The morning sun rose above the forested horizon, just like yesterday, and the day before that.
Deep within the forest, surrounded by miles of oak, birch and spruce, a small village was sleeping. Vapsva, or Wespeheim as the official maps wrote it down – no more than a handful of houses, scattered across a clearing, surrounding a small stone temple to the Griffon gods in the middle.
After a few birds chirped, awoken by the rays of light, the village went silent again. Before long, however, this calm ended up disrupted once more. One wood chop, then another, and another. The farmers and lumberjacks still snoozing in their homes who were able to hear it barely noticed the disturbance, however. Just like yesterday, and the day before that, Morning Boop always woke up first.
The mare steadied the magical grip over her axe, closed her left eye, and chopped again – the tool cleaved through the last piece of log without issue, splitting it in two. The axe dropped head-first to the ground and Boop stopped briefly to admire her work. A pile of firewood should be enough for a morning's work – but there was still a lot left. Winters in Longsword can get quite harsh, and she'll need every little piece of wood she can get when November comes.
She shoved the pile over her back and trotted back inside – only to come to a screeching halt by the back entrance, the stop so sudden that the wood balancing on her back almost fell to the grass. How dared she pass by the carving of the great Rabbit God without giving him the appropriate respect? And when she was using the boons of nature, too? She was practically asking for a storm to ravage her house tomorrow! The mare hastily bowed – before her stood a log, an image of a ferocious rabbit carved into the side facing her. They say that the lands, the animals, the seas, and all that is fortunate or unfortunate belong to him – so it was only right to ask him whenever able to bring only the good omens, and not the bad ones. The Rabbit was fickle, just like nature always is, but surely, he understands respect.
Aside for the storage, where the firewood and supplies were kept, the entire home was a single large room. Everyone slept there, talked there, played there, ate there. In the past, at least. Now that Boop lived alone, however, the days became much less lively.
A portrait was hanging above the fireplace, a striking sight which caught the attention of anyone who came inside for the first time. It portrayed a stout, bearded griffon, clad in the bulky ceremonial armor of the Rosewood Knights – in one claw, he held a sword, stabbing its blade into the ground. That was Friedrich the Fourth, of the noble House of Dusktalon, the Count of all of Longsword – its griffons, its ponies, and any other creatures living in its borders. Truly a magnificent monarch, capable and proud – and when Morning Boop was born, he was still alive. Alas, the gods of the griffons have taken his soul by now, and his son rules instead. Very, very unfortunately, he does.
Boop's glance only stumbled across the portrait for a second, and the young unicorn swiftly fell back into her bed. Before she could even close her eyes, however, every other task she had to do for the household today flashed through her mind one after another. Tend to the garden, root out the weeds festering in the carrot patch. Replenish the lacking mushroom stock. Sweep the floor. Don't forget to visit the temple so the Arcturian priest doesn't yell again...
She groaned under her breath and pulled herself back to her hooves. As much as she missed the simpler life with all the chances for laziness it entailed, someone's got to do all the chores.
Just like yesterday, and the day before that.
They say the Vapsva forest is one of the unspoken wonders of southern Longsword. Untouched by the march of modernity and industry, it was as tranquil as it was a century ago. Two centuries. Three centuries. One time they were visited by a professor from Yale, who proclaimed with awe that some of the oaks are over a thousand years old – it sounded unbelievable, but the villagers accepted it as fact. A thousand years is a long time, though. Wasn't that before the County was even founded?
Such thoughts and questions did not concern Morning Boop much as she strolled through the centennial trees, focused on the task right before her eyes instead. Her pouch was already half-full of tasty mushrooms, and she balanced it on her snout, all while trotting through the moss and the grass with little care. With a flick of her head, it landed back on her hoof, and with a toss backwards, it slid across her back and up into the air. Before the mare could catch it with her head, however, she suddenly flinched.
Was that a crack? A rifle shot? A tree snap?
The pouch fell on Boop's golden mane, forcing her to lift it up with one hoof as she looked around. There was nobody around her, nor were there any twigs by her hooves she might have snapped, but the sound continued to ring, repeating. Frightened by the noise, birds took off to the air, raising a ruckus among the leaves and only adding to the cacophony.
“Uhm...”
Maybe she should just... go. Return back to the village. Her gut was starting to suspect what was going on, something neither she nor the villagers wanted to speak of and something they never wanted to get in the way of.
Unfortunately... as fast as she ran, she couldn't make it very far. A gust of wind rushed past the mare, before a powerful blow slammed into her from the side, pushing her face-first into the grass. The pouch fell beside her, rolling by a bush before stopping next to her hoof. A pained grumble escaped Boop immediately, and the unicorn lifted her head out of the dirt, hissing, yet silently thanking herself that she didn't face-plant into a tree, or hit an anthill.
She turned, and immediately froze in fear.
“What do we have here..? A lost little pony?”
A pack of griffons, five of them in total, were descending from the sky and touching down upon the grass in front of the whimpering unicorn. And those were no ordinary griffons, either – their black cloaks were unmistakable, and a symbol of terror for everypony in Longsword. Ever since Count Pallas first invited these “Reformisten” to their country, he has effectively surrendered the land to these psychopaths, granting them free reign to implement their ideas of griffon supremacy.
There was nothing “reformist” about them, only death and destruction – but Morning Boop couldn't dare to say it to their face. So, the mare merely whimpered, instinctively grabbing her mushroom pouch and holding it at her chest while slowly crawling back.
“Quite a coincidence, isn't it?” one of the Reformisten spoke up, while removing his cloak. He was no ordinary griffon fanatic, as it turned out – the fancy, black peaked cap on his head, with a stylized bird skull symbol, indicated an officer's rank. She didn't want to raise a fuss by asking, but Boop assumed he must be their leader. “We stumble across a bandit cell in a forest, and immediately after a young mare appears “lost” so close to the skirmish.”
The griffon made a sudden step forward, forcing Boop to jump back again. “With supplies in her hands, too.”
“P-please, I-I came here on accident, I was already about to head back...”
“I'm sure you did...” Another step forward. Another jump back in fright, this time throwing the pouch at the ground too – it opened from the force and spilled the freshly cut and collected mushrooms on the grass. Before the Reformisten officer could take another step, his attention got distracted by the spill.
“Oh, what's this?” As soon as the griffon leapt close to the bag and began his inspection, an awe-struck, almost childlike expression formed on his face. “Unbelievable, this is what you're feeding the bandits with? That's... wait, are those porcinos? What the... I didn't know those even grew in this region...”
At first, Boop watched the scene, too frightened to even twitch, but her mind quickly shook her out of the trance, realizing that if there was a chance for her to get out of here with her life, however small, it was now. So, the mare suddenly pulled herself back to her hooves – and ran, ran with her back turned at the Reformisten party, as quickly as her body allowed her.
“Maybe we should shoot her, or something...” one of the black-cloaked griffons muttered under his breath – their leader merely raised his eyes, however, released a faint “Eh” and replied:
“Purging sub-creatures can wait, a great mushroom stew cannot. Besides... there's only one direction she could be heading, and she won't be able to hide there for long.”
The griffons soon became nothing more than a speck in the distance behind Boop, until the dense forestry finally hid them completely. As if they were never there, and she never met them. Unfortunately, that memory could not be erased so simply.
The mare's frantic run ended up stopped by her hooves finally stumbling across something and leaving her crashing into the grass. A slam, a roll and finally a loud thud – as pained as her limbs were now, however, Boop could not just stop and rest. She pulled herself off, turned around, ducked and hid behind the first thing in her path. For a few seconds, she watched the trees, searching for any black cloaks rising from the horizon, trailing after her. Nothing came about, however. The forest was as silent and serene as always.
Wait... someone was breathing. Faintly, but close, and it wasn't her. What was she hiding behind, anyway? As soon as Boop rose back up, she realized that she had stumbled over a body.
Only a sudden surge of self-control stopped the mare from screaming at the top of her lungs – but she recoiled back in fear regardless. It was a uniformed stallion, a unicorn not much older than her, lying on the grass. Blood was smeared across his leg, and the pony was clearly unconscious. But not dead! Though his breathing was faint, and though it seemed like his life was hanging by a thread, the poor soul was still hanging on.
The mare hesitated, looking down at the stallion and then behind her, towards the direction of the village. If she ran and ducked back home, nobody would ever know. No Reformisten could ever insinuate that she ever came across an enemy of the Count, there were no witnesses, after all.
There are no witnesses... The mare took another glance at the unfortunate soul.
So, against her better judgment, Morning Boop did something else. She pulled the body over her back and ran.
Weakly, with one blink after another, Rippling Wave opened his eyes, an unexpected sight unfolding before him. This was neither the forest where he fought and fell, nor anything like he heard Varėnė's underworld be described as – no, the young stallion was lying in a dark, moody room. A portrait of the Tyrant's father, Friedrich IV, hanged in front of him, on a wall at the other side. An axe rested next to the fireplace below.
Were the fanatics not satisfied with just killing him? Did they have to drag the Partisan down to their lair for interrogation? Already, Wave braced himself for torture – his body ached, so surely, he must have been beaten on the way.
Slowly, the stallion propped himself up on one hoof – which caught someone's attention. A light blue mare with a golden mane, washing clothes above a wooden bowl, rose and turned towards him – immediately getting his mind to start calculating. Who could she be? What could she be doing?
Oh, no... is the axe there so she could chop his hooves off one by one? Or maybe she's the executioner and he's been brought before Pallas himself... or perhaps...
“Are... are you okay?” the mare suddenly called out, hastening her pace and stopping in front of Wave. “You look like you just saw a bugbear, or something.” The concern appeared genuine, but the Partisan wasn’t going to allow himself to get fooled.
“Where am I? What did you do to me?!” Wave yelled – the sudden aggressiveness catching the mare by surprise. She flinched, her eyes glanced off to the side, and with a crack in her voice, she replied:
“N-Nothing, I... I found you unconscious in the forest and I brought you home...” The stallion sighed, looking down at his right leg to see it wrapped in several cloth bandages, while she continued with more confidence. “Well, even if not in the best circumstances, but nice to meet you, then! Name’s Morning Boop!” Boop punctuated her statement with a hoof pump.
“You’re... not one of the Reformisten?”
“Well, I don’t look like a griff, do I?”
For a few seconds, the room went silent. Boop opened her mouth, about to continue, only to be stopped by the stallion muttering:
“Rippling Wave...”
“That being...”
“My name. I suppose... it’s nice to meet you as well.”
“So, you’re one of the Partisans, right?” Boop continued after a brief silence, but before Wave could even respond, she interrupted him with excitement again. “Wait, so does that mean you’ve met Starry Night? The Marshal herself? Are all the rumors about her true?”
“Rumors?”
“That she’s invincible!”
Boop leapt back, pacing around the room while reenacting one scene after another by flailing her hooves.
“One time, her bunker was shot at by a hundred artillery pieces at once and the entire forest was flattened, but not only did she survive, she returned and took down that army’s commander for disturbing a holy site! Or the time when she travelled across all of Vartai to duel a champion knight of the Hellquill Order and killed him in one shot! Oh, oh, oh, and Dad said that she always has a pack of cigarettes by her hoof no matter the situation, like she’s popping them to existence with magic!”
“That last one is probably true...” Wave mumbled, snickering under his breath for a brief second, before immediately curtailing the wayward emotion and striking the same seriousness as always. Boop stopped by one of the windows and pulled the curtain to the side, letting the sun’s rays back into the lowly hut.
“Well then, mister Rippling Wave, enjoy your stay here in Vapsva!”
“Vapsva..?” the partisan repeated her words, a flash of memory immediately hitting his mind. He clenched his teeth and started pulling himself back on his hooves – grunting and trembling as he tried, only for his body to waver and struggle, more and more.
“Where are you going? Calm down, I barely fixed you up!” the mare called out, running up to the struggling Wave, only to hear him speak:
“You have to go.”
“Huh?”
The partisan finally found a stable position to sit, balancing on the healthy one of his two front legs. “Vapsva... it’s one of the villages the Reformisten have marked for destruction in the region. It will be destroyed in the following days – and I advise you and the other villagers better run before they touch down one night.”
“M-marked...?”
“Designated, targeted, whatever. They want it purged of ponies like you and me.”
Boop stepped back, words struggled to escape her throat while the partisan’s warning kept repeating itself in her mind on a loop. Her eyes glanced towards the window, and though it, at the forest just outside the yard. Was it a coincidence than Reformisten gangs were roaming so close to their village at the same time, too? He would surely say not...
“Go? We can’t go... Where could we even go?” she finally forced out, but instead of giving her an answer, Wave merely sighed.
“That’s what everyone says. We’re all trapped here in Longsword, hunted by the Count’s pack like animals. The best you can do is pack your belongings, take to the nearest forest, and... hope for the best, I suppose. Or join us, perhaps. You have the spirit for it.”
The mare remained silent for a few seconds, staring to the side.
“I... don’t know if I can follow you on that. Or... any of us, really. This village has had our encounters with the Reformisten, we’ve seen reprisals and we’ve seen executions, like everyone else has by now...” She then turned, staring the Partisan right in the eye. “And after that, we’ve stayed low. They’re monsters, but-but... a-and we can’t let ourselves fall in their attention again! We don’t want to cause any trouble and we wish you the best of luck in overthrowing Pallas, but none of us want to get involved...”
“You can’t be serious, they will-” Wave gushed out, only to be stopped by a sudden stomp, powerful enough to get him to step back a bit.
“I’m already risking myself by letting you stay – and if you’re going to cause trouble regardless, then you can leave, now.”
After the most uncomfortable silence he’s had the displeasure to experience, Wave sighed again, and turned away. The tranquil fury in Boop’s face passed away as quickly as it came, replaced by a disappointed frown. Perhaps she shouldn’t have gone that far...
“...happy thoughts, happy thoughts, happy thoughts...”
The mare made a hoof-pump again, speaking:
“Well, I’m sure things will go okay. Just like yesterday, and the day before that, you know?”
But nobody answered.
The reddish tint of the evening sky was starting to die down, replaced by a pitch dark blue, increasingly dotted by stars. The whims of the Rabbit God brought chilly winds later in the day, so a small flame was now crackling in the fireplace to keep up the warmth.
Using a broomstick as support, Rippling Wave slowly made his way to one of the windows before resting his healthy leg on the windowsill. A small bronze pendant floated out of one of his pockets, tugged through the air by the unicorn’s magical force, and landed besides his hoof – it depicted the head of a wolf. Not a furious, aggressive one showing its teeth, like the insignia of some Reformisten gangs, but a dignified and collected one, as if watching her cubs rather than meeting a foe. Varėnė did symbolize aggression for some – she was still the goddess of war and death, after all – but justice, righteousness and truth were all under her jurisdiction as well.
Right now, Longsword needed justice more than anything. And so, Wave prayed for her blessing.
Then, he raised his eyes, and immediately put his pendant down in shock. Dozens of griffons flew across the sky, descending towards Vapsva. Each one had a rifle in one claw and a torch in another – leaving the sky looking like a lightshow, except one of terror rather than awe. The bells of the temple rang, a Posniak priest desperately wailing on them, the sound echoing across the village.
Too late to be praying now...
“Ohh, no...” Wave mumbled under his breath as he stumbled back from the window, almost falling over but quickly regaining his balance. His eyes turned back towards the room, searching for the owner of the house, and yet not finding that golden mane anywhere.
No, Morning Boop was outside, and the partisan saw her as soon as he weakly pushed himself through the door. The mare’s eyes were fixated on the sky, a shovel was still resting on her shoulder – clearly, the sight had caught her unaware as well, in the middle of work.
“That’s... what I meant,” Wave explained, after a few seconds of silence, struggling to force the words out. However, Boop did not respond, she was staring away.
That wasn’t the first time she had the misfortune of witnessing such a light show...
“I believe this land is due for a history lesson,” a voice rang out three months ago. Once again, a flood of Reformisten stepped foot in Vapsva – led by Heinrich von Plummen, one of the Count’s most vicious griffons, a plump yet stout commander who commanded some respect from even the most disgusting of the movement. The bearded, elderly village chief trembled before him, and the rest of the village, twenty or so ponies in total, were gathered behind him. Some still held onto the scythes and shovels they had been working with when the visitors arrived, some were frightened, some were worried.
And a slightly younger Morning Boop watching the scene through a window, cowering.
“Arantigos Featherin was one of the greatest griffons to have ever lived. A great conqueror who was the first to unite our species under our banner, blessed by Boreas, whose legacy is still remembered today,” von Plummen yelled with a deep, commanding voice, his claws wrapped behind his back as he paced from place to place. “But it was a hard struggle, infested by obstacles, enemies and traitors. To punish traitors and dissuade others from following their example, Arantigos Featherin implemented a policy of decimation. In a unit which mutinied, defected or rebelled, once it was defeated and caught, a tenth of that unit would be executed on the spot.”
Commander von Plummen stopped and stared directly at the villagers of Vapsva.
“Today, we have arrived in a traitorous village. One whose inhabitants have hidden bandits, granted them shelter, and fed them, all while not showing the Count and the Reformisten movement the respect they deserve. Hence, decimation is the fitting punishment.”
Two black cloaked griffons, following their commander’s orders, counted all the gathered ponies – twenty-three. Rounding down after dividing by ten means... two executions.
Cowering behind the window, Boop watched the Reformisten drag her mother, and then her father, out of the frightened crowd and mercilessly execute them in front of everyone. Two lives they paid to know better than to raise their head more than they needed.
“Boop?” a voice from the modern day finally snapped her back to reality. Holding onto the frame, Wave was standing in the house’s entrance, calling out to the entranced mare – instead of receiving an answer, however, he merely watched in silence as she dropped her tools and ran inside. “Well, the one bit of good news is that we realized what’s happening as soon as we did – maybe we still can-”
“Why didn’t you...” Boop muttered under her breath, her voice cracking in uncertainty, before pent up frustration built up and suddenly burst. “Why didn’t you just yell at me and call me stupid?!”
“W-what?!..”
“Why didn’t you... You knew that this was what my stupidity was risking to bring. You knew that by being afraid, stubborn, stupid, I was risking the lives of everyone I’ve ever known – and yet, after I put my hoof down, you just hissed and looked away!”
By now, she was stomping towards her peer and practically yelling, the fear of the horde of Reformisten in the sky long since supplanted by a deep-rooted desire to scream her pent-up anger out at something in sight.
“Who cares if I had gotten mad, you might as well have slapped me across the face if that’s what you needed to tell that stupid mare that she is-”
A magical pull suddenly tugged Boop by the collar.
“You are being stupid now.”
Wave’s magical pull roughly tossed her to the side, throwing her to the floor, while the partisan himself ducked to the other side – and so narrowly dodged a bullet flying from behind it. Instead of his skull, it pierced Friedrich IV’s portrait in the beak.
The bullet woke Boop from her enraged trance – she whimpered, ducked down, and watched the stallion force himself through the pain to ready for battle, teeth clenched and a faint grunt escaping with each sudden motion. With a magical grip, he detached his pistol from his belt, loading it and snapping it into action.
A griffon was approaching the gaping open front entrance. A Reformisten. Not any ordinary degenerate grunt, either – the very same officer whom Boop met when it all first began. With the same officer’s hat, with the same wicked smirk. And a gun in his right claw, while a torch burned in another.
“You again!” the griffon yelled, aiming his weapon and firing a few more shots, each one slipping through the entrance and bouncing off the floor. “How many times are we going to have to kill you?!”
Trailing his torch across the walls of the house to start setting them alight, the Reformisten officer finally barged inside. The Partisan, as he correctly assumed, was in no condition to fight – with a leg still disabled, he didn’t even bother engaging the griffon soldier in a firefight, keeping his distance and slowly stepping deeper into the room instead. The mare, just as he remembered, was a whimpering mess too weak to lay a hand against anyone – just like the rest of her lesser species, really. And...
A swing, a metallic glimmer in the air.
Thrown by a magical force, an axe smashed directly into the griffon’s skull, bouncing off and then falling back to the ground – right before the officer dropped with a thud as well.
Boop took one heavy breath after another, staring at the griffon’s body as her surge of adrenaline slowly receded, before she pulled the axe out. Once a few seconds passed and it became clear that the Reformisten is not standing back up, Wave pocketed his pistol again and spoke:
“There’s no point in wailing about what could have been done. I figured it was going to be hard for you to understand – but this isn’t an enemy you can reason with, or make peace with. There’s only one thing they wish for ponies, and it’s... this.”
A horrific scene was taking place out the windows. One after another, the houses in the village were being set alight. Those who were unlucky to be outside fled, flocking in the outskirts of the temple, hoping that the images of the three griffon gods would dissuade the Reformisten terror from advancing further. A foolish hope – blinded by dreams of griffon supremacy, they allowed nothing to stand in their way, not even their own faith.
The fire set by the officer’s torch was starting to spread across the front wall of the house, neither of the ponies could stay for much longer.
“We have to go.” Wave called out first - already, he began weakly stumbling towards the exit in the back, before the peasantmare ran up to him and suddenly pulled him over her back again. And so, they fled. Past the carving of the Rabbit God, giggling, its eyes silently judging all who pass by. Into the forest, its foliage waving as it always has, by the thousand-year-old oak trees, who had seen many disasters and would see many more.
Through there, to a small clearing – a hill in between the trees, which historians say used to be a hillfort centuries ago. It was far enough from the village that they were no longer in danger, but just tall enough for the burning homes to be seen in the distance.
“And that will be it, then...” the partisan began to explain as soon as he moved himself off the mare’s back and stepped on the grass. “In a few months, a new batch of maps will be released in Swordsson and Vapsva will be mysteriously absent. Then, in a few years, they’ll bring unsuspecting settlers from Herzland, give the land a new name, and let them be as if nothing ever happened. That is how they operate. One village after another, they will erase us ponies from the region, and leave the land solely for their species.”
“And...” Boop mumbled under her breath, sniffing, trying to suppress a small trail of tears. “And I’m guessing there’s many others like me. Who can’t comprehend this scope, who just want to be left alone...”
“Many,” she heard a cold answer. “We try to help as many as we can – we fight those fanatics, we warn the civilians... but it’s never enough.”
One after another, the flashing fires in the distance started to die down. Boop sniffed again and wiped her tears away with her hoof.
“So, have you actually met Starry Night?”
“I... have, once.”
“I’ll join her. I’ll go with you to the Liberation Army. At least... I can make up for what happened today that way.”
Hearing her choice, Wave flashed a faint smile. “You know, she started out the same way as you.”
