Dreamwalker's Tale: Last (!) Adventure

“Wakey-wakey,” a soft and comforting voice beckoned me. “A new day awaits us.”

“New day can lick my shiny rump,” I grumbled quietly and only further buried my muzzle in the warm softness that was my blanket. And my pillow. The sheets, however, were surprisingly hard and rough. It was enough of an irritation that my mind slowly started to work out that maybe those were not my sheets. Or my bed. Or my anything.

And because Luna was ruthless, she did take my word for it and licked across my cutie mark. The sensation ran up my spine like an electric jolt. I involuntarily kicked, but much to my relief, I did not actually manage to hit her. She giggled and regarded me in amusement while she finally retracted her wing. And thus, my blanket was gone, only adding further reason to be sad.

“I hate mornings,” I grumbled some more.

Luna bent down and nuzzled me. “As do I, my firecracker, but it cannot be helped.”

I blearily looked over to her and blinked out of synch for a moment before I rubbed my eyes. Despite the early morning hours and her nocturnal nature, she looked just fine. More than fine, really. Beautiful. As if fatigue and sleep deprivation had never so much as touched her. It just was not fair.

I slowly tried to get up, but a sudden pain made me take it slower still. “I swear, my back is trying to kill me,” I mumbled and carefully, caaarefully stretched until a quite satisfying but mildly nauseating pop was heard. “I will gladly admit to being a spoiled brat and that I miss Rarity’s pompous tent more than I ever imagined I would if it would bring that damn thing to us this instant…”

Luna smiled patiently and shook her head. “You would raise it, crawl inside and hide in the bed for a day or two.”

“Minimum,” I interjected.

She nodded. “Exactly. And we cannot have that.”

I sighed and gratefully accepted the water bottle. A bit of cold water in my face, both to help me wake up and wash, and a bubble to drink. While I did not necessarily feel better, I at least felt more awake now. “You know, we haven't encountered much resistance so far. For which I’m really glad, don’t get me wrong. I know that you’re supposed to have epic fight scenes or whatever in most adventures. Daring certainly had her fair share. But considering how sleeping in a cave messes me up or how jungle heat drains me, I’m kind of glad for both the train and this ravine. Seamlessly leads us to our goal. Almost feels like just getting to the post office to retrieve a package.” I smiled as I imagined Derpy behind that familiar counter, happily waving as I entered. And I had to chuckle a little as, in my mind, she vanished below the counter for a second to retrieve a Tempest Shadow, bound in ribbons, and placed her on the counter ready for pick-up.

“I do have to disappoint you then,” Luna said with a lopsided smile. “Because we are exiting the ravine today.”

“Oh? Alright, I’m all ears, what’s next?” I sat down at the small fire she had relit and tried to work out some of the kinks and knots in my muscles. I felt stiff and that was not exactly the best state to start walking again.

“I am sure you noticed the mountain?” she asked.

“Eyupp.”

“That would be Mount Aris,” she continued. “I will fly us up to the jungle. We close in on the mountain under cover of the canopy and thicket.”

“… and then we climb it?” I asked as Luna remained silent.

“And then we climb it,” she confirmed.

“So… Tempest Shadow, general of the Storm King’s army, a worthy foe to you… waits on top of some random mountain? That seems a little bit weird, doesn’t it?” I unenthusiastically nibbled away at my breakfast and had already started to deconstruct the unused tent and pack our stuff back into the saddlebags. However, I was not budging from my place at the fire for now. It was nice and warm and moving still felt awful.

“It is not some random mountain,” Luna corrected rather insistently before she sighed. “Mount Aris bears the ruins of the latest success of the Storm King’s continued warmongering. There is a plateau on top of that mountain and on it was a town. The last vestige of the hippogriff kingdom.”

“What’s a hippogriff?” I furrowed my brow. I vaguely remembered the name, having heard or read about that at some point, but I could not remember when or where. It sounded a lot like griffons, and those guys were difficult to deal with, at times. To put it diplomatically.

“Right,” Luna sighed once more, “you would not have heard of them. They are not dissimilar to ponies. But their front legs end in eagles’ claws, they have wings like a pegasus and a beak instead of a muzzle.”

“So… some kind of pony-eagle-hybrid, then. Similar to griffons, just… switch out the lion-part with a pony?” I concluded and tried to somehow mash these two creatures together in my head. I followed what Luna had told me, but the resulting image just looked freaky.

“I suppose you could say that,” she shrugged. “Although hippogriffs and griffons have very little in common. Hippogriffs lack any inherent greed. They were a proud nation. Fiercer warriors than the pegasi of old, from what I heard. Their kingdom spanned across a large and peaceful land, not dissimilar to Equestria. However, the Arimaspi Territory and the Forbidden Jungle always posed a rather daunting barrier between our nations and as you have seen, the old railway never got this far south.” Her expression suddenly shifted and she grimaced a little. “I do not wish to make excuses on Tia’s behalf.”

Alright. Show some effort. I stood up and swallowed that old-stallion-groan back down, moved over to her side and leaned against her in hopes of offering at least a little bit of comfort. “You don’t have to. I know of some of her failings myself and I know that she usually has everypony’s best interests at heart. It doesn’t always work out and she’s not perfect. She makes mistakes. ‘Miscalculates’, as she would call it. She is just a pony, after all. So it’s fine, don’t worry. You said they ‘were’, so I guess it really is just ruins up there? What happened? Do we know anything?”

A small smile graced her lips as she put her wing around me and pulled me further against herself. However, that smile faltered with my questions incoming. “News had a difficult time passing the jungle. Celestia had made contact with Queen Novo some sixty or seventy years ago. The Storm King had invaded their lands. According to my intel, he had been a cunning and brilliant strategist at some point. He outmaneuvered stronger forces and struck critical targets with precision before retreating without taking a single hit. He brought down nations with this kind of warfare. But as his empire grew, he had less and less need for such tactics. And by the time he reached the borders of the hippogriff kingdom, his empire had grown to such size that there was no need for finesse anymore. He simply waged a war of attrition. One that, given the abundant resources in conquered lands and heavily defended supply lines, he could not lose. The hippogriffs king lost his life early on as he defended his people side by side with his soldiers. When that line broke, the Storm King advanced. Although he could have, he did not rush devouring the nation. A single frontline that slowly and steadily advanced north, day by day. The hippogriffs had to watch as their nation crumbled. Some tried to resist. Many others fled north. Further and further. Their capitol fell. And Mount Aris was eventually the only city left. The northernmost settlement, the only thing remaining. The town was packed with refugees. Too many to accommodate properly. That was the time Celestia made contact. She offered Queen Novo refuge for her and her subjects. But hippogriffs are a proud race and Queen Novo refused. Despite my best efforts, I have not managed to gather much about what exactly happened. I have found some indicators that strongly implied that they somehow managed to get away. They abandoned their last city and fled. Mount Aris borders on the Forbidden Jungle and the Southern Celestial Sea. Maybe they found a new home in the thick jungle. Maybe they constructed ships and sailed to new shores.”

Seven decades ago, it rattled in my mind. That’s a long time to prepare for the next conquest. Maybe the Storm King had waged war in another part of the world in the meantime. He was not exactly picky according to Luna. He saw land that was not under his control and he changed that. I could only imagine—

No. Actually, I could not. I had no idea what a force like this would look like. I had vague fractions of memories, blurry images and feelings of dread, but nothing that got as concrete as I would have preferred. I knew of his massive airship fleet. What an impressive, frightening sight it had been. But I could not remember actually seeing his troops. His army. His many and varied other war machines.

My shoulder sagged as I exhaled. For some reason, I felt defeated. And the battle had not even started.

Luna squeezed me a little with her wing. “Fret not, Dream. Tis’ a tragedy beyond comparison, yes. But there is hope. It is a lesson to learn from and not a story to be frightened of. From what my sister told me, Queen Novo was fierce and proud, but also cunning and wise. I do not think that she would spurn Tia’s offer without having something better in mind.”

I solemnly looked out the cave entrance. There was little to see there, of course. The walls of the ravine were high. So I just stared at more stone. A gap in between, but a stone wall on the other side. “It still feels like we’re going to walk on a graveyard today,” I quietly answered. And who in their right mind could keep his spirits high when doing something like that?

Luna sighed, but did not comment further. Maybe because she had to agree.

We extinguished the fire and packed up the rest of our stuff. We stood on the low ledge of the cave entrance a few minutes later. The ravine seemed to stretch forever to our left, back north. And a good deal further to our right as well. However, the southern parts were on an incline. Slowly leading up to the height of the surrounding area. It made me think about these last days.

The first thing I noticed was how I had completely lost track of the number of days we had been in here. Four? Five? Seven? I did not know. The ravine was long. Very, very long. Rough stone on the bottom, rough stone on the walls. No vegetation. Barely any animal life. Birds, sure. But there were no bears or wolves or any other creatures one would expect to make use of caves like these. Caves we had used in those past days time and again. Every living thing that dared to make itself comfortable down here was of such nature that it could flee the region in an instant. Birds could simply fly up.

Maybe this ravine was cursed? Haunted? Dangerous in a way we could not perceive? Plants had a difficult time growing on solid stone, sure. But some plants did not care about that at all and made themselves a home wherever. So why not down here? How long exactly had this ravine been here?

The train tracks we had initially followed across the Macintosh Hills had led straight into this chasm. And then it just ended. But Luna had said that these tracks had been from a time before her banishment. So this ravine had to be more than a thousand years old. It was a scar on the crust of this world and no other living thing dared to infest it with life?

What a strange place.

"Ready?” Luna’s soft voice ripped me out of my musings.

“Hm?” I eloquently replied before I reoriented myself. “Oh, yeah. Sure.” I climbed aboard the Lunar Express and nestled between her wings. A long, satisfied sigh escaped my throat and I heard her softly giggle in reply. I wished I could stay like this for hours. But she was airborne with strong wingbeats and in a few minutes time, she set down hooves onto the soft ground up on the jungle side. And I gracelessly slipped back down again. I smiled as she bent down and pressed a little kiss to my forehead.

We walked through the jungle. It was not as hot or as humid as I remembered it from my vacation with Sunny. Probably because of how close to the edge we were. Luna walked in front and in her wake, it was an easy enough task to just simply follow. Like a fish, swimming in the wake of a boat.

“Lu?” I asked after a couple of hours had passed. The sun was high in the sky. Not that I could tell with certainty — the jungle’s canopy was still quite thick.

“Yes?” she replied.

“Why are we heading there?” It had only occurred to me after we had started our little jungle trek. After the impromptu history lesson and the significant dip in mood, it had simply slipped my mind. But with minutes passing and my hooves doing their job in a routine, my mind had started to wander and finally caught up to some minor inconsistencies. Tempest Shadow would not wait on top of that mountain for us. And climbing a mountain was a tiring task. Onehad to get up. And then one had to get back down. Luna could simply carry me and glide down of course. But I somehow doubted that we would fly up.

“Mount Aris shares some similarities to Mount Canterhorn in that they are both single mountains surrounded by vast stretches of relatively flat land,” Luna explained. “It is a good vantage point. I have a spyglass with me and I hope we can maybe spot the arrival of Tempest's airship.”

I fell silent for a moment as I sorted through what that meant, what that implied. “Wait,” I restarted, “you don’t know her route? We don’t know where exactly she’ll be?”

Luna did not stop, but she did look back over her shoulder and I really, really did not like her amused smirk. “It would be less of an adventure if everything was already painstakingly planned out and done, no? That would make it a heist, I believe?”

I grimaced. For a fraction of a second, I wanted to reply that, if Celestia had planned this excursion, everything would have been planned to minute details. But such comparisons were unfair and potentially hurtful. I knew what she was going for and why she did this and why we were here. And I tried to go along with it to the best of my ability. Snapping like that would not help anypony. So I instead simply dropped that part and focused on something else, hoping that finding Tempest would somehow magically work itself out. Maybe Luna was right. Airships were not small, were they? Maybe we would simply spot her arrival.

“So what is the plan after we found her?” I asked.

“We talk,” Luna simply answered. Her attention had returned to the path ahead.

We talk, I repeated in my head. Tempest Shadow. Rightfully feared warrior. Right hoof of the Storm King. Who served him for years, to the point that she had made herself irreplaceable. And we… what? We would waltz in, tell her that we could give her her horn back and she would simply abandon years and years of hard work and dedication?

I knew what the plan was. Sure.

To goat her. To tempt her. To bargain with her. We basically wanted to bribe her. Give her the prospect of getting what she wanted. And to make that a viable strategy, we had to somehow undermine her trust in the Storm King. Luna was certain that she could do that. Somehow. The cracks were there. She just had to put a wedge in and give it a solid kick. But was it really that easy?

“And what if she won’t listen?” I asked.

I heard Luna snicker a little before she once again looked back. “Then we need to talk harder.” She winked at me and turned back to the jungle once more.

I don’t like that plan, I simply realized. I was used to meticulous planning. Gathering not just some information, not just the useful information, but all the information. I was used to Twilight, in that regard. And Celestia, to some extent. I knew how Luna operated. How she planned. But it put me on edge to think about her ‘let’s wing it’-strategy.

She knows what she’s doing, I told myself. She brought me along and she knew full well what I can and cannot do, I added. And yet none of that helped with my rising levels of anxiety. Maybe that was the point. Maybe she needed some bundle of nervous energy. Or maybe she considered this very thrilling and hoped that I would agree at some point.

It took a few more hours to make it out of the jungle again. It was a weird phenomenon. It was decently hot, humid and everything around me was once again buzzing. Damn insects. But just a couple of steps further, and the air cooled down significantly, the humidity settled down to more reasonable levels and the insects realized that they had entered an area they were not meant to be in and vanished back to their rightful place.

I could see what Luna had mentioned earlier. A wide expanse of rolling hills and flat farmland. It did not look as bleak and barren as I had expected. It instead looked like… well, just another piece of land. That could have been any patch of Equestria, really. Certainly did not look war-torn. And I could not help but wonder who cared for those fields and orchards I could spot.

A massive army had a massive appetite. It made sense to farm food near the frontline. Shorter supply routes meant less need for supply durability. Luna had mentioned that some hippogriffs stayed when the enemy advanced. They wanted to fight for their home, sure. But maybe the Storm King had somehow converted them? It would not have been unheard of. King Sombra had used some sort of brainwashing to get loyal soldiers as well. Or maybe the Storm King was using some sort of forced labor?

It made more sense to leave as much of the enemy population and infrastructure intact as possible, right? Scorched earth tactics neatly emphasized your villainy, sure, but it did not get one any bonus points to continue the conquest. An army needed to be fed. But it also needed to grow. It needed fresh recruits. It needed weapons. Armor. Which meant forges. Which meant smiths and smelters and miners. And they needed to eat, too. Which meant bakers, cooks. Farmers. Farms. Windmills. And all of them needed to be housed decently enough. Because sick workers, hungry workers, dead workers, they were less than useful.

I recoiled from my own thoughts.

For a second, for just a second, I found myself thinking that maybe the Storm King’s war was not all that bad. Certainly not as bad as I imagined it. This land was not burning. No charred, blackened earth. No dead trees and corpses littered the ground. He had good reason to kill and maim as little as possible. Every enemy soldier could be another farmer feeding his army once the dust had settled. Surely. Surely he would spare as many as possible. All, maybe? And return all the prisoners to their home. To work for him. And the better the infrastructure was, the better his army would be equipped, with better morale and better supply lines. So surely, surely, he had an interest in developing the land he brought under his rule. Build schools to teach his unwilling subjects to be better at their jobs.

I almost found myself justifying the actions of a tyrant. I found myself attempting to turn him into something he most likely was not. I had no reason to believe that there was any benevolence whatsoever about his rule. Or any mercy in his heart.

Maybe that’s just the pony way, I sighed in defeat.

Mount Aris was a steep climb. Luckily, hippogriffs had chosen wisely and acted accordingly. Flying up the mountain certainly was a possibility and it would have been a massive strategic advantage had that been the only way up there. However, Mount Aris had not been settled with a militaristic mindset. A single, steep and long staircase had been hewn into the mountainside, zig-zagging all the way to the top. Securing the staircase with boulders, tar and traps could provide some decent security measures. It could hold off invading ground forces for a good while and buy time for people preparing to flee. But at the same time, it meant that a ground force assault was even possible in the first place and an enemy with enough determination would break through eventually.

As we made our way around another corner, I felt an uncomfortable sensation. I had been on edge the entire time. Luna’s flimsy plan was something I tried to put up with. I trusted her. She would make it work somehow. But the feeling of walking on a grave was disturbing. And it clashed so much with what my eyes told me. And I was anxious because I apparently had to be wary of my own mind. I could not allow myself to make excuses for a warmonger. There were so many more tiny things and it all added to me being on edge. Being anxious and fidgety. “Luna, wait,” I whispered harshly.

She stopped and looked back, but sighed as soon as she saw my state. She still tried to be patient though and since that was not exactly her strong suit, I was grateful for her attempts.

My hair stood on end. My ears swiveled this way and that way as I tried to hone in on something, anything, everything. A crack here. A bird chirped. Some stones rolled downhill. Why? What had made them roll? Wind whistled. Was that wind? Wait, why was that bird chirping like that? It sounded angered. Surprised, maybe.

“Somepony’s coming!” I hissed while my eyes darted up the path to the next bend of the staircase. I tried to spot any changes, any intruders, anything at all.

Luna listened for a second or two before she sighed. Everything had gone silent again. “Nopony is coming, Dream,” she quietly replied. It would have been less of a deal had I announced my suspicion for the first time. But like the foal yelling wolf, I had been certain I had heard somepony before. A fluke. It had been nothing. Yet once again, I was certain. What else was I supposed to do? “You are being paranoid. And frankly, you are starting to unnerve me as well. I should not have told you about their plans to head north. Rest assured that I am quite certain that nopony is this close to the border. It is simply a vantage point to get a good look at the land south of here.”

My blood was rushing. My ears still swiveled about. She turned, walked a little bit back and leaned down to kiss me. And for a few seconds, I followed familiarity. I closed my eyes and I tried to focus on her. I tried to calm down. I inhaled her scent. I felt her warmth and love. I even smiled while I kissed her as memories of the last few days rose to the surface of my mind.

And then I heard a rock crack and an angrily chirping bird hastily flew off. “I’m not paranoid!” I hissed. “Illusion! Illusion!”

Luna had heard it as well this time. She quickly grabbed me with a wing and ushered me to the side, right at the edge of the path. It was a long and very painful looking drop down from here. Then she lit her horn and hopefully did something, because whatever the spell was, I did not notice any change. But I could feel the familiar tingle of her magic all around us. A less concerned part of my mind chuckled in amusement over the fact that I was holding Luna's muzzle shut. While she did the same with mine.

And now we could see them.

Two… I had difficulties categorizing them. Two creatures came into view. They lazily strolled around the next bend as they came down the path from up above. And they came closer and closer as they talked with each other. It was the first time that I saw a soldier of the Storm King’s army.

And I was quite intimidated.

They were large creatures. Probably larger than Celestia. They would certainly tower over her, were it not for their posture. They walked hunched over. Their wide shoulders led into massive arms and their hands held a wicked, spiked shield and some sort of trident. Their shoulders were armored and the metal plate sported the symbol of their army. That thing I actually recognized.

I was not quite sure if the white fur that covered their shoulders, their head and most of their back and front was actually just a piece of clothing or armor, or if it genuinely was their fur. And they wore some strange masks that made them look alike and obscured their facial features. And their eyes glowed eerily in a blue hue behind that mask.

Their main body armor was a light one. Too smooth for bark. Some kind of fabric? I could hear metallic jingling. A chain shirt woven into the fabric, maybe. A belt. Again marked with the symbol. Their legs looked almost comically tiny in comparison to their upper body and arms. But I knew better than to let myself get lulled into a false sense of security by that. Those were runners' legs. Thin, but durable. No muscle more than required and certainly no fat to speak of. And they ended in clawed paws. They had a tassel on the tip of their tail which vaguely reminded me of something else, but I could not remember what.

All in all, they looked like really, really buff diamond dogs. It was the best comparison my mind could come up with. Really buff and really big.

“… not sure this is necessary,” the left one said. In my language. That made sense given who their general was, I supposed. It still caught me off-guard. “I mean, there’s not been any activity for what? Five months? And it was a false alarm last time anyway.”

The other one growled, which only further strengthened my association of these guys with diamond dogs. “I told the chief before, and I’d do it again! There was a massive… fish…thing in the water! And it had some glowing thing around its neck!”

“Fish don’t have necks, you idiot,” the other one chided with an amused chortle.

“Screw you. I know what I saw. And I know what I heard.” He stopped. They stood less than ten feet away from us. Ten. Feet. I had stopped breathing a good while ago and so had Luna.

Both of them looked around and listened intently before the first one shrugged and gave his companion a bump against his shoulder. “I don’t mind the walk. It’s nice to get out for once. So maybe let’s head down to base level and then return.”

The other one growled quietly, dissatisfied. “I swear I heard someone talk,” he insisted.

“Sure you did,” the former shrugged and gave him a shove. They slowly started moving again and continued their way down.

Only after we saw them turn the bend further down and after they vanished out of sight did we allow ourselves a deep, albeit quiet breath. It was actually not that easy to gasp without making too much noise, but goodness me, my lungs burned. I was not used to holding my breath for extended periods.

“Ohhh, those are big boys,” I whispered with mild fear lacing my voice.

Luna craned her neck to look me in the eyes. “I presume Sergeant Wither Rose has trained you better than this.”

Just her name made me cringe a little, but I dutifully nodded. “Size doesn’t matter,” I recited from memory, “if anything, it works against them. Yes, yes, I know. It’s just… first impressions and all. Those are big boys, Luna…”

She nodded as she was satisfied with my recital and sighed. “Yes. Yes, they are. I honestly had not expected them to be this big either. And I must apologize. You were right.”

I shook my head. “Second time around. You were right, too. Anyway, I’m just glad they didn’t immediately catch us. What did you do?”

Luna smiled and shrugged. “We were a boulder.”

Of course. What else. I shrugged and smiled. Fine by me. But my smile soon faded as my gaze was drawn up the path and ultimately, towards the top of the mountain. We had managed to climb it three quarters of the way already. But now I was a little hesitant about going all the way up. “Seems we might not be alone up there.”

She nodded. “Indeed. Although I think we ought to take a look at what we are working with before we make any decisions. We can retreat after an initial assessment, yes?”

I simply flipped a switch at this point. It was about high time I did this anyway. For as much as I loved her, Luna had taken me along for a journey that was less of an adventure and more of an actual mission to secure Equestria’s safety and now matter how confident she was, I would take it as seriously as I deemed necessary. From this point forth, she was my commanding officer first and foremost. I nodded in affirmation and we continued to sneak up the mountain, now more conscious about any noise we made and how easily we might be spotted from higher up. We barely talked to further reduce risk of detection and managed to climb the rest of the way despite our slower pace in a decently short time span.

Once we were up, we left the easy to walk staircase and instead climbed a little to the side to find a more secure spot away from the path. The two guards on patrol would return eventually, after all. The steep walls of the mountain rose up a good deal higher than the plateau itself, at least on three of the four sides, with the only ‘open’ side being the southern one where the staircase led up. It meant that the little fortified outpost sitting in the middle there was obscured from view unless one were to fly in from the south or from directly above. At which point the outpost could probably see whatever or whoever was coming as well.

The outpost itself was a collection of a couple of houses, joined together by an exterior wall. And everything was made from metal. Metal plates of varying sizes, qualities and even materials, welded together. A little walkway above the entrance gate was manned with two more guards. A small tower rose in one corner of the outpost and sported another guard on top. A spotter, probably. The fortification was too small to be called a fortress, but still large enough for maybe a dozen of them, plus minus. Most likely a forward operating base then. Strangely enough, there were no ruins to speak of. Maybe the invaders had cleared out the remnants of the settlement after their final conquest?

“I think they had the same idea,” I whispered to Luna. It was a good vantage point, indeed.

We silently retreated a little bit further down the slopes. Any hope to find a ledge or something like that was quickly dashed. I didn't quite understand how this mountain had been formed. But it certainly did not look natural. More like a spike that protruded from the earth. And mountains were not supposed to stand alone in the middle of flat land anyway. Then again, these three towering walls surrounding the plateau, that did look suspiciously like a caldera, did it not? Maybe Mount Aris was a dead volcano?

“We might need to rethink our approach here,” Luna whispered as we settled halfway comfortably on the slopes. “I had not expected an outpost this far north.”

A part of me wanted to be smug about it. What? No trust in your ability to wing it? But she kept her voice serious and maybe even more importantly: She looked dejected.

My gaze was drawn to our saddlebags. We still had plenty of food left, as far as I could tell. Enough for maybe another week or so. And a tent. Luna had planned some parts of our journey. She had planned for us to travel by train for almost a week. She had planned for us to walk through this ravine for days. A ravine that had provided us with shelter on more than enough occasions by presenting ledges and caves and being surprisingly safe. We had not truly needed that tent at all.

And now we were here, on top of a mountain, in the middle of nowhere, with no civilization around for miles. The walls kept the winds at bay, sure, but it was still a little cold up here. And with no roof, rain would be an issue. But I suspected the starry nights would have been impressive.

She had planned for us to camp here, had she not? For a few days at least until Tempest showed up.

I honestly felt bad for trying to be smug in the first place. I wished I could just hug her and cuddle her, but our current situation was a little difficult and I needed to stay aware of our surroundings.

I could not make the outpost disappear. If she had planned for us to camp here, that plan had failed. But I knew that Luna was tough. She was perfectly capable of working with changing plans and circumstances. She was certainly more adaptable than me, both with her plans, and with her enjoyment of things. I once more looked at the small little outpost.

They have roofs, I noted with a mental shrug. And that sparked a very, very stupid idea. One Luna might enjoy a lot. I would enjoy it less so, but I deemed it worth a try for her sake. “Hey, so, um… I have a proposal.” I was expecting something along the lines of ‘but we are already married’. She just nodded instead and waited for me to elaborate. It only further highlighted that she needed a little morale boost. “I don’t know how many bits you’ve packed or what else is in those saddlebags. Somepony didn’t want me to peek. But, you know… they have this lovely looking inn here, so maybe we just check in and see what the service is like?”

Despite her initial confusion, she still started to grin. Just because I tried to make fun of the situation. And I just loved that. It took her a few seconds to put one and one together and she briefly looked over to the outpost before her attention returned to me. “That could backfire,” she simply stated. It was not so much an argument against the idea. She simply stated the obvious.

I grinned and shrugged, despite the nervousness forming a knot in my stomach. “I know. But I have my brave and valiant protector with me, right? So I should have nothing to fear?” Her smile turned into a proud grin. “And with such esteemed guests as us, surely they would ask themselves: Why did they choose our humble resort instead of something more high-class, right? And they would surely send word to inform the higher-ups about our visit. And maybe that would make them visit as well. Just to make sure that our stay at their humble inn is to our utmost satisfaction.”

Luna snickered quietly. My nervousness bubbled in my throat and weirdly mixed in with the butterflies as I enjoyed seeing her spirit lifted up. Worth it. “And you would do that? You would go along with that?” she asked as she briefly returned to a more serious tone.

I grimaced only slightly as my self-control managed to keep most of that bottled up. “For you? Anytime.”

Luna smiled warmly and leaned in. We shared a nice, long kiss before she pulled away again. I missed her lips immediately. And in the back of my head, a voice berated me that it was probably not appropriate to make out with your commanding officer in hostile territory — right at the doorstep of an enemy base, no less.

“So how are we going to do this?” I asked her.

Luna looked towards the outpost once more. “I will switch the illusion with invisibility. We walk up to the gate and I drop it. We surrender immediately.”

“What if they attack? Out of surprise, maybe?” I interrupted.

“I think I should be able to throw up a shield quickly enough if necessary.” I nodded. Her confidence in herself was good enough for me. “They will probably take us to the most secure room they have. I am honestly not certain if an outpost of this size has a prison cell. If they have, we will get to know it. Either way, I agree that it should be highly suspicious already. Maybe we can add a little cheek here and there to make it even more suspicious. It should unnerve them quite a bit. I agree that they will most likely send a message to inform someone else at that point and with her in the region for inspections already, I think it should be more than sufficient to attract Tempest to our position.”

“What if they arrange for a prisoner transfer?” I tried to cover the next weak link I saw. “Maybe to get us further south where an escape would yield less immediate opportunities to slip from their grasp. Or they send us straight to the Storm King.”

Luna considered the possibility for a moment before ultimately shrugging it off. “The Storm King is far away. If they do, we should be able to gather that information before we reach our destination. At which point escaping should be less of an issue and we can try something else.”

“You said they can deal with magic users. What if they disable yours?” It was the last real concern I had for now. Minor issues swamped my mind, sure, but most of those were just panicky thoughts that quickly fell apart when tested.

“I know a thing or two about how they do it,” Luna replied. “Spell-reflecting shields, magic-dampening rings, anti-magic cells. They are perfectly viable against regular magic. But they never faced an alicorn. The amount of energy I can put out… I do not believe their equipment can handle that.”

This back and forth really did prove that we worked as a decent team. She was not just patient with my constant nitpicking and all the issues I brought up. She was grateful for it. I thought of things she did not consider. Or did not deem worthy of consideration. And in turn, her confidence and vast experience soothed my nerves. I saw problems and she provided solutions.

“And if their equipment can deal with it, we’re down to your wits and good looks alone?” I asked with a lopsided smile.

“Something like that,” she confirmed with a grin.

“Well aren’t I lucky that I brought such a pretty mare along then,” I complimented her with a quiet chuckle. Even in that brief sound, however, I could hear my own nervousness.

That was most likely the reason why she placed a hoof on my shoulder and smiled reassuringly. “We have each other’s backs.”

I took a deep breath and nodded. “We do.” And another. “Alright. Let’s do this. Before I decide that running down the slopes screaming is the better option.”

For a fraction of a second, her horn dimmed down, before immediately glowing anew. And we carefully stood up and moved forward, inch by inch. And we really did have to crawl a little, because while invisibility — one of Spike’s favorite wizard spells in Ogres & Oubliettes — provided a flat bonus to stealth checks against all senses, the real deal really just did what it said on the tin and any loose stones could be heard just fine. Adding to that, neither of us was keen on tripping and falling off the mountainside.

We reached the gate and even though I had placed every single step consciously and with quickly rising apprehension, we had still made it here. “Are you ready?” she whispered as quietly as possible.

I looked up at the guards. They looked incredibly bored. But they were still very much big boys. And I tried to focus on Wither Rose’s voice. Her training. How she relentlessly yelled her lessons down our ears with enough force that our bones rattled. I gulped and gave a shallow nod.

And that comforting glow around her horn faded.

It took the guards a solid twenty-six seconds before they even realized that we were there. That was sloppy on a level that neither any Day Guard captain nor any captain of the Night Guard would have tolerated. But when they finally noticed our presence, they acted quickly. Some sort of blaring alarm was sounded. They aimed with their weird, oversized forks in our direction and, much to my dismay, electricity sparked between the fork teeth.

“Hold! Who goes there?” one of the two guards on the walkway demanded to know. That one question alone sounded so incredibly stilted that I almost chuckled.

Don’t think about war and consequences, I repeatedly told myself. Think about cheek. Just imagine them as guards. Day Guards. Just another guard.

I shared a quick side glance with Luna before replying. “Uh… pizza delivery service?”

The two guards on the walkway stared at each other before I faintly heard one of them quietly ask, “What’s a pizza?”

I deeply pitied them for a moment.

The alarm fell silent and had apparently attracted someone else. The solid metal gate cracked and creaked and slowly swung open as three more guards emerged from the little courtyard that seemed to be behind the gate. One of them wore a fancier shield. It was larger and less spikey, but bore more runes and arcane symbols. Probably one of those shields Luna had mentioned.

“What is the meaning of this?” he asked in slightly broken Ponish after he stopped a few feet away from us. His posture was neither overly aggressive or defensive. He held one of those zap-staffs, but he did not appear battle-ready at all. However, he was flanked by two of his underlings and they looked very much ready.

“We surrender,” Luna offered.

There was a prolonged silence as we saw no reason to elaborate and they had difficulties trusting their ears. “You… surrender…?” the supposed officer asked in utter disbelief.

Luna furrowed her brow and looked over to me. “Did I stutter?”

Be cheeky, I reminded myself. So I swallowed that lump in my throat and tried a nonchalant shrug. “I heard you loud and clear. But they do have a weird accent. I don’t think they’re very familiar with our language. Here, let me try.” I turned my attention to the officer and despite another gulp, I managed to continue. “We give up. No fighting. Yes?”

He did not seem to buy it, unsurprisingly. “So Equestria just… gives up.”

Luna giggled and shook her head. “Oh no. No, no, no! Just the two of us.”

“Why?” he asked, accompanied with a slight growl. We made the entire deal look silly. I would not have liked that either.

However, Luna continued her charade unabashedly. “Oh you know. My sister is perfectly capable of ruling alone and she never wakes me up when something thrilling is happening and she gets all the cake to herself, it really is just a lot of minor inconveniences adding up.”

I shrugged as his burning gaze hit me. “I’m just her lap dog. I follow her around.”

His growl became a little bit more pronounced and I had to struggle with myself to keep my composure. No enemy soldiers, just another guard…

“Strip them,” the officer commanded. A simple gesture kept the two guards on top of the gate at the ready while his two flanking buddies put away their weapons and shields and started to take away our saddlebags. They searched through them and despite my burning curiosity, I did not flinch or turn. Some items they held up for him to briefly inspect, but most of it was just the food, the remaining bits and the tent.

“Cuff them,” was his next order.

His two underlings exchanged a look before turning to him again. “We don’t have—“

“Then go get them,” he barked.

And boy, could they run. They reappeared within a minute or so and carried a small casket. They opened it up and took out several implements. Four cuffs for our front legs and back legs, connected with a chain between them. And of course, two dampening rings they put on our horns. And one of them fruitlessly tried to bind Luna’s wings together with a simple rope. Fruitlessly, because she continuously messed with him. Subtle enough that he did not assume conscious resistance, but instead seemed to assume that he was accidentally triggering some sort of involuntary pegasus reflex. In the end, he bound the rope loose enough that Luna could simply step out of it at any moment. The officer either did not notice or did not care.

“Follow me.” His guards now flanked us, with their weapons at the ready again, and he turned and led us into the outpost. He did not seem comfortable with that, but what choice did he have? It was too good an opportunity to pass on and the higher-ups most likely would not approve of such a choice either.

It turned out that even an outpost of such a small size had a prison cell. Singular. One.

Cheek, I reminded myself for the umpteenth time as I spotted the hay-filled bed. “Uh! Luna, look! They have a real bed!” I tore free of the guard loosely holding my shoulder and ran ahead into the cell and threw myself onto the bed and I wiggled around like a pig in mud. “Oh sweet Celestia, how I have missed a proper bed!”

Luna stepped into the cell and sighed. “You know, we really ought to talk about that. Is it too much to ask for you to say ‘sweet Luna’ instead?”

I pouted a little at her and smirked as she could not keep her face straight. “I’ll try, I promise.”

I noticed that short side glance of hers as she stood with her back to our guards. We both heard the officer instructing one of his soldiers to ‘send a message’. They apparently knew perfectly well where to, or to whom, because nothing else was said apart from it being ‘of the highest priority’.

After he gave his order, the officer had a brief chat with another guard. Our jailor, I presumed. “Keep an eye on them at all times. Something about this is fishy. The entire post is on high alert, so act accordingly.”

While the jailor nodded, Luna craned her neck and slid the rope from her wings. And then she just sparked her horn. I could see how the ring attracted the glow of her magic, consumed it. But her spark started to glow brighter and brighter as she poured more and more energy into it, eventually overpowering the ring utterly. It sparked, literally, and burst into a small shower of harmless shrapnel the next second. “Hah, that feels so much better,” she noted and settled down on the bed next to me.

Both the officer and the jailor stared in shock, slack-jawed.

I sighed and got back up, much to Luna’s dismay. “Come on, Luna. Don’t be mean to the nice jailor.” I stepped up to our cell bars. The door was closed and locked, sure. I knew that. So did they. And yet the jailor still took half a step back. It almost made me chuckle again. So far, our plan worked splendidly. “Excuse me, mister jailor sir, could we maybe have another of your fancy jewelry thingies? It appears my princess accidentally broke one.”

The jailor looked to his commanding officer who only growled deeper in response. “Give them one,” he begrudgingly allowed before he turned away and walked off. He probably understood that we could — and would — come and go whenever we wished. And the only thing that kept his captives in this cell was their own wish and compliance. I could not imagine that to be a nice feeling.

The officer left and slammed the door shut with enough force to make the jailor’s desk jump a little — and even the desk was fashioned from metal. The jailor himself withdrew a small casket not dissimilar to the other one from one of the desks drawers and retrieved another ring. He walked over to the bars and tried to hand it to me. Problem was, with my hooves in chains and the dampening ring on my horn, I could not accept it as easily.

“Ehrm… could you maybe bring it a little bit closer? That way, I could pick it up with my teeth.” And how he squirmed for a few seconds due to the mere thought of my muzzle getting this close to his precious hand. As if I were some kind of wild beast, willing and capable of ripping his entire arm straight from its socket.

After he overcame his hesitance, I gently picked the ring up and mumbled a “Thnks” before I returned to the bed. “Now b nice and don struggl!” I gently slid the ring over Luna's horn and grinned like a madpony as she tried to keep her composure. I let my tongue draw along the length of her horn excessively and agonizingly slowly as I withdrew my muzzle.

Luna's eyelids fluttered. She shuddered a little and threw a warning glare without any real fire in my direction and I only grinned wider. “There, there. It’s all good now.”

And with that done, I laid down at her side once again. Luna pulled me in and hugged me to her body like a pillow, with which I could live just fine. The only thing we had to do now that we were ‘captives’ was to wait. Our cell was not exactly a luxurious hotel room. A single window, barred of course. Drab gray walls. No mirror, no desk, no chair, just a single, simple bed. But hey, we had a toilet. We even had a sink and flushing water. So it could already have been worse than what we actually got. Of course it could not quite measure up to Luna's initial plan, if my suspicions were right. But maybe this passed as the next best thing.

My mind wandered off. I thought about travel times. What means of transport these guards might have. How fast they could reach Tempest. How fast airships traveled. A lot of it was guesswork, obviously. And in the middle of it, Luna softly started to hum. It unexpectedly lulled me to sleep, without me even becoming aware of it…