“FOR ITALY! FOR THE KING!”
Author's Note
A\N: first fanfic. Ever and first creative writing in more than 10 years (so this chapter is a sort of experiment too see the reaction i will get from the public, this is why it is so short. If people will enjoy it i will try to write longer, and more adventurous, chapters), also I’ am not native of English, being Italian, so don’t expect great things from me, also the story will take enormous historical liberties about the Cefalonia’ s massacre and when I have ended the research about it I will rewrite all this to be more historically accurate and entertaining.
Sorry for the boring super-descriptive chapter (it happen when you write physics reports and argumentative themes for 5 years non-stop) and the quality of the lexicon and syntax , oh and the grammar too. I hope I will improve in time. I also treasure Feedback, reviews and comments even if they say I write garbage( but you could make me cry doing that), please highlight my errors if you can so I can correct them: every help is welcome.
Lastly please forgive me for my excessive use of engraves: they are unfortunately part of my writing style and I use them a lot and often one is inside another that is inside another and so on, so I apologize in advance for the points where the story main frame became difficult to follow because of them.
DISCLAIMER: I don’t owe My little pony friendship is magic Hasbro did, I also don’t own any historical character I will use them only because they are of public dominion, I do owe eventual OCs I would use in the story.
“FOR ITALY! FOR THE KING!”
“FOR ITALY! FOR THE KING!”
Division general Antonio Gandin awoke at the sensation of humid grass blades tickling his lips and nose, with some of them even being inside his nostrils, he was in fact lying face down, uncomfortably, on his belly with his arm and legs sprayed like he was a child doing a snow angel during a winter day.
He promptly rolled on his back his first sad thought being ‘ i should be dead’.
This because he remembered that after the announcement of the armistice between the Anglo-Americans and Italy, on the eight of september 1943, he and the forces under his command, mainly elements of the “Aqui” infantry division but also “finanzieri”, “carabinieri” and some troops of the royal navy, resisted the Germans’ attempt of disarmament fighting them on the field for many days with heavy losses and finally surrending to the enemy.
After the surrender he along with many of the soldiers and officers under his command has been put to a wall and shot his last words, that he had fiercely said in spite of death, being “For Italy! For the king!”.
He sighted inwardly ‘how many have i killed with that act of defiance? Even if the majority of the men wanted it? even if i tried to reach an agreement with the Germans? hadn’t my own soldiers and officers forced my hand in the end? And even so how could i convict them when the Nazis’ conditions were so unbearable for our honour and dignity as soldiers? But at the same time they would have ended prisoners of the Germans and brought in those camps; everyone knew that those ships wouldn’t go to Italy like they promised.
Anyhow he was snapped from his thoughts by the buzzing wings of a fly that has flown too close to one of his ears that in response twitched, a thing a human hear wasn’t supposed to do,
”What the hell!?” the general exclaimed incredulous,
he promptly reach an hand to his head only to stop it when his arm reached his field of view: instead of an human hand like he has expected his arm ended with a black stump and the little piece of his arm that came out of the ornate sleeve of the blue uniform, with the patch representing his rank of division general, that was one silver line with a silver circle on top of it on a “Greek” under which and on the sleeve’s lapel there was a brooch representing a red and silver crown, he wore was covered in deep brown fur.
He suddenly sat up like he normally would this causing some pain on his backside, he looked between his newly acquired equine and double jointed hind legs, at least he still wore his uniform’s pants which had two deep blue stripes running down their sides and end tucked, strangely enough, in his ordinance boots, to find a blond tail
‘I have turned into a horse, no wait, I am too small, i think I am some sort of pony ,as crazy as it could sound’ he though a little irritate and stunned by the realization.
it took him all of his military discipline to not freak out but after some deep breaths he managed some semblance of calm and decided to do an assessment of his situation and establish some priorities: water, food and shelter first.
'and some exploration of the area too: I don't think this is the afterlife after all but maybe some of my men are here too he pondered thoughtfully.
He was sure like hell he was no more on Cefalonia, and probably Earth so after some attempts at standing who failed miserably with his face in the morbid terrain and grass along with patches of mud and dirt on his once pristine uniform he manage shakily to stand on all four hooves and after some fail attempt at walking moving only a limb at a time he managed the walking pattern of a quadruped right.
After this problem has been solved he took a look at his surrounding: he was in clearing, probably in a forest, from where he could hear the normal calls of birds and various animals he recognised along with more threatening sounds he had never heard before, surrounded by evergreen trees that looked like pines and firs from back home and near the spot he awoke there was a pond.
He shakily took the few steps that separate him from the pond to take a look at his new form and to drink some water, he felt in fact very thirsty, when he was near enough he took his first look at himself: he was still wearing his general abbuttonate, with silver buttons, uniform with the four pouches, two on his breast and two under his waist, the leather belt around his waist, with a metal buckle and a shoulder connecting the belt to the insignia on his right shoulder, the insignias which show his rank , two on his shoulders and two near his neck, his shirt and necktie that were also visible on the low part of his neck and lastly there was his cap with a golden eagle patch with the Savoia’s emblem on his chest in the front of it and a “Greek” all around the cap an above his cap's visor.
Tied to his belt there was also his holster and inside it the trusty Beretta M34 pistol also secured to said belt, on the right side, by a security cordon laced to the gun's metal ring at the base of its handle, even if he don’t know how to use the weapon with hooves it reassured him to have his gun by his side. On his forehead there was also the reason his cap had not fallen from his head during his unsuccessful attempts to stand properly: it was a brown horn, the same shade of colour of his coat protunding from his forehead and emerging from an hole in his cap where the visor meet the rest of the hat.
‘so now I am a unicorn, figures, i hope there are not so many dangerous mythological beast in this world’, he though not so amazed by the discovery.
Inspecting himself more he confirmed having a blond mane the same colour of his tail and deep brown fur he noticed that he had light brown eyes too even if they were comically enormous.
After concluding his self inspection and after taking some cautious sips of water, that have resulted not poisonous he noticed some rocks near the pond limits so to test the grabbing and holding ability of his hooves he tried to pick one of them up and with his surprise he managed to do that without a problem, he proceeded to move his foreleg backward and swiftly forward throwing the rock into the pond causing a splashing sound, a little explosion of water and some ripples on the naturally calm watery surface.
Doing this he realized that the range of movement of his new forelegs was vastly superior compared to the one of normal horses and ponies back home; he realized too that, even if it wasn’t his hand, his hoof was capable of grabbing and holding things quite well. After doing this the general spent some time learning how to trot and gallop considering learning how to move in his new form quite the important achievement.
After this he decided to explore the forest and find some food: meat would be perfect, he had explored his new elongated mouth with his tongue that was longer than his human tongue and had this way find out that he still had incisors and canines so he was still an omnivorous, since he didn’t know what fruits could be dangerous for him.
So he approached the right border of the clearing but before he could take his first step on the forest’s ground of death leaves, branches, roots and plants of various heights a sound came from the nearby bushes on his left and a light brown blur came out of it at top speed slamming into him. Antonio and the figure fell onto the grassy ground with the second on top of the first, its muzzle mere inches from his.
“Fuck!” was the thing that escaped from the general mouth when he has been hit;
now sprawled onto the ground he looked at his too near assailant that he discovered was a seemingly very scared and agitated doe.
She hastily stand up on all four a little dazed from the impact and looking at him said fearfully only a word: “Run”.
but before the soldier could acknowledge the notion of a talking, in perfect English nonentless, deer or dwell more in her appearance, she seemed exhausted and his light brown coat was all messed up, dirty and presented various bloody spot in different state of healing where a whip had clearly hit her more than a time, she also had a bruised and plagued spot around her neck where a metallic collar seemed to have been placed, other tree figures came out from the same spot the doe had and appeared way less friendly than her especially with their weapons drawn.
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To say that Spring Flower was scared was an understandment seeing how her life has gone downhill pretty fast since she had left her home forest, the “Black forest” positioned in the no deer land between the Equetrian and griffin empire borders, to seek help from the brutal incursions the Diamond dogs’ clan has been launching against her home and people for no apparent reason, if not to take more slaves, from their dirty caves excavated under the mountain overshadowing her tribe forest: the “White Stag” mountain.
Unfortunately, even if she was a trained scout in a forest environment, she had near to not experience of the outside world and had not expected those dogs intelligent enough to lay an ambush near the dirty street to the first pony settlement of “Hollow valley”: she had only started her journey outside the forest, it would had been at least a three days journey to the pony village following the street south of her home, for those nasty creatures to literally jump out of the ground and abduct her with a metallic nest the bigger of the dogs was holding.
After being stripped of her light ebony armour, curved knife and saddlebags she has been donned with a metal ring around her neck which was attacked to a metal chain jutting it to a metal bar attached by rivets to the rocky ground of the cave where her and the other slaves, of her tribe, were forced to dig precious stones from the cave walls, being whipped if not fast enough , after hours of digging they were separated from the chain and closed into small holding cells with heavy wooden doors and given few food consisting in dirty water in a bowl and rotting hay.
She managed to escape when a drunk and young guard had decided to entertain himself beating one of the prisoner, bringing stupidly with him the cell keys, to death: she managed to kill the guard headbutting him into a wall and silencing him definitively stomping on his head with her front hooves, one of the prisoner had after managed to free her of the collar with the keys and open the door the guard had managed to close behind him after entering. Unfortunately the other slaves were too weak to escape and she has had to left them behind promising she would return for them with help.
She has been on the run from then, she had emerged from the diamond dogs’ cave after avoiding various search parties and guards even causing a distraction for the one at the entrance leaving a ruby, she has found in the death guards’ body satchel, behind her in plain sight from the entrance; the guard has rushed to take it completely oblivious of the deer crouched behind a dark corner near the entrance who had swiftly come out of her hiding spot and out of the cave.
She has been running for a day non-stop, under the rain that had just now stopped, from the dogs in an unknown direction and having lost her sense of direction she had found herself in another forest with the dogs practically on her tail, she has ran through branches scratching the skin under her wet coat and with her muddy hooves lifting the death leaves in her hurry in such an exhausted state that she didn’t care for stealth.
“Buck! Buck!” she said desperately between her panting breaths still running through the forest with the howling and barking of the dogs ever closer to her position.
So close in fact that she could smell their putrid smell in the rainy air. Spring saw a bush before her and jumped through it………only to slam painfully into something that on closer inspection reveal itself to be somepony, an unicorn specifically, deep brown fur, blond mane and light brown eyes; he was also wearing strange ornate clothes that, with the pony wearing them, emanated an air of authority but she had no time to think about it and hastily stood up from lying on him.
“Run!” she said to him fearfully before trying to restart running for her dear life only to find out she had hurted her left hindleg during the crash with the pony.
‘Damn! I can’t run anymore and hiding is out of question: what can I do now?’ she thought desperate.
But time was up and from the bushes she has come from three figures emerged the first the smaller had a club in his paws composed by a simple wooden stick with a big and ragged stone at the tip, he also wore a dirty straw jacket, the second had a club too of the same type the first had and also wore a leather breast and finally the last one the bigger who had a rusty sword, a crude piece of iron slightly curved and jagged, wore a chainmail on is upper body and seemed to be the boss of the small group.
The thing they all had in common besides their dirty grey fur, amused grins and terrible stink was the glint in their eyes at seeing their prey along with a possible new slave.
“Wow! what a lucky shot for us eh guys?” the boss snickered “we not only have found our escaping little bitch who killed Boris but also one of those pretty ponies and a pointy one at that! He would do an excellent slave and substitute to that doe after we have finished with her don’t you think this too guys?” he said gleefully at his nodding mastiffs.
The pony, who in the meantime had extracted a L shape object from his belt’s holster, the thing was attached to said belt by a cordon of some sort, with his right hoof holding it from what seem the wrong part like it was a club, furrowed his brow in what seemed anger and indignation before saying with an heavy voice:
“You will not lay a finger onto the miss or myself if I am still standing” the pony stated
She could tell that he was bluffing abaut his capacity of defending her and himself by the sweet on his forefront, under his visor, even if he really seemed ready to fight until the end and without fear
‘Dear Celestia! we really need a miracle right now’ she though resigned to her horrible fate
“Ah! The pony has some gut, I will enjoy breaking him back home, but enough talking now! Take him first guys the deer has obviously some problem moving since she hadn’t fled yet” the lead dog barked
The pony had assumed a fighting stance with his right foreleg, the one holding the strange club, raised high, the backlegs sprayed behind him and his left frontleg slightly pulled forward.
“What are you doing!? You can’t take them all with that thing! You will die or end captured! Run when you still can!” Spring screamed incredulous that this pony would try to protect her rather than run from his life.
“I will never back down when there is an innocent life at stake I can’t permit me to do so as a general of the royal Italian army and as a man of honour” he stated without an hint of fear in his voice holding his ground against the two slowly advancing dogs, they would be on him in seconds.
‘general? It would explain his ornate clothes but shouldn’t he be wearing armour instead? Italian royal army? Is it a branch of the equestrian royal guard? and what is a ma………..’ her train of thoughts was interrupted by a deafening thunderous noise and one of the advancing dogs falling to the ground with a bleeding hole in his chest, she had tucked her ears down and have done good at doing this because the noise came again two time in rapid succession.
The dog with the leather breastplate fell with a hole between his eyes and his boss fell too with a confused expression at the appearance of a bloody hole in his chainmail armour caused by something too small and fast to be seen.
Spring Flower looked at where the sounds have come to see two ponies that wore a similar attire to that of the commander only grey with helmets, more pouches on the belt and significantly less ornate, one, an earth pony, with a black coat and red mane and tail and purple eyes, the other, a pegasus, white with an orange mane and tail and blue eyes, running towards the general and stopping in front of him extending their right foreleg forward in a sort of salute she hadn’t seen before, which the general replicated, the black one saying ,with a completely stoic expression even if his and his comrade eyes betrayed a deep happiness:
“I am corporal Mauro Antonelli and the other soldier here is private first class Andrea Rossi we are both in force of the17th infantry regiment “Aqui” and we are happy to have found you sir. Colonel Cessarri have sent several scout parties with the order of looking for you…” the black soldier trailed off, in a complete foreign language, when his eyes fell on her followed by the ones of his comrade.
The white one hastily shouldered a large stick from his back, that the black pony had too, and proceeded to stand on his backlegs, wings extended for more balance ,holding the thing against his right shoulder supporting it with his left forehoof under the forward part of it and the other hoof reaching for a little spike of metal near the bulkiest wooden part of the object: the metal tube that sticked out of the front part of the stick pointed directly on her who was beginning to be pretty scared from the thing she now was quite certain being some sort of weapon.
The general saw that and launched himself against the white pony screaming in the same foreign language the earth pony has used before:
“Don’t shoot!”
Just when the two collided the metal end of the stick exploded
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Princess Celestia was sitting on her marble throne in Canterlot and before her at attention in her throne room was the current captain of the Day royal guard a Pegasus by the name of Bronze Sword, she had sensed a great magical disturbance earlier that day coming from the nopony zone between the borders of her kingdom and the griffin empire and she had talked with her sister Luna about this and decided to send a reconnaissance squad of royal guards to see what was happening there since in that place and to her knowledge there were only a clan of diamond dog and a tribe of deer and neither of them could have caused such a show of magic; there was also a tongue of desert shore on the rightmost part of the nopony land facing the "Eternal ocean" but it was of no importance too.
“So Bronze Sword you would have to pick up five of the best and fastest pegasi in the guard along with an officer of your choosing and send them to this mission, and remember be stealthy and don’t attract unwanted attention this mission being one of reconnaissance so don’t pick any fight and flee if attacked. When you have done came to report directly to me their findings. Also I know it would be an at least a week long trip from here to the objective location so remember to prepare according to this knowledge. Now go dismissed.” Celestia stated calmly.
The captain bowed and exited the room to obey her orders but her gut was telling her that this would fastly became a dire situation even so she decided to ignore the feeling and waiting the report before became worried about something that could really be nothing.
So for now she would wait and see.
