Deferential Peace

Princess Luna had never so wished for the dispelling light of her sister’s grace to shine again in the sky.

The sun was up, as it had been for weeks, but Luna lacked competence with her sister’s light to place its position in the sky. The light of her sister’s grace was, as always, muted by the heavy gray cloud cover that no Pegasus teams could be dispatched to clear away. The fate of Cloudsdale far above was unknown, but as Luna felt the weak rays of mottled sunshine caressing her wings in vain, she felt her situation no less grim than theirs.

Luna shut her eyes for an eternal second, and saw behind her eyelids dancing images of a recent past. Perhaps the only check upon her efforts during the battle had been the fear that if she had fought like any more of a demon, she might have spontaneously metamorphosed again into her fearsome alter ego, Nightmare Moon. Such a result might have been a boon for her friends – or an absolute catastrophe.

Luna cursed herself for her weakness. She had fought for all she was worth, but it hadn’t been enough. She was a princess of Equestria, and the Mare in the Moon of a thousand-year legend. No matter what, she could have - should have done more. She was a one-mare hit squad, capable of sweeping ancient fields of war all by herself. Thus she could not forgive herself for allowing current events to come to pass.

In peace, Luna had disgraced herself with equal measure. She had sat beside her sister at the peace talks, her tongue stayed by the oratory and wisdom of the only pony who could hold it at bay – Celestia, her beloved elder sister. Luna thought that perhaps she too could allow herself to be made the object for her adversary’s pleasure, if it meant mercy for her subjects. But a thousand years of habit ran deep. No matter her expression at the talks, her inward eye had been constantly narrowed at the creatures who would dare defile her realm that sat comfortably across the table. They were invaders, and in another time she would have wrested their still-beating hearts from their chests with her teeth, even as their spears pierced her hide.

But it was a world turned upside-down. Had she given in to her impulses they might have slaughtered her populace wholesale. With encouragement from her sister, that single thought was the only thing keeping Luna from another millennial rampage that was capable of doing far more harm than good. Thus she sat silently, nodded when her sister spoke, and muttered her acceptance of the terms with her hooves crossed behind her back.

At first, Luna thought she could put up with any indignity if it afforded her an opportunity to study her enemy for a weakness. Even the magic-suppression sleeve she managed to accept, but when the guards closed in on her, collar in hand to bind her for all to see, something snapped inside. Tearing herself free of all her bonds by force of sheer desperate will alone, she burned them all to ashes and fled her ancestral home to the song of their dying screams.

Luna shook her mind free of the chains of the past. Her chest heaved as she pushed wet, gray smog through her lungs. Her muscles were rigid and her eyes sharp, but she could still feel the worn in tear-streaks that had matted the fur on her cheeks. Her sorrow was not for her defeat, nor even was it for the defilement of her home. The Princess of the Night would never allow herself the luxury of such feelings. They were tears borne of the one failure she could not forgive. When her sister required her the most, Luna’s foolish pride would not allow her to stand beside Celestia. Thus the covenant of the twin sisters of sun and moon had again been broken, and The Moon, once more, felt herself responsible.

Now, Luna stood alone, and she knew they would come for her without delay. She had fled the throne room and it was too late to take her actions back, but she had not done so for her own freedom. The farther away she got – the farther she could draw the inevitable battle away from witnesses, the greater the chance that Kessen’s troops might not take her transgressions out on her friends, her countryponies, and her dear sister. With that in mind, Luna’s course wound in exhausting spirals, safely avoiding settlements that her pursuers might seek to ravage during their pursuit. As a destination congealed into reality in her brain, she had turned northward, forcing herself through exhaustion towards the northern border with the Crystal Empire.

Perhaps, Cadance’s realm was yet unspoiled. There was no way to know, but it was the only remaining location she could expect any sort of armed assistance. Thus, she flew or galloped like mad, depending on whether or wings or her legs were on the brink of giving out.

Luna’s limit was coming, but the crashing cascades and tall peaks of Neighagra Falls had yet to be traversed. When first she had seen the imposing natural barrier that blotted out the horizon, it occurred to her that she would have to make a choice of what to do with the last of her energy. Fight or flight were her only options, and she wasn’t sure her wings could still carry her high or far enough for flight to work out. If she turned to fight, they might defeat her, and drag her back to Canterlot in disgrace. Or perhaps they would kill her, and if anything she could be a martyr for her cause.

Then again, if she killed them…

Princess Luna bucked at the muddy dirt with her hooves and blasted a visible snort of hot air through her nostrils. Sweat ran in rivulets down her neck, matting her coat and checking the flow of her mane with its weight. Exhaustion cloyed at her senses, threatening to overwhelm her, but her mind was still clear. She was still Princess Luna, and her reserves were not yet spent.

There had never been two choices anyway.

Through her narrowed eyes were the feathery images of her adversaries. They were all around, but the distance they kept spoke of a quiet respect for her powers. It was a standoff, none of them seemingly possessing of the desire to be the first to die. Still, they were everywhere, and in her weakened state she was uncertain if she could destroy them all before they overwhelmed her.

Luna burned up a tiny bit of her dwindling reserves to cast an augmentation spell upon her throat. She then slipped back into the old voice and began to bellow-

“Hear us, for we are the Princess of the Night! We know that thy goal is to beat down our wings and take home thy prize, but thou shalt have none!!” She spun her gaze in a circle, checking every twitch of claw or paw in her direction with a flaring of her naked horn. “Perhaps thou shalt defeat us by weight of numbers alone, but rest assured we will take many of thee with us! Who among thee will be the first? Who is brave enough to be the first to perish in the flames of our night!?”

Luna allowed her words to whip herself into a frenzy of battle lust. Gone were the worries of what might happen to her citizens as a result. Her goal was the Crystal Empire. There she would find reinforcements to retake her homeland, and if she had to spill blood on the way, so be it.

There was a flash of movement somewhere to the southeast. Luna caught it out of the corner of her eye; whatever had caused it was enveloped in the carnal blaze of her magic before she could so much as distinguish it from a spooked doe. She thought she detected another movement to the west – this time she had an extra half-second to identify the object as a rock with a bit of wayward sunshine glinting off of it, before her spell caused it to evaporate like water. She shook her head hard, tousling her soggy mane in a clump behind her neck. She had been certain that light was glinting off of a razor-sharp griffon talon. Hallucinations? Just how far had adrenaline alone carried her?

The third movement was unmistakable, yet this time she gave pause. There before the perimeter of her opponents was a single griffon, standing absolutely still with one foreleg held aloft. Luna didn’t care how old or what gender the beast was – she noted only the rank insignia upon its cap that indicated a minor officer, and the steely look in its eye. She knew that look; it told her that the lieutenant was committed to whatever action it was planning to take.

Luna scoffed at the young officer, spilling out haughty laughter worthy of Nightmare Moon. “Thou leadest this rabble?” She asked, her horn alight again. “Go on. Give thy signal. See if thy soldiers will dare throw themselves upon my horn! But we warn thee to escape when the melee begins, for when we are through with them, we promise thou shalt bleed next!”

Luna had not been entirely truthful to the young officer. She knew that none of his troops wanted to be the first to die, and thus they would never obey his command – but she had no intention of letting him live as long as she promised. The moment his leg came down she would make an example out of him, and she was already rooting through the forbidden file cabinets in her head for the first spell of that would result in the slowest, most painful obliteration imaginable. She needed him to scream for the proper effect.

A tense moment passed. The griffon’s foreleg dropped. Luna’s horn erupted.

Battle was joined faster than the beat of a hummingbird’s wings. Luna’s shot went high and wide, harmlessly turning an oak tree into kindling as a bulky, winged beast slammed into her side. She turned and sunk her blunt equine teeth into his jugular. The attack was not sufficient to injure him, but damage was not part of her plan. Holding him in place for one precious instant, she lit her royal fires again and sent the griffon soldier straight to Tartarus.

Amid screeching growls that did both eagle and lion justice, the griffons swallowed Princess Luna up in an amorphous sea of sharp talons, rending beaks, and mighty paws. Quickly buried under their weight, it would have seemed to the casual observer that there was nothing left in the field but a pile of writhing griffons…until a blade of light sliced out from beneath them. The blade became a canopy that expanded outwards at speed, blasting every interloper clear of Princess Luna’s ragged countenance.

“HA!” Luna cried, now covered in fresh wounds to match the old ones she had received defending her home. “Is that all? Begone, carrion birds, lest we provide thy cousins the vultures with thy own meat upon which to feast!”

Again Luna was struck, and again she retaliated. A second wave of opponents was dispatched, and a third, each sustaining less damage than their predecessors. By the time the fourth wave piled in, the Princess of the Night’s magic had no greater effect than to shear wings, costing some of her assailants a mere temporary loss of flight. A claw caught her neck, and Luna’s chin smacked the dirt so hard her teeth rattled. She thrashed with her wings and still managed to catch a few unprepared legs with fearsome bucking, but additional griffons simply piled atop of her until she could move no more.

Salty tears borne of blood and sweat, as much theirs as her own, marred Luna’s vision. She blinked through them until she noticed another single griffon closing the distance to her over the fallen bodies of his companions. As though reviewing a body of troops, this imposing specimen moved with the tall crest of his plumage proudly on display, carrying himself with a practiced bearing that could only denote leadership. Atop his head he wore a woven crown constructed of interlocking bands of gold, complete with an opal that caught the light and a tall, red feather that stood nearly a foot at attention above his head.

The blood feather. Luna had never seen one before the beginning of the peace talks, but now she knew of the tradition of the red feather, harvested from a vanquished enemy lord and dipped in their blood to grace the brow of a griffon who would rule among his fellows. Iago, who stylized himself the current ‘griffon king’, had been appointed hastily to the role in order to bring his people together in the great united front against Equestria. His broad breast was so thick with plumage that his badges of state, which looked like little more than collections of bits welded together with ribbon attached, were pinned directly to him with neither baldric nor jacket. He carried his finery like booty from a heist, and the scar of ripped feathers that trailed down the side of his head made him look more like a thug than a ruler.

Iago took his time approaching the still-struggling princess. When his claws were but inches from her face in the grass, he tilted his head down at her, the edge of his beak pulling back in an infuriating grin.

“Princess Luna,” He rumbled. “So nice to make your acquaintance again.”

Luna hacked at the dirt that graced her lips. She brought fire to her horn again, but Iago made no move to protect himself from the sparkling light. Instead he merely raised his brow and shrugged.

“Going to kill me?” He stood back a pace and held his forelegs akimbo. “I’m waiting. Make me scream like you did those poor bastards who tried to collar you.”

Luna gritted her teeth. Her temples throbbed almost noticeably under her dark coat. White hot sparks spat from her horn as if from a blacksmith’s hammer. They rained down on the grass, burning it in places, but there was nothing further.

Iago scratched his plumage casually. “Still don’t get it, do you princess? Still so damn high and mighty that beating you once doesn’t teach you anything? We’ve got you all figured out now. And over there?” He pointed at the mountain, “It’s going to be just the same. Hocus pocus has a limit.”

Luna tried to raise her head, but a meaty foreleg crushed it back down again. She found her voice.

“Why?” She muttered, casting her eyes around at the fallen griffons. “Tell me why.”

Iago followed Luna’s eyes. Most of the injured griffons were stirring or being tended in various ways, but a few did not move. “Why?” Iago toyed, “Don’t you know?”

Luna tried again to flare her magic, but her only reward was a piercing pain in her head and a throb of blood vessels that felt on the edge of bursting. Embarrassed, she shook her head.

Iago threw back his head in a hearty laugh. “She doesn’t understand! Isn’t that great, boys?”

Myriad griffons took up the call of their master. As the joviality rolled through them, Iago issued orders to the pile atop of the princess. They parted, several rather large specimens hauling her to her hooves. Iago snapped his talons, and his lieutenant returned – bearing in his grasp another of the rubberized, locking sheathes that would separate Luna from one half of her alicorn nature.

“No!” Luna thrashed again, but the griffons needed only to increase their number to whatever was needed to keep her restrained. She spat a litany of curses, but the words came up against the armor of Iago’s pelt.

“Hold her head still,” He ordered. “Dress her back up the way she’s supposed to be dressed.”

Luna had fled the palace in haste, and thus she was bereft of any of her royal finery. If not for her sparkling mane and the elegant shape of her body she might have resembled a common pony. A claw dug into her mane between her ears and yanked her head back, bearing the softness of her jugular to the circle of predators. The collar they clasped around her neck was lightweight and flexible, but the hide was thick and bespoke well of the fusion that was griffonkind. Luna shut her eyes as she felt the sleeve slip over her horn, locking her away in an impotent cage. She would not give them the satisfaction of a defeated look.

Iago was pacing in deep thought, with one claw in a fist to his beak. He spoke, neither breaking stride nor looking at her.

“So you want to know why, huh?” He asked rhetorically. “Well, I’ll tell you one thing. It’s not because of all that high-and-mighty ‘peace’ junk that Kessen barfs up all the time.”

Luna, her leash now held by the lieutenant, stiffened. She didn’t even appear to notice when the griffons added a tight leather band around her midsection to pin her wings in place. Iago noticed her look and scoffed.

“What, is that really so surprising?” He approached her and took her under the chin, favoring her coat with the prickly sensation of his talons. “Come off it, Princess,” he chuckled. “Let’s put all the politics aside. It doesn’t suit you, and it doesn’t suit me, either. Don’t think that just because I let Kessen do all the talking that I didn’t see that look on your face across the table. He might have been ignoring it, and that dog king idiot was probably too busy thinking about new ways to molest a ruby, but I know revulsion when I see it.” His talon moved, and he left a tiny scratch on her chin. “You wanted to leap across that table and rip my throat out.”

Luna tried in vain to pull away, “And what if I did? Is that not to be expected of an adversary?”

Iago couldn’t contain another hearty laugh. “See that? That’s what I like about you! You’re a bird of prey. Just like me. You used to be an evil monster, until your sister tamed you. Now, you’re just being given over from one master to another.”

“M-my sister is not my—”

“The whole institution is your master, Luna,” Iago cut her off. “You’re a wild black mustang that needs a strong claw to smack you down. Not some posh peace-coddling.”

“You and I are nothing alike,” Luna hissed. “Save for our mutual desire to end one another.”

Iago tickled Luna’s chin and grinned. “We could make sweet music together, you know. You don’t have to be my demeaned little pet. You could give yourself to me willingly.”

Luna opened her mouth to spit at him, but the moment she parted her lips, Iago rammed his beak forcefully into them, prying them open in a kiss between pony muzzle and griffon beak that Luna stumbled clumsily through. Her handler held firm to the leash, forcing her forward as Iago’s head tilted. Luna was appalled to see his eyes close. A griffon king. A consummate hunter, who knew never to take his eyes away from an opponent, was insulting her by doing so now. A pang of anger over the fact that he would take her so lightly forced her to action. She pulled her tongue back into her mouth, and as he went on pursuit, she bit down as hard as she could.

A shock of pain caused Iago to retreat, wrenching his head away from hers. To his credit, he never cried out. Luna was yanked nearly off her hooves by the choking leash for her trouble, but Iago stuck out a claw to stay her handler’s wrath. Shaking his head sharply, the griffon king opened his beak and dabbed a talon inside. It came back bloody.

To the surprise of all present, Iago began to laugh.

“Never much cared for a weak kiss myself!” Iago roared, passion flaring in his eyes as he fluttered his wings proudly. “You prove my point, Princess Luna. Silks and lace and elegant crowns just aren’t your style!”

Luna bared her teeth, unfettered by the lack of Nightmare Moon’s fangs, “Release me!”

“More!” Iago shouted.

“Release me or I will destroy you!”

“Louder!”

“RELEASE ME, fiend, or by my word on the tombs of the fallen, I will not stop until I have one day licked the copper of your blood from my hoof!”

“Excellent!” Iago cried. Snatching the leash away from his bewildered lieutenant, the griffon king howled again in approval at his pet’s threatening words. He yanked until he was muzzle to beak with The Moon, and shouted his words despite the proximity of her ears.

“Do you want to know why they’re willing to die in droves, just to rush you and bring you down? Because every griffon here is being paid a princess’s ransom for every piece of you they bring in! Do you know why you can’t defeat us? It’s because you ponies don’t understand us!”

Iago yanked until Luna was forced to cough against the stranglehold around her neck. He went on-

“Know thy enemy, warrior princess, isn’t that the first rule of war? But you don’t know your enemy at all! You haughty ponies talk about how all dogs are gem-encrusted idiots, minotaurs are disorganized nomads, and griffons thrive off of nothing but greed. And you know what? You’re right. You as much as say it, but you’re so self-absorbed with your sweet notions of friendship and acceptance than you won’t believe it. My men are here because they’re going to fly away from here richer than they’ve ever been in their gray little lives, and to them, that’s worth it! Your land? Your resources? Your bits? Ha! If it weren’t for the alliance, my brothers and sisters would pick your subjects dry of every last scrap!”

Iago shoved, and Luna topped roughly onto her back in the dirt. Above her, blotting out the vague haze of the sun, the griffon king loomed-

“But we won’t do that. I won’t allow my people to do that, because we’d just end up making another Griffonstone out of Canterlot. Kessen might be a bag of piss and wind, but he’s right. He knows it. I know it. Even that smelly canine in the palace basement knows it. So we follow him, the dogs get shiny baubles to gawk at, and we get enough hard currency to satisfy our lust. So we can stay in power forever without destroying ourselves.”

Luna squinted up at her adversary. “So that’s truly all you griffons care about…mere coin…”

“Mere? Mere?” Iago’s brow darkened. “That’s one hell of a thing to say, Little Miss Moon. Griffonstone is garbage. You don’t know what our lives are like. You don’t know us at all.” He nodded at some of his gathered troops. “Tie her down. The way I told you before.”

No fewer than eight griffon guards set upon Luna. They flipped her over and bound her limbs tightly to stakes that had been rammed into the dirt. Her tail was tied up against the small of her back as well, and a loop around her head bound it to her forelegs. When they were finished, Luna was immobilized with her chin on the back of her hooves, her forelegs in the dirt, and her rump, unguarded by her tail, pointing towards the noonday sun.

Iago reached out for Luna’s plush backside and roughly caressed it. He took in a lewd breath. “Mmm, smell that sweaty workhorse. I’m gonna enjoy this.”

To a chorus of lewd catcalls from the surrounding griffons, Iago slide atop his new mate and made himself at home mounting her. At length she felt the tapered spire of his drakehood prodding between the cleft of her rump, but the griffon king did not pierce her right away. Instead he planted his claws in the grass to either side of her head and reached down until his beak was near her ear. His words were so hushed they were almost tender.

“Now you know why they die, princess. But do you know why I lead them to their deaths? Because for every griffon I lose, I get a bounty ten times the size every one of them gets for a day’s work. You see, they’re worth more dead to me than alive. And you? You’re just a perk.”

As he spoke, Iago’s tip, dribbling with lubrication to coat and weaken Luna’s defenses, found its mark and began to paint her opening. “You belong to me now, so get used to the idea. You’re gonna lay here and take it like a hen, in front of my troops, and then you’re going to be led home with a bellyful of my seed. You’re gonna spend a lot of years too heavy to fly, until you’re so used to being a breeder that you’ll be in this position every night when I come to bed just out of habit. But don’t worry-“ Iago grunted as he began to pierce his prize, “-I won’t lord peace over you. I know you don’t really give a damn about peace. I’ll treat you so rough that you’ll be up on your haunches begging me to hit you harder. That’s what you really want.”

Luna bucked, but her hips did little more than wiggle around his girth, causing Iago to mutter deliciously as he slid in deeper. She felt his feline scrotum brush her perineum, as he lifted his forelegs from the ground and planted them on her back. He used the leverage to push up atop her as he pulled his hips back, only to ram himself again straight into her core.

Luna could not prevent a whimper from escaping her lips. All around she felt their eyes on her, and as King Iago built himself into a rhythm, she pictured herself beneath him, properly mounted and accepting him as he went about the business of his own pleasure. At length her flower began to open, as visions of a phantom stallion bringing her to her knees in private began to dance through her exhausted inebriation.

“Ngh…s-see…” Iago muttered as slapping noises arose from their coupling, “…you don’t want some diplomatic wuss. You need fire. You need me.”

“…ngghhh…hahhnnghh…”

Exhausted and long deprived, Luna gave up on physical resistance and focused upon the war in her mind. She fought to stay afloat on the tides of pleasure her captor pressed into her. Eventually she found no choice but to detach herself – to hide away in her own head while she let her body betray her in full.

“…gnnh!”

Luna’s femininity bloomed, and Iago built himself into a frenzy of breeding lust. As many of his troops clamored in for the show, stepping over the bodies of the fallen that they would no longer have to compete with for bits, Iago slammed into the deepest part of his prize. He held himself there, emptying his churning testicles in burst after pent-up burst of thick griffon seed.

When Iago was finished with the business of drakes, he flopped down atop Luna, treating himself to the use of her body as a pillow. He flexed his girth inside of her a few more times, driving his presence home, and enjoyed a few pecks from his sharp beak into the yielding coat of her neck. The lieutenant produced a bit and fitted it into Luna’s mouth, effectively silencing her as the king lounged atop her, playing with her mane as he shared inconsequential stories with his companions.

Iago did not remove himself from his mate’s breeding channel until he was ready to get off of her entirely. Had she possessed the ability to speak Luna might have requested the dignity of being taken back to the palace under her own power, but bound and gagged they denied her even that – instead, her hooves were tied to a pole that two strong griffons carried in the air between them, the princess hanging helplessly upside down as they went.

The entire flight home, Princess Luna stared at the backside of King Iago, watching his tail and his fuzzy scrotum swing in the breeze. She wondered how many more times she would be made his partner, and if he could even make good on his promise to mate with her in the first place. Certainly he would try, and certainly this would not be the last time she would accept him.

Fire burned behind Luna’s eyes. The fire of Nightmare Moon. She could feel her alter-ego, fast asleep…but never gone.

She wondered which among evils was truly the greater.