The stag stands up with a smile on his face, “Tervetuloa or welcome as you say in Equish.” At his words, I bowed, followed along by Orange and Cherry even if the latter was somewhat reluctant to do so.

The stag smiled. “Come now. There's no need to bow. All who enter this great hall in peace are treated as friends.” The three of us got up.

He walks down from his throne to meet us. “I am Chief Eero Jarvinen,” Eero says, noticing a similarly dressed doe walking in from the left. “Ah and this is my wife Maija Jarvinen.” The chief says gesturing a hoof towards the doe as she makes her way over.

I nodded. “My name is Starry Skies, and these two.” I gestured toward Orange and Cherry. “Are, Orange Bright and Cherry Splinter.” The two mares simply nodded and said their hello’s.

Chief Eero smiled. “Ah, the pleasure is mine.” Maija with a small frown interjects. “Oh, we have visitors. Not many come these days I’m afraid.”

Orange’s ears drooped. “Aww how come?”

Eero’s smile turned into a frown. “I think it's better if we discuss this somewhere comfortable.” The stag begins walking to his left, stopping for a moment before gesturing with a hoof. “Come follow me.” We then begin to follow him.

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We walked through a couple of corridors and passing by some guards we entered a room with a table in the middle of the room and a map of the local area on top. The map itself was dotted with blue and red figures.

The Chief motioned for everycreature to take positions around the table with his wife taking place by his side. Once in position Chief Eero began addressing the gathered individuals. “I’ll be blunt here, we’re not doing so well. It may not seem like it, but our food supply is dwindling, made worse by a war that’s been waged upon us.”

If Smalstad is under attack then it is my duty as a Queen of Olenia to come to the aid of these deer as they are, in my eyes at least, still subjects of the Olenian Hives. I know that Queen Cristera will be disappointed in me if I don’t step in and help.

With a stern expression, I gazed towards Eero who slightly flinched at the intensity of my gaze. “If I may ask who is attacking Smalstad?” I asked.

Eero after regaining his composure and pointed towards the red marks which were all located east. “The attacks started three months ago. At first only our hunting parties were attacked, then it moved onto trade caravans.” His expression darkened as he continued. “At first we didn’t know what hit us until one of our surviving hunting party returned with talks of black figures that can transform. It was then, and only then I knew what we were dealing with. vaihdokas or changeling.”

My eyes widened, but I quickly managed to calm myself down. I immediately recognized what enemy he was referring to.

His wife then interjected. “Yes, after they returned we knew our enemy and what we were up against. As our ancestors have fought against them before albeit failed. It was thanks to this failure we have learned measures on how to counteract the Vaihdokas shapeshifting, and.” Her antlers lit up. Her eyes gazed upon Cherry, then Orange, and finally, her gaze fell upon me. “And you are a vaihdokas.”

In hindsight, I should’ve remembered that thanks to Cristera the deer in cooperation with our changelings worked to develop ways to detect and even dispel changeling disguises. Although the latter never made it past development. Before the doe could even cast any spells I got up. Feeling the familiar warmth of green flames envelop me as I undid my disguise. I looked around the room as my original form now easily towered over everycreature gathered.

I watched as both the chief and his wife recoiled in shock as my true self was revealed right before them. Before Maija could cast anything Eero held out a hoof in front of her stopping her completely. “Wait, I knew that uniform was familiar. Where did you get it? This answer shall determine your fate, vaihdokas”

I stared at him in the eyes. “My real name is Queen Aurelia Zagria of the Everglade Hive.” Upon hearing my name both Eero’s and Maija’s eyes widened, but I continued. “And this uniform is the standard issue Olenian Hive officer uniform, which I now wear with pride.”

“You're one of the nine Queens of Legend that the ancestors spoke highly of,” Eero said. “It is said that the nine queens stepped together and banished the great evil one to the eastern frostlands. It is such an honor to be standing in your presence.” To which Eero and his wife began to bow and prostrate themselves to me.

“Umm. What?” My brain having been shut down at the event that has unfolded here. I could hear faint giggling coming out of Cherry’s muzzle. Struggling to find the words to say “Um, um, please there's no need to uh, prostrate yourselves to me. So please get up.”

Both Eero and his wife got up and looked up at me. With a pleading look, the Chief asked. “Please o’ Queen of Legend will you please grant us your assistance against the vaihdokas of the east?”

Sitting back down to my haunches, and with determination, I spoke. “Even if Queen Cristera is currently not available, it befalls upon me as the currently available queen to ensure the safety of those under the territory of the Olenian Hives,” I said, seeing the immediate looks of relief, smiles forming on their faces. “But, I am going to reform my disguise if I am to assist you.” Their smiles fell flat as I felt green flames engulf me, and I am once again taking the form of Starry Skies

“I… I see, although it is disappointing that you won't be gracing us with your true form, I suppose the knowledge that you have agreed to help is enough.” Eero said. “And good timing as a couple of hours ago, our scouts spotted an army of vaihdokas approaching from the north, and would be here anytime now.”

By this point, Maija had left, but not before giving her husband a peck on the cheek, saying something about going outside to ready the warriors to defend.

Looking back at the map and back toward the chief. “And what color are these changeling’s carapace?”

Eero while still moving the blue and red figures around various positions, said. ”From the bodies recovered by my warriors from our previous skirmishes, they have gray carapaces.”

Judging from the answer I deduced that the changelings attacking Smalstad aren’t remnants of Queen Tercia as her colors are violet, which means that a new queen has arisen or these changelings are nothing more than a band of queenless drones.

“Um, is it ok if I speak up?” My ears perked up, turning around I spotted Orange who up to this point had been silent, while behind her Cherry is looking over her gun excited at the prospect of an upcoming battle. Turning my focus back to Orange. “Sure, you’ve been silent this entire time, Do you have anything to add?”

“Ah yes, I can’t help but look over the map, there’s a river to the east and an open field in the north and dense forest in the west. ”Orange said, pointing at the various locations mentioned, “And since they are striking from the north then we can use the forests to ambush any oncoming changelings..”

Eero shot down Orange’s ideas. “Both ideas are good, however, there is one major flaw, the vaihdokas can fly over the forest and spot our warriors hiding amongst the trees, not to mention bypass any of our ambushers” Orange’s ears deflated at Eero pointing out the one major flaw in her ideas.

“I see.” Orange looked downcast.

Eero smiled. “Fret not young mare, for we have a counter, you see we can use magic and they can’t use any magic whatsoever. Which is odd but I’m not complaining, so yes we can magic traps inside the forest but we won’t deploy any warriors.” Orange to her credit did brighten up a bit

There’s one thing that caught my attention: if these rogue changelings can’t use any magic then they must be love-starved or rather emotionally starved, and emotionally starved changelings will go to any lengths to obtain love or any other emotions that are available.

“If these gray changelings can’t use magic, then they are emotionally starved so expect a fierce fight ahead of us.” I said, “They will do anything to drain even an ounce of love, even at the point of self-sacrifice.”

Eero had an understanding look. “So that explains their ferociousness in battle and blatant disregard for life.”

“Aw hell yeah, that just makes it more fun!” Cherry piped up.

Eero looked disturbed for a moment at Cherry’s comment. “Is your friend okay? Cause it seems like she’s very excited about this.”

Orange just chuckled. “Hehe, yeah ‘very excited’ is an understatement.”

I stood up, “excuse our companion for a moment, but It was nice talking to you, Chief Eero, but we need to get ready for the battle ahead. Ensi Kertaan Chief Eero.”

Eero bowed for a moment and stood back up. “Samoin to you Great Queen.” With that said, we left the room.

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After we had said our goodbyes. Orange, Cherry, and I made our way back outside of the longhouse where that same stag who had previously escorted us perked up at seeing us walk out the door.

“Talk with chief good?” The stag said.

I nodded, “Yes the talk with Chief Eero went spectacularly well. Say, have there been any attacks lately?”

The stag’s expression fell into a frown. “Ah yes, village not doing good. Not worry, yes, Chief and Chieftess has plan.”

“Well, that’s what the meeting was about, so we’re staying to help defend this lovely village.” Orange said, “There aren’t many settlements in the wasteland like this.”

Cherry piped in. “I’d agree as well this is perhaps the most unique settlement that I’ve, heh, ever visited.”

Orange rolled her eyes at the ex-raider's reference to her past, while I smiled at the high opinions of two wasteland-experienced ponies especially since I have no other reference points that I can use to compare Smalstad to.

“Ah, good, more hooves, better defend.” The stag said. “Come follow to, wall north, where enemy come.”

We followed the stag all the way toward the northern palisade, where we spotted a gatehouse flanked by two watchtowers overlooking the surrounding landscape. Climbing up the left tower provided us with a good view of the landscape, up ahead there was an open field with faint traces of snow, and to our left is a dense forest that had recovered its greenery, on our right is the start of the Metsajoki, and in the far distance I could spot black and gray figures in the distance slowly flying over to Smalstad. From what I can see they easily numbered somewhere between twenty and thirty.

Orange whistled looking impressed and terrified at the amount of changelings flying over. “Whoa, you think we can take them on?”

“I don’t know about you but I’m worried that I’ll run out of ammo.” Cherry by this point was vibrating with excitement at the amount of changelings we’ll be facing, hay I could even see the sparkle in her eyes and she was grinning like a madmare.

Unslinging my RK-30 and attaching it to my battle saddle watching as both Cherry and Orange did the same with their weapons. “Well, we won’t face them alone as the residents of Smalstad will be with us.”

“Right, we won’t be helpless this time, like that time in Vaverfront,” Orange said. “Furthermore we’ll win this if everyone does their part.”

I just wished I had more time to help Chief Eero out with planning the defense of Smalstad, but the changelings could’ve arrived any minute and I just hope Chief Eero and his wife have something already cooked up.

As the swarm in the distance drew nearer, the tension in the air around Smalstad became palpable. The bustling activity that had greeted them upon their arrival had gradually dwindled until a deafening silence settled over the settlement. Even the gentle flow of the nearby Metsajoki had ceased, leaving only the faint, ominous hum of the approaching swarm to fill the air.

The Battle for Smalstad draws ever so closer.

Author's Note

Hey guys and gals I promise I didn't forget about this story it's just Minecraft and HoI4 took up much of my time(I swear I didn't procrastinate on this).

I would like to give a shoutout to Google Translate for helping me with translations(even if it's not good.) and to Grammarly(The free version) for providing some assistance with punctuation.

You may have noticed that the last two chapters are a bit fast-paced, that's because after forcing myself to write chapters 1 and 2, which is the reason why they have word counts above 2k and influenced my initial decision to merge the prologue and chapter 1, which in hindsight was a stupid decision on my part. I realized that I don't want to force myself to write chapters, so I've just going at my own pace, and yes I realize I could describe scenes better, describe the character's feelings a bit better, and easily reach 5k-10k words, but I didn't do that.

Furthermore, I'm writing this story for fun(And I'm a bit lazy) out of an idea I randomly had while playing EaW(Equestria at War).

Anyways enough of my rant, I would like to thank you the reader for taking the time to read this story.