Alter: Lineage

I was entered the throne room with the usual announcement from the guards, getting all eyes in the room on me. The present occupants were a mix of familiar and not-so faces. Celestia was the most notable, of course, being a seven foot tall woman with long, flowing hair, bright eyes, and garbed in a white and gold regal summer dress. Her crown gleamed atop her head as her soft, compassionate eyes made their way over to me, a gentle smile on her face. The next regular was Grael, asleep on the floor next to Celestia's throne where the eternal monarch had reached over the arm of her chair and had been petting the wolven behemoth.

The other two, however, were quite an enigma. Philomena had been right with her deductions, as they were certainly from up north. Very far up north, too. They were both women, one in her late fifties by the looks of it with greying blonde hair, and the other being a younger blonde, somewhere between her mid to early thirties. They were garbed in chainmail and cloaks, as custom of the warriors of the north, packs by their sides with large, round shields and a sword each. The presence of such expensive-looking swords told me that these two weren't just a bunch of farmers that had come to seek assistance. This was definitely someone important.

I looked over their rune tattoos as I walked towards them, the eldest blonde certainly having much more of them, several visible on her hands and fingers, also possessing tattoos on her cheeks and forehead. The youngest had less, but they were still visible tracking up her exposed forearms, as well as several objects tattooed on her. A war horn on her neck, an axe on her hand, and what appeared to be a bear just above her right elbow. A rather exotic bunch indeed.

"Richter, my dear, so happy you could join us.," Celestia said, her voice booming through the throne room as it always did. "I have a request to make of you."

"And what would that request be?" I asked Celestia, coming to a stop just before the little group, getting a deep bow from both women to which I responded with a polite nod and a smile.

"Our friends from the north have come to us with a plea for help," Celestia explained. "Their country is currently wrapped up in a civil war, with the rightful ruler facing down a hostile takeover from an outsider. Now, our friends have assured me that they require no direct military intervention on our part, and instead have requested the assistance of your father. I've already spoken with him and he said he'd be more than happy to lend his expertise at commanding armies."

"So... where do I come in?" I asked.

"I merely wished to know if you'd like to tag along with your father to observe how he commands?" Celestia offered. "A learning experience like this is quite a rare one, and as there's always a chance a prince like yourself may have to command an army of his own one of these days, I believe it would do you good to see your father in action to get some firsthand experience of what wartime strategy is really like."

I crossed my arms for a brief moment, the instant desire to say no flaring up like a thousand torches in me as my lack of any and all want to travel for days to some frozen wasteland made itself known. I considered saying no then and there, honestly preferring to just sit on my ass, training, and sleeping until I genuinely didn't have to... but at the same time, Celestia was right: this was a rare opportunity. One that I'm not sure I'd ever get ever again if I passed it up now.

I thought back to my conversation with Twilight. How she'd mentioned my lack of desire to improve myself would only lead to misery and pain later on down the line. She was completely right, as she often was, and I had no counterargument to make. There may come a time in the new future where I had to pick up sword and shield, march out onto the frontlines, and fight alongside Equestrian men and women. There might come a time where the lives of thousands were depending on what call I made in the war room...

So getting to sit in a comfortable chair and learning from my father's decisions, seeing what he did and didn't do throughout a campaign, would only benefit me in my life. I took a deep, slow breath, weighing up my laziness versus my reasons to accept the offer before coming to a decision.

"I think it's for the best," I nodded. "War isn't a game, and making the wrong call in a dire situation can mean the difference between a hard-fought victory and a crushing defeat. I feel like watching my father command an army, seeing what he does, is something that's only gonna help me later on. Get a feel of how to handle different situations, y'know?"

"An excellent point made, Richter," Celestia said an approving smile, then turning to the messengers once more. "Asta, do you mind if Richter attends?"

"If it is what you wish, Your Majesty," the eldest, the one I assumed was named Asta responded. "I trust he shall not get in the way of his father's work?"

"I'll stay on a chair in the back of the room and be very quiet," I said with a smile. "I promise."

"Very well," Asta nodded.

"Are we still capable of departing tomorrow?" Jorunn asked, crossing her arms.

"I can teleport you back if you wish, so you may rest and recover a few days longer," Celestia offered.

"I'm afraid we must decline the offer of rest, Your Majesty," Asta responded. "Time is of the essence, and as soon as Knight-Commander Armour is able to assume command, the better it shall be for our kingdom."

"If you insist," Celestia nodded, sitting up straight and removing her hand from Grael, the Direwolf perking up slightly as he was roused from his slumber. "Richter, make as many preparations as you need to, but be ready to leave at dawn tomorrow. We'll be waiting for you by the barracks."

I bit back an annoyed groan at the need to be awake before dawn. I barely ever fell asleep before eleven o'clock and needed a good twelve or thirteen hours before I woke up fully-rested.

"Of course, grandmother," I said with a nod, looking at the northerners with a gentle smile. "I shall see you two in the morning."

"Until then," Asta nodded, both bowing in a respectful manner before making their way out of the throne room.

There was a moment of silence in the throne room as the doors closed, leaving only the three of us alone in the wide expanse of the ancient area. Celestia broke the silence in a matter of moments with a loud, deflating sigh, sliding down in her throne slightly and looking at me with a tired expression.

"Rough day?" I asked.

"I hate my life," she responded curtly.

"Who doesn't?"

"Before our lovely ladies came in and asked to borrow my master strategist, I've dealt with negotiations over a farmer's revolt in the southern cities, bandit attack reports from the three bordering states, a request to marry me from that king who rules over the place that makes all the wine-"

"-again?" I interrupted in an astonished manner.

"Yup. Seems the big guy thinks that he'll wear me down eventually," Celestia nodded, rubbing her eyes quickly. "On top of that I've had the usual super-fun audiences with foreign dignitaries complaining about the fact not everyone in the realm wants to lick their boots, have had to sit down with an actual madman to negotiate buying his prize horses from him before he turns them into shoelaces-"

"-what?"

"-and it's also only two o'clock in the afternoon," Celestia finished. "I can't retire to my chambers until the working day is done, which it won't be for another five hours."

"Where's Luna right now, anyway?" I asked, noting the lack of the younger sibling.

"Off doing other things that probably aren't helping," Celestia moped. "Do you mind if I make myself more comfortable?"

"Uh... no?" I questioned.

She responded by popping open the clasps on her dress around her neck and stomach, exhaling loudly in relief afterwards as the tension of the dress' tight folds were released.

"You have no idea how hard it is to wear these things with my figure for as long as I do," she said, shifting slightly to get more comfortable before kicking off her shoes. "The winter ones are even worse because those ones have 'warmth padding' that's basically just a corset in them."

"Ever just thought about running around naked?" I suggested. "It'd make me happier."

"And a lot of other people, I'm sure," she said with a cute smile. "I promise that when I eventually go insane from my eternal workload and lose my will to live, on the day I take my own life, I'll do just that. A whole day in court completely in the nude."

"I would say I'd look forward to that, but I don't really want you to die," I shrugged. "So maybe we can just schedule a 'nude Celestia day' just for me, eh?"

"Well, if your father says you perform amicably in your duties for this little venture, I might consider it," Celestia said, winking playfully.

"Then I'll make sure to be on my best behaviour," I said, bowing my head and turning to leave. "I'll see you around, Celestia."

"Be safe," she said with a nod and a smile.

I headed out of the throne room and decided the best bet was to check in with my father and get a basic idea of what exactly the situation was. I figured, with how early in the afternoon it was, he'd probably still be working. It was a nightmare to find him on busier days, so I hoped he'd be somewhere close by and not too packed to talk properly.

After asking around, I found out he was filling in for the quartermaster, something that meant he'd most likely be alone and unoccupied, for the most part, which would give me a chance to talk to him. I made my way to the quartermaster's office, knocking loudly on the door and waiting for a response.

"Enter!" my father called out.

I did as told, walking into the room and noting the large pile of books and scrolls decorating the desk, floor around it, and even a few of the windowsills were decorated with the old parchment. I also spotted the colourful visage of my mother sat in an armchair in the corner of the room, legs crossed over each other and eyes buried in a large tome.

"Hi, sweetie," she called to me without looking up.

"Afternoon, mother," I said, looking at my father who was sweeping a hand through his messy blue hair. "You doing okay, father?"

"I would be if not for the fact that our quartermaster was apparently a moron," he said, cross-referencing two scrolls with an irritated expression before turning to Cadance. "I told you he'd marked down the same shipment twice."

"And I never disagreed. After him getting lazy for three month's of supply delivery and just repeating the same stock numbers despite half of the second shipment being missing, I'm more than capable of believing this idiot can't keep track of the sun," Cadance shrugged.

"Why did we hire him again?" Shining asked. "Who conducted the initiation?"

"Not sure... let me check..." Cadance said, thumbing pages through the book she was reading until she got over halfway through it, dragging a well-maintained nail down the page before coming to a stop and rolling her eyes irritably. "George Jorgrun."

"His fucking father," Shining said with a growl of disbelief. "Nepotism at it's finest."

"So I'm guessing that daddy dearest got his moron son a job he wasn't cut out for and now the rest of the damn castle is paying for it," Cadance sighed, flicking a strand of her fringe out of her face before looking up at me. "Sorry we're giving you the cold shoulder, sweetie, it's just that we're in a bit of a state right now."

"What's the problem?" I asked, leaning against the wall beside the door.

"Our genius quartermaster has been writing down whatever the hell he feels like in our stock ledgers for well over three years now, making everyone who doesn't spend their time neck-deep in the storehouses, so everybody that isn't him has been under the impression that his numbers are accurate."

"And they aren't?" I asked.

"Oh my, that's an understatement," Shining said with a morbid chuckle. "The man has put down in these ledgers that the castle has plenty of halberds locked away in the depths of the storehouses ready to be used for replacements should the guard need them... and it turns out that when Celestia gave the go-ahead to switch over the entire guard's weaponry to allow their current arms to be repaired due to poor maintenance... do you want to know how many replacement weapons we found?"

"None?" I asked.

"Normally, I'd say that was correct. But we found a massive amount of replacements. Replacements spears in the area the halberds were meant to be stored in," Shining growled.

"What does that tell you, sweetie?" Cadance asked me.

"That either the quartermaster is a lying jackass who attempted to cover his ass by moving spears around and hoping nobody would notice?" I asked.

"Close. Care to explain, Shining?" Cadance offered her husband.

"When we brought him in to ask him why he'd been filling in the paperwork wrong, he insisted he hadn't been. When we took him to the storehouses for him to 'show us where they were'... he walked right up to the spears, pointed at them, and looked at us as if we were morons," Shining said, looking at me dead in the face as he finished his sentence.

"You're kidding me?" I asked in disbelief.

"Oh, how I wish I was not," he responded. "And not only that, he had been filling the numbers in wrong, which we proved to him later. So now your mother and I have been sat here for the past eight hours reading through every single thing he's ever signed off on, running back and forth to the storehouses, and making sure it's all correct."

"I'm guessing none of it is?"

"You certainly are good at this game, aren't you?" Cadance chuckled with a warm smile. "And all this when your father's meant to be preparing to lead a war campaign soon."

"Yeah, that's why I'm here," I said, looking back at my father. "I'm tagging along for that."

"What?" Cadance asked in a displeased tone.

"You are?" Shining questioned with a smile on his face. "Really?"

"According to who?" Cadance growled.

"Celestia offered me the chance to go so that I could gain some 'war room' experience," I shrugged. "Sit around and watch dad do his thing and maybe pick up a trick or two along the way."

"That's great!" my father grinned.

"No it isn't," Cadance said, closing the book and glaring at both of us. "I don't know why you're so excited, but the idea of throwing my baby boy into an active war zone isn't something that warms my cockles, Shining."

"Oh come on, Cadance, the boy's better trained than most of the soldiers we have leading battle charges nowadays," Shining said, coming to my defence. "Not only that, but he's as capable a mage as the best humans we've got, is an expert at terrain navigation, and is pretty much one of the best trackers we have for both humans and monsters. He can handle sitting in a room and watching me lean over a table and yell at people."

"Is it really all commanding is?" I asked with a cocked eyebrow.

"Lot of pointing, too," he shrugged. "Very tiring physically."

"I see," I smirked.

"Can we not joke about this?" Cadance asked, crossing her arms in a discontented fashion. "I'm not okay with throwing my boy into the fire."

"Yet you're fine with me going?" Shining asked. "Thanks, honey."

"You're a trained soldier with over twenty years worth of combat experience," Cadance glared.

"And yet the first time I stepped out onto the battlefield, I was a sixteen year old moron who barely knew which end of a pike was the sharp one," Shining pointed out. "Richter, at his age, has had over thirteen years of training with every weapon type you can run into on the battlefield, magic casting, and survival training. He's already infinitely better trained, disciplined, and equipped than at his age than I was until I was thirty five."

Cadance pursed her lips, eyes glancing back and forth between myself and my father, and then lowering to the floor. Her chest rose and fell for a brief moment, clearly taking calming breaths as she thought about the situation again. I cast my eyes over to my father, noting him doing the same before giving me a wink and a smile, a gesture that made me feel more confident.

"Do you want to be the woman that furthers his success?" Shining asked. "Or the one that stands in the way of it?"

Silence reigned for a long moment, the two of us pretty much holding our breath in anticipation, before Cadance let out a flustered sigh, throwing herself back in the chair and growling loudly.

"Okay, fine!" she snapped. "He can go. But he better come back the same cute, adorable, perfect little angel he left as, or so help me, I'll castrate you."

"She's never this worried about me leaving for war," he said to me with a chuckle. "I lost a leg once and she still didn't put up this much of a fuss."

"You lost a leg?" I asked with a confused gaze, very aware of the fact he had both of them.

"Well, more like... it fell off," he shrugged. "Big, magic energy attack, lots of magic swords flying about. One of them scored a good hit through my knee and took most of it off. I carried the thing around with me for a few hours until we got back to camp and had the mage stick it back on."

"You are not making me feel any better about sending him off to war, Shining," Cadance glowered.

"Alright, fine. But if your leg falls off, make sure to find a mage," Shining said. "That's all you need to know."

"Actually, one thing I'd like to know is why you're being dragged up there?" I asked.

"It's because of the current group they've got in command of the kingdom right now," Shining said. "Besides the General, they are all very young. The Queen of the kingdom, Juniper, is fourteen years old. Her court mage, a woman named Elise, is twenty one years old. Neither of those two have lived through or even seen periods of combat in their lives. They're as green as it gets, and have no idea how to command an army, through no fault of their own."

"And why can't the general do it?" I asked.

"Because, despite being very good at ordering sieges, the man has never run a campaign in his life," Shining explained. "By his own admission, he doesn't want his trial by fire for leading an army through such a long and gruelling war where his kingdom is at risk if he fails. So, they've come to me."

"Yeah, can't really go wrong there," I nodded. "It's a weird experience reading about your own father as a legendary general in your studies. The War of The Dunes, The Battle for Loch Kenrin, The Defence of The Shining Towers... I've read about all of them and they do not sound like easy wars to win."

"They certainly were not," Shining nodded. "But for almost all of those wars, we never on our home turf and never had access to an entire army, usually just a few battalions and a position we were meant to hold down. Here I've got the entire country's resources at my beck and call against a smaller rebellion. Shouldn't take us too long."

"So I would hope," Cadance grumbled.

"What's the terrain like?" I asked.

"Oh, you have no idea how long I've been waiting to discuss this kind of stuff with you," Shining said with a giddy grin. "The cold weather's gonna slow down any army, but that can work to your benefit as much as it can hurt. It can tire the enemy out while you stay hunkered down and prepare for them, it can let you sneak armies through snowstorms, and can even let you use things like avalanches to your advantage to block off enemy paths or even wipe out large chunks of their forces."

"Right," I nodded.

"It'd be a problem for a foreign army, but both sides are native to the cold, so they'll equip the army to prep for it," he shrugged, drumming his fingers on the desk as he spoke. "The place is also known for its mountain ranges, very high, very narrow. Know what that's good for?"

"Ambushes?" I asked.

"Good, that and bottle-necking," Shining added on. "Can have an army the size of an entire continent, and it means absolutely nothing if you funnel them into single file with a wall of soldiers waiting for them."

"Anything else noteworthy?" I asked him.

"Place is kind of lacking in forests and tree cover, meaning ambushes from the treeline aren't gonna be an option," he answered. "I've had a brief look over the maps of the area, trying to find some good locations and figure out a plan for each of them, but I'm scheduled for a briefing on arrival that should give me a much better idea of where we stand."

"Good to know," I said with a firm nod. "Now, if you'll excuse me. I've got some snow shoes to pack."