Royal Rewrite - The winner wrote the history

Princess Luna sailed quickly through the air. Her altitude higher than any pegasus could muster. She was on her way back to the Royal Castle and keeping out of reach from regular fliers made sure her trip would be unimpeded.

The recurring diplomatic mission to the dragons was to ensure both races stayed on friendly terms. Not that the three ancient dragons who ruled would try anything. They wouldn’t dare challenge the duo who defeated the God of Chaos. But the younglings, the inexperienced ones, often sought to challenge the more powerful dragons, or tried to gain fame and reputation through battles with ponies or griffons. Often combined with fierce rhetoric about how dragons should go back to a single strong ruler, instead of a triumvirate that can’t make a decision unless they all agreed.

During her visit she had used her most impressive visage. It guaranteed that no upstart dragon would dare to challenge her. Dragons knew from experience that size didn’t matter when primal forces were at play. The God of Chaos had taught them that.

Now as she soared across the sky she was back in her humble blue shape. A form that she much preferred.

Although Luna was fast, there were several fliers in Equestria that were faster. A few pegasus and all bat ponies knew that some ponies could fly faster than Princess Luna.

Luna didn’t explain the mystery of flight to ponies. Secrets only she and her friend Starswirl figured out. It was Luna’s huge amount of magical energy that made it difficult to fly fast. If you put a pebble in a blowpipe you could send it rapidly through the air. If you put a mountain in the blowpipe – you could not.

Luna never revealed that knowledge to ponies. If she showed them the research, fearing ponies proud over their amazing speed would instead become sad, thinking they had very little to push.

The key to flight wasn’t the amount of magic you had, but your ability to divert it to push instead of being shoved. Everyone could improve their flow with physical training but not everyone was suited to become fast fliers. That knowledge she did reveal. Usually to encourage ponies less adept at flying that it wasn’t because they were weaker in any way.

Luna’s sister flew slower and slower for each century, but it wasn’t because her magic was increasing; it was simply lack of training.

Luna’s altitude had dropped and she now soared over the trees in Everfree Forest, making it possible for a pegasus scout from the royal guard to intercept and greet her. Then again, it was a big forest and she hoped they were busy elsewhere. She longed for home and to get some rest.

Luna didn’t rest on diplomatic missions to the dragons. The dragons considered it a sign of strength to stay awake when need be. So Luna showed strength and would only eat out of courtesy, no matter if she visited for a couple of days or a few weeks.

As she came closer to the royal castle she noted that there seemed to have been some rough activitities around The Shack. It was the common name for a couple of houses placed away from the settlement. The oldest house, the shack itself, was for ponies that for one reason or another had been temporarily ostracized from the settlement outside the castle walls. It was considered a punishment and would give the pony time to think about the consequences of being excluded from society.

It also contained a few buildings for visiting ponies and their entourage. There they would spend one or more nights while they waited for an audience with the Queen. It also had a sturdy prison. The prison was placed away from the settlement since a prisoner in its own way was excluded from society, but on a more serious note.

As Luna landed she noticed the door to the prison had been broken. Further inspection showed it had been broken from the inside. As she went around to inspect the area she heard a faint wheezing sound from inside the main house. She hurried inside.

A pegasus was lying on the floor. She was clutching a scroll-tube to her chest. Foam was pouring out of her mouth and her eyes where glazed and unfocused. Luna recognized her instantly. It was Lieutenant Ladyhawk and she was dying.

Luna’s power manifested itself immediately. The humble blue pony grew into a dark majestic alicorn. Powers flaming through her body focused on the lifeless figure on the floor. She tried to heal the pegasus’s body, to restore its health, struggling to maintain the fading flicker of life she felt inside the pegasus.

As Luna’s massive magic surged through the pony, the pegasus blinked her eyes and stared at her.

"Please don’t!" she croaked.

Luna wasn’t about to take orders like that from a pegasus. She kept restoring the pegasus, wondering what had happened. She lifted the body from the floor and placed it in one of the beds while she kept working. She tried to make her royal voice sound calm as she addressed the sick pegasus.

"Your Princess demands to know what happened. Your princess wants to know who did this."

The pegasus, like a sloppy ragdoll tried to present the scroll tube to Luna, but it slipped to the floor.

"Please don’t!" she repeated.

Luna couldn’t get a grip on the pegasus life. She bent down and smelt her breath. It was poison, and not just any poison. It was an extract from the forbidden Corruptionseeds. A plant that didn’t exist anywhere in the world except here in the Everfree forest.

The bottle on the floor was Lieutenant Ladyhawk’s own. Most guards had a personal water bottle. But her bottle had been filled with the most vile and disgusting poison imaginable and nothing anyone could imbue by mistake. In fact, the body responded so violently to even tiny amounts that a pony wouldn’t be able to hold it down, which was evident from the stains on her fur and the floor.

Obviously it hadn’t kept her from trying and the more she swallowed, the less magic was in the way to repel it, because that’s how the poison worked. It destroyed not only her organs, but also her magic.

Luna didn’t stop trying to save the pegasus but she knew now that it was hopeless. Unlike other poisons, this was unstoppable if enough of it was lodged inside the body. Probably Ladyhawk’s choice of poison had been because of that.

Regular poisons would first have her go unconscious, and during that time somepony may find and treat her. Especially if they whinnied in their sleep. This poison on the other hand would have her body wracked in pain until the bitter end, without a supplement to make her unconscious, which could have her regurgitate the poison in her sleep. This brutal ending to stay awake until the end, was all Ladyhawk’s decision.

Luna kept working but she feared now she was only prolonging the inevitable instead of letting the pegasus go quickly, but she didn’t want to give up. Ladyhawk could be an annoying fanatic and as Quicksmite’s faithful sidekick Luna held little love for her, but Luna didn’t dislike anypony and she absolutely refused to let anypony suffer.

Eventually Luna felt the pegasus pass away, ignoring the desperate attempts of a supposed Goddess to save her life. The remains of a praised lieutenant, that had recently uttered words, now deceased, left Luna feeling like a failure, unable to protect those in her care. Luna fought hard to hold back her tears.

She couldn’t possibly understand why a pony with such a short lifespan would make it even shorter. Luna had seen ponies die in accidents or battles throughout the centuries but an officer of the honored royal guard doing something like this to herself was incomprehensible. They were supposed to be the best of the best, in every possible aspect.

Luna floated the tube from the floor and pulled out a scroll from inside:

I’m so sorry. I’m so very very sorry.

I have betrayed my Queen, my Kingdom and the Royal guard.

I had met the prisoner before. His guts and moxie had impressed me.

He was known as a troublemaker, in conflict with the neighboring Minotaurs, but I saw it differently.

In many ways, his thoughts and deeds were inspired by our Divine Queen, but he sorely lacked her infinite knowledge and wisdom.

He tried to prevent skirmish-seeking Minotaurs from escalating the dispute. Especially one of them who had been pillaging unguarded stores to provoke his village.

He was trying to put a stop to it before it got worse, as our Most Divine Queen would have done, but he was a mere mortal and lacked her foresight. He shouldn’t have tracked the Minotaur into their territory and engaged him in deadly combat.

I felt for him. He believed that the rules that forbid both locals and militia to enforce justice outside Equestria’s borders wouldn’t apply to him, since it didn’t apply to the Minotaur.

He felt that to be executed for protecting the village was bad, but to be executed next at the border to the Minotaurs would be devastating and only encourage their aggression.

His tenacity and willingness to sacrifice himself for the good of his village touched me.

I came to love him.

I embedded the tools in his cell, even before it was decided he should be put there. I told him to wait until Princess Luna was far away and helped plan his escape through the most secluded parts of the forest.

I was wrong. What I did was wrong. And I’m so very sorry. There are no words to explain how sorry I really am, but maybe my remains can show you?

(signed) Lieutenant Ladyhawk

Luna’s magic rolled up the parchment and put it back inside the tube. Then she took the largest blanket she could find and swept it around the corpse. Floating it beside her as she continued her travel on hoof, towards the castle.

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