I went back to Twelt. Michaela was already asleep but I couldn’t close my eyes. I was still dazzled by the things I had witnessed tonight. No, not from the hell of battle but instead from the boundless miracle after that. When morning came there was a knock on the door, but I knew exactly who it was. I got up and went for it.

‘Good morning, Rosa. I am here to give you something.’

I looked at Eefa in confusion. She reached to her briefcase and pulled a folder out of it. I quickly realized this was quite crucial.

‘Come inside.’

We went to the living room and sat down comfortably. Michaela was making lunch at that time in the kitchen.

‘It is better that this remains between us. Anyone else may be in danger should they know this.’

She took out some documents from the folder. They were not marked and they were all claw-written and quite terribly so.

‘Believe it or not these are the draft reports of the head of the gendarme that was responsible for investigating the attempted assassination on the King’s life. The reason they are unmarked is because they never got to be official. That specific officer was shot and killed two days after these drafts were written. His death was overshadowed by the confusion that ensued after the death of the King’s wife.’

‘I think I can already tell the summary of the contents then.’

‘More or less, I reckoned you would. The attempt was not carried out by a communist. A communist supporter was present at the scene and was indeed planning on killing the king. However, he most likely re-thought his position before he carried out the action. The gun carried by the communist was not the murder weapon, after all.’

I checked the pictures that came with the report and quickly exclaimed:

‘The weapon that was used to kill the supposed communist assassin was!’

‘Exactly! Not only that, but the direction that the communist was facing when he fell dead supports this. He was found with his back against a wall facing the opposite direction to the king. However, the communist did fire his weapon.’

‘What? At whom?’

‘At the real assassin, but he wasn’t very lucky. He either missed or simply wounded him. My hypothesis is that the communist shot and wounded the assassin who was aiming for the king, thus causing him to miss the shot and hit the king’s wife. Realizing the mistake and being covered by the shouts after the gunfire the assassin then shot the communist. This also explains how only two rounds were heard being fired.’

‘That would be because the communist shot the assassin at nearly the same time that the assassin shot the king. Correct?’

Eefa nodded in agreement.

‘Thing is… the officer who wrote this was comfortably silenced once he uncovered this and the report replacing this one, is the one, that became the currently accepted reality. That is not all though. Whoever did all that- but most likely it was more than a single creature- also made sure to fabricate other things. Most notably the reports on the food rations for each region, which was a major reason for the communist uprising in the countryside.’

Eefa brought out two very similar looking report papers. She pointed at the first one.

‘This one when detailing the needs of the region of Whiteflower for the year 1000, the most hard-hit region by the famine of 995 onwards, actually displays an amount of required rationing much higher than what was actually necessary. After all, all three regions over-bloated their numbers to get higher rations than the others. It makes sense.’

‘What’s the difference with the other one? They look exactly the same.’

‘Except they are not. The second one, down here, has the signature of the king. This one was the one that got through. The first one does not. The second one has a major difference, the necessary rations needed are halved here compared to the first one.’

‘Wait, that means- ‘

I paused for a second to make certain that I had my logical procedure formulated in the correct order.

‘Of course, they were starving in the countryside! All the food went to Sydia and Kivessin because they were exaggerating their numbers, while the reports from Whiteflower had them halved instead! And no official would halve the needs of his region! The second one is fabricated!’

‘Problem is, that it is not. It is fully legitimate no matter how one tries to check it. This does not mean, that whoever compiled it was not a fake though. I have two different ways that this could have possibly occurred. First, the official was a griffon carefully placed in that specific position. An organization with enough funding would be able to pull such a thing off, especially in a country as unstable as Prywhen in the early 1000s. Second hypothesis is that the official was not a griffon but something else.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Do you really think I am a griffon?’

‘I think that you are definitely not from Prywhen. The name does not fit.’

‘Well, my real name is not Eefa Doyle in the first place. It is Aoife o’ Dubhghaill and I am not a griffon.’

‘That name is Greneclyfian! This means you are- ‘

Right in front of me Aoife changed to her true form.

‘A changeling! Oh, don’t feel down! My disguise was as immaculate as it could possibly be!’

I laughed and then thought back on our previous conversation.

‘So, you think that the creature posing as the official could be a changeling. It is possible. If this had happened in Equestria then the changeling would be easily uncovered because of the symbols ponies carry, but for a griffon there is no such distinction.’

‘Not only that but the appearance could look stunningly similar. However, I personally think it was more likely for the imposter to have been a griffon. Over time a changeling would have been found out even in a griffon society. That is because he or she would have needed to be in that position for a long period of time. And a changeling cannot act like a griffon for so long and if one tries, they are eventually sniffed out.’

‘This would also mean that the organization in question behind all this would have quite the presence inside Prywhen. My question though is this: wouldn’t this be enough to de-legitimize both sides?’

‘Yes and no. This is not concrete proof, at least not by official standards. However, the main issue is that even if we wanted to get this information out to the public, we would need to find someone willing to publish it in the first place. And I have someone in mind but if we come close and fail, Prywhen is done for.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘A very certain critic of the king, who is with the king would be the perfect candidate to help us out. But if he is informed about all this and the organization behind the whole plot to destabilize Prywhen finds out he knows, then he will most certainly be killed. That’s most likely the reason why that organization, whichever it is, tried to get rid of King Kloseu in the first place. He must have known far too much about them for their comfort. However, with his anger at the death of his wife and the civil war, the king forgot all such information. As for the person that I was referring to previously, it is the king’s son, Prince Tomado.’

‘Before we go any further, I want to ask: How the hell do you know all this?’

‘I came to Prywhen to help out the communists in 1006. On a scouting mission in the countryside, I shot and killed a messenger. In his bag I found the original documents. For whatever reason, I decided to keep them for myself at the time. Then, I read the contents and made sure to keep those documents a secret afterwards, while at the same time making sure to acquire copies of the original ones from the communist party.’

‘Then why did you not do anything yourself all this time?’

‘I simply was incapable of doing anything. If I went to my commissar commanders, they would dismiss the report about the food and reveal the one about the assassination plot. If I went to the monarchists, they would do the exactly opposite thing. If I went to try and get the Prince to listen to me one of two things would happen: one, he would simply ignore me and dismiss the reports either himself or after he would show them to his father or, two, he would believe the reports and attempt to get them publicized only to be assassinated by either this organization or by supporters of either side who wouldn’t want their side to be delegitimized. There wasn’t very much I was able to do alone from my position then. That’s why I worked my way up to becoming a commissar and waited for the right moment. Then you showed up.’

I scoffed at the last statement.

‘How am I important in any of this?’

‘You are not involved for a start. As I said before, even if I am a communist offering information to the Prince, he may think I am attempting to deceive him. But you are not with either side. Furthermore, and correct me if I am wrong, your potency with magic is absolutely not limited to ice swords and healing magic.’

‘I cannot rebuke that. But I don’t think this helps us in any way.’

‘It does. I don’t really know whoever our actual enemy in all this is, but what I do understand full well is that this foe of ours will absolutely not make the same mistake twice. If they try to assassinate the Prince it won’t be just with conventional means, if other tools are at the assassins’ disposal as well, which they most certainly will be.’

‘So, what will you have me do?’

‘I actually had not expected to get this far.’

I broke out in loud laughter. The last response was completely ridiculous. Aoife began laughing so hard, she was crying.

‘I mean, first I didn’t know I would get all this intel, second, that I would ever be in a position to use it, third, that I would find just the right pony to help me out and fourth, that this specific pony would not give me the logical answer of ‘You are a lunatic, fuck off.’’

I was rolling on the floor, dying of laughter. I was desperately trying to contain myself because I could not breathe from laughing. As I managed to relatively regain my composure, I sat on the sofa again and tried to talk amidst still giggling like a little filly.

‘Well, here’s one proposition.’

I went over a plan that I had envisioned at that specific moment. Aoife agreed to it. We made some changes and then promised to make sure we would not bite the dust before we could carry it out. Around that time, Michaela came in.

‘What were you two doing? I could hear you quite clearly from the kitchen.’

Then she saw Aoife.

‘My apologies but I don’t know what kind of food changelings usually eat.’

The response along with the innocent way it was delivered had a comedic value, that I think Michaela could not comprehend. Aoife died of laughter again. I giggled but desperately tried to not make a complete fool out of myself again. Yet, I failed spectacularly. We all laughed and then ate lunch. However, the previous exchange had me thinking: If Aoife is a changeling wouldn't she need to drain love out of others to survive? I knew she wasn't doing that to neither myself or Michaela, because, if she were, I would be able to tell by using my magic. I decided not to think too much or ask Aoife about this, since Aoife was most definitely not dangerous, but I was curious, nevertheless.

As for the plan, that I had formulated with Aoife, we decided to put it in motion a week later. At that time, Aoife would be herself transferred to a propaganda unit of the communist party, and then she wouldn’t be suspected in case she was absent for a longer period of time. And so, we bided our time and waited, trying to rid our minds of the cruelness of the war, devolving the country further into chaos around us. Tried to convince ourselves that all would be certainly over soon. I frequented that battlefield from before in that meantime, helping as I could. I learned someday that I had made quite the name for myself in the ranks of both sides in the area. They call me ‘The Angel of the Blood Creek’, or at least that was the most popular name I had, as far as I was aware.

Aoife on her end tried to make sure that, unless directly ordered from above, she would not be sending her soldiers or herself over the trenches for another attack. Regardless, nogriffon in her ranks or those of the enemy had a stomach to fight. The famine had just hit the ranks of the soldiers as well. One day a monarchist went to the communist side with a white flag. He told Aoife that they had orders to attack them but they were starving and absolutely did not fancy attacking and proposed the communists come over to their trenches so that they could shell their trenches to look as if they were attacking. Then the monarchists would go with the communists to the communist trenches and the communists would shell the monarchist trenches to fake a counter-attack. The monarchists thought that that would be enough to deceive their command, that they had attacked and gained ground but then were counter-attacked and lost all gains. Aoife talked with the monarchist commanders and they executed the plan and from the looks of it, it worked. The monarchist high command praised the unit for their heroic actions in a report the next day. Both sides ridiculed the occurrence as much as they could. At any rate, this showed how the situation was very fertile for mutiny and possibly a ceasefire, should our plan succeed. The starvation, long duration of the conflict, the fact that both sides had too much in common had all led to this. Very soon, it would all be over or so I tried to convince myself, but when the day came, I was so much on edge, that I was shacking all over as if I was inside a glacier or somewhere similar.

‘Are you ready?’

I checked my bag one last time, inside which I had some Bliss flowers in the form of dust, a flask of water, my old mysterious book and the folder with the documents, as well as some medical material, just in case.

‘Yes, I can safely say, I have never been more ready in my life.’

‘Then, we are off.’

As we departed the old house, which was now heavily repaired due to my and Michaela’s efforts during the last week, Michaela waved her claw after us.

‘Try not to get in danger and return soon!’

We both turned around for a second and responded together.

“Promise!”

We flew to Sydia next, me using my bat-wings created out of energy and Aoife with her own wings. We were there right before nighttime. The king and his son had been relocated to Sydia, since Kivessin was being besieged by the communists and under heavy bombardment. We were planning on drugging the Prince and then making sure he had a hold of the documents and then disappear. There was a chance that he would just not read them in the first place but we had opted to take our chances that he would. We spotted the Prince walking down one of the roads in Sydia, specifically the one connecting the port to the castle. However, as we were about to carry out our plan, several dark figures flew in from the opposite direction that we were coming from, carrying guns and knives.

‘Oh shit.’

‘We gotta stop them! Now! Help me out, Rosa!’

The streets were deserted at this hour, so the assailants would not have been seen by any other griffon. Prince Tomado froze as he saw them descend on him. One headed straight for him with a blade. Right before he could reach his target though, I pierced his throat with an ice sword and he crumpled on the paved street. At the same time, Aoife in her form of a griffon commissar fired with her revolver at another assassin that was coming on foot. Contrary to what we originally thought, the assassins were a mix of griffons and changelings. The weird thing was though, that nobody outside of the fight had noticed anything at all. We were making quite a lot of noise, after all. Then I noticed the blue light going around above us.

‘An acoustic and visual barrier?!’

This meant that what was happening in here could not be seen or heard from outside and from outside it looked as if the street was empty. This meant that quite the experienced unicorn was among the assassins. I saw him standing at a corner maintaining the barrier. I sent my swords flying at him but he easily avoided them all. He went after Aoife with fire and light magic. I raised the earth as a wall and stopped the spells in their track. Before I counter-attacked I dispatched a few griffons by strangling them out of air and went over to the Prince.

‘Your highness I recommend you stay behind us and that you stay silent.’

Before he could respond, I lunged him from the ground to a corner and cast a smaller barrier around him. Then I quickly turned to face the unicorn again. I parried his rays. This kind of magic is the normal way to use magic as a unicorn. Rest assured, it was nothing in front of my magic, which could control real elements. The issue, was the rest of the attackers that hurled themselves at us with bullets and swinging their swords. I had a nice idea at that time. I used my magic to influence the water flow in the unicorn and he fell unconscious on the floor. Then I stepped back and focused on my memories of the attackers faces, that had already died. Their eyes, faces, exactly how they looked like. I felt a great warmth inside me and my horn began glowing a bright purple. The next minute the dead corpses or at least those I recognized, had risen up again. I sent them after the rest of the assassins and since they felt no pain now, they made quick work of them. In the meantime, the unicorn had regained his senses and went after me. I couldn’t attack him as effectively now, since I had expended too much energy on raising those dead before. At a point, he turned with a kind of energy whip at me. I tried to block it using the earth just as before but could not pull it off. Just as I thought I was done for, a bullet hole appeared through the head of the unicorn and he fell down with a thud. Aoife, with her revolver still smoking, was standing right behind the now dead corpse.

‘Don’t even think you owe me. You have saved far too many lives for that.’

With all the assailants now dealt with I quickly turned to restoring the barrier, after I had let the undead die for good by disconnecting my magic from them. I had to do all I could to keep up the barrier, because it wouldn’t be great if someone saw this mess along with a bloodstained communist and a unicorn standing right in front of the heir and son of the king. Would not give off the right message.

I undid the barrier around Prince Tomado but the young griffon looked a lot calmer than I had expected him to be after surviving such an affair, even though it was true, that he had only seen the start of it, because he couldn't see from outside my barrier. At any rate, he didn’t even give me time to speak.

‘Thank you, both of you. You have my eternal gratitude. You saved my life, after all. Once my father, King Kloseu of Kissau learns about this, I am sure he will reward you with whatever it is you want. Just don’t ask for much, because there is not a lot to go around these days in our Kingdom of Brodfeld.’

Aoife and I looked at each other and then smiled. But I spoke instead.

‘Your highness, we are thankful ourselves to have made sure you remain safe and sound and it is truly a luck that only Boreas himself can grant for us to have so happened to be here when you were attacked. However, we do not desire any kind of material wealth as a reward.’

Prince Tomado raised one of his eyebrows in confusion.

‘What else is there, that you could want?’

Then he noticed that Aoife was wearing a communist uniform and took a step back. Aoife smiled reassuringly.

‘I have no intention of harming you.’

I went forward and handed the Prince the folder with the documents. Then I stepped back again.

‘This folder contains what we think proves that both sides of the civil war are based on fully illegitimate pretexts. Whether their actions had other motives, such as gain of power or wealth, that matters little to the people starving at home or the soldiers dying on the field. They are all the same, sir. And they all wish for one thing: peace.’

Aoife continued.

‘Through research and with these documents as proof, it is possible to show to the nation that both sides are not worth fighting for. We both know this would mean that you would go against not only the communists but against your father as well. However, I have been on the field. I have killed and seen griffons die, from both sides. This is not going to end anytime soon. Rather, it will end up in a deadly stalemate. This would forever split the nation. If the contents of these documents are made public though, the soldiers in the field as well as the populace will stop assisting either side. Only the staunch fanatics will remain to fight for them. If Redglad or the King want to keep fighting to the death after that, then they will be proven traitors to the entire nation and easily swept aside.’

I continued the exchange.

‘We believe that you and you alone, your highness, have a very unique opportunity to publish this information and be trusted by the people. After that, you will be able to reform the nation as you deem the best for its griffons.’

‘You did save my life, and let me also assume that these documents are really legitimate and can achieve an end to the civil war. Still, why would I believe that you two are not working with either the king, my father, who has committed multiple atrocities, I will never agree with, or with the communists, who have done the same in retaliation?’

Aoife had expected this and it was just as she had mentioned to me before.

‘You might not believe me, but you will believe her.’

‘Why so?’

‘Sir, you can ask anygriffon in this country that knows me. I have helped soldiers from both sides. Let alone that, if I was a communist here, in this situation do you think that I would not have killed or captured you, right here and now? Or if I was a monarchist, would I be working together with a communist? I cannot exactly convince you, sir. That’s up to you. As for us, we took our chances. It was dangerous for us to come here and deliver this to you in the first place. At this moment in time, we are but two nocreatures inside a nation whose fate is controlled by Redglad in Whiteflower and King Kloseu in Sydia and we possess little to no power in order to change that. We found a way to influence things but this is as far as we can go. The rest is up to you, sir.’

I looked up at the barrier. It was fading out, because I couldn’t keep the wind pressure around it stable for too long. I turned to Aoife.

‘We have to go.’

Then I faced the Prince again.

‘Whatever you decide, your highness, may you live long.’

And before the Prince could say anything else, we rushed towards a back alley, Aoife changed to her changeling form and then we flew away into the darkness of the night. As we were flying away, Aoife spoke to me while still looking forward.

‘How did you do that thing before?’

I couldn’t hear her very well at the speeds that we were flying at.

‘What?’

‘How did you do that with the corpses? I am a changeling so I have a lot of eyes, so you better have a good reason for that, because I definitely saw it!’, Aoife repeated louder.

‘Ah, that! Well, I am also a necromancer! Uno grande historia!’

‘You are but a big mystery, Rosa!’

‘Right back at you!’

‘But you aren’t getting out of this one! We will have a long discussion about this someday!’

‘And you’ll tell me, how the hell a changeling from Greneclyf became a communist and somehow learnt about Prywhen and came here to fight for the Griffon Liberation Army! Oh, and how you don't need to suck love out of others for a living!’

‘How did you figure that last one out? You know what, it doesn't matter. Deal!’

With that speed we managed to arrive at Michaela’s house by the next morning. We hadn’t told her anything about what we were going to do and she realized it was crucial and so she hadn’t asked herself. When she saw us return, drenched to the brim in blood, she was visibly frightened. I quickly rushed to reassure her.

‘We are fine, Michaela. Did anything happen while we were away?’

‘Not really. However, you two, should stop being so reckless!’

Aoife and I would have hugged her, but we remembered we were covered with blood.

‘We are sorry for that. I will make sure not to drag Rosa with me if I, the crazy communist changeling commissar, decide to do anything dangerous again.’

‘You had better!’, Michaela replied in quite a cliché fashion.

Then we all laughed and went in. Me and Aoife took a much-needed bath and then all of us three ate together. For the next few days Aoife stayed mostly in our house and did her work for the communist party here as well. I helped her out as often as she would let me. We always had the radio on, so as to be the first to learn about the success or failure of our plan. However, half a month passed and nothing had happened. Then a full month. Aoife and I were starting to have our doubts.

‘He might have just dismissed the whole thing by now, Rosa.’

‘Let’s have faith and wait a bit longer.’

Outside in the fields of battle, there was a great stalemate. Nobody made any progress anywhere. There were many reports of units refusing to attack or fight in general anymore as well. The communists were assigning Aoife with the creation of massive amounts of propaganda to alleviate that.

‘They are such big buffoons. As if big words are going to make any change now.’

In this whole period, I started using my magic to create as much food as possible and then provided it to the troops on both sides near Twelt. Communists and monarchists there alike would follow the same pattern as before and refused to attack one another, choosing instead to fight mock battles to convince their high command. They started sending fabricated casualty reports as well. The ones reported dead, simply went back home. Some people from Twelt had also returned, because of such occurrences on the field, either here or on other fronts as well. The morale and thinking process of the soldiers on the field could be quickly summarized by a sign post that had recently appeared right between the two opposing forces on the Blood Creek battlefield near Twelt. The sign read:

‘WE ARE ALL FOOLS

LET’S GO HOME!’

Author's Note

The last two lines of the chapter are a reference to an incident that happened on the western front of the Frist World War, specifically in the winter of 1915. Reportedly, a board went up at some point between the opposing sides saying,
'We are all fools
Let's go home!'