if nothing had been happened. Our meeting came to a sadly short close as a guard recruit came through the doors of the throne room.
"Captain we're ready to begin our training. We request you come to the training grounds" the recruit stated seeming to forget the rage I feel whenever someone other then the princess refers to me by the title of captain. I looked at the soldier with high amounts of anger before signing and beginning my journey down to the training hall wishing not to get angry In front of the princess while also just wanting this day to end.