The Gray Dames

“Envy implies conscious inferiority wherever it resides.”

Silence. It reigned over the barrage of hooffalls on stone and the eventual rushing of water merely whispered to her. Celestia’s march through the caves felt eerily familiar. She threaded the stone in the mines under Canterlot countless times
before it was closed, but that was not the reason her mind wandered. It had become a habit for her quickly sharpening mind to use the shroud of darkness to dust the aged memories of her old soul. She blamed her journey through the sewers, and would rather dream, but never resisted. The princess understood it instead: her brain was used to activity and the morose dark invited thoughts, and those carried memories. Especially the ones she should not remember anymore. Those that brought strange longings to her heart and clasped at her throat like Mother Harpy’s own talons.

Envy is a very mortal emotion. Gods are supposed to have everything, or at least, the means to satiate any flight of fancy or need they have. Therefore, Celestia never considered herself a god. There were many things she wanted outside of her reach. The most infuriating of all, she often failed to achieve her goals for the sake of others, and her own desires—sometimes needs—went neglected.

Celestia wanted a world free of pain and fear, but not a world without thrills, excitement, and uncertainty to spice the many years of a creature’s life. What she wanted was a world where creatures would be free not to suffer. A world where creatures would not hunger, for there would be no lack of food. An existence devoid of murder and violence, where beings could savor life to its deepest depths, without an abrupt end to their journey.

She saw a world where foals could run and play, and their parents needed not to worry about their safety or whether they would have food for dinner. A world that belonged to them, and all a pony would need was to enjoy their life. No pain or hunger. No fear or demands. A world full of cute doggies and kittens to run around and play with the foals. Of beautiful singing birds and wonderful vistas for all the creatures to discover and enjoy. A world where one could do what they
loved. Where they could find happiness without the need to struggle for survival. For if none struggled, they would not need to impose it upon others.

The Harpy laughed, and She was right. Celestia’s little ponies stood no chance against the monsters born of magic or the simple eventuality of accidents. They lacked common sense; they lacked fear, a teacher to keep them alive. It was horrible,
a massacre. It could not have ended too soon.

She tried again with her sister. Made smarter, her little ponies built shelters, but still they failed. They simply could not withstand eternity. Not only did biology find novel ways to fail and magic faded with time, but accidents happened despite
every caution. There was no foal-proofing the world. She could not make the rocks soft, and gravity could not be kinder. Bones would break, veins and arteries would tear. Muscles and tendons would rip and organs shatter. And sometimes, even the most perfect of machines would let imperfection slip through.

Not only were they not made for eternity, but they needed to replenish their numbers, or their fledgling society would not sustain itself. As the third goddess came into existence, she taught them love and how to bring forth new life. That ensured their numbers would grow without end, so the sisters designed them to expire. They traded immortality for reproduction, and the Harpy laughed again, and She was right again.

Celestia’s sister, in the Time Before Time, called it the ‘Mortality Anomaly’. It resulted from the combined effects of limited lifespan and resources. How could you convince a creature, driven by emotion, they would not lack when they saw both
their time and resources vanishing before their eyes? The Harpy laughed again as Celestia’s little ponies became selfish and drove themselves into conflict. The Windigos came to end it all. Once again, Celestia sat in the middle of the ruins of her sandcastle.

When creation started again, the arrival of the fourth goddess heralded the creation of the Elements of Harmony. She gifted them to the little ponies, and the Harpy did not laugh anymore. Their monumental project was complete. Celestia’s little
ponies were happy, and she was no longer necessary. None of them were necessary anymore, as no new cycles should begin.

But the Mortality Anomaly remained, for they were still mortal, and resources finite. It clashed with the Elements of Harmony—such was the price of free-will—and some of them could not resist. An ancient and powerful pact was broken. The Windigos returned like the wrath of a slighted god. But Celestia was there, and she understood. There was no god nor wrath. There was no slight, only unbalance, and Harmony yearning for it. Then came Discord, and all pretense of balance flew out the window.

Perhaps even the worst moment in Creation was Harmony’s way of seeking balance. Because then the Unforgotten Gods wandered the land of mortals again. But could you call such beings gods? With the capital G? Celestia did not know. Maybe that was the problem: the Harpy was a God, and Celestia was a humble gear in the wondrous Creation-Machine of Harmony. Perhaps you need a God to kill a God. That was the Harpy’s plan, after all. The point is, the Harpy did not laugh anymore. She tried to destroy it all.

One way or another, Celestia was good at being what Harmony needed her to be. And now, she was the Warrior Goddess of Everfree once more. The Matriarch of the Great Herd. The High Queen of Equestria, once again at the front of a host of warrior mares, not marching against the gates of a fortress, but reality was similar enough. They navigated the labyrinth of mirrors where Queen Chrysalis had once imprisoned Princess Cadance.

Her faithful battlehorns followed close. One did not fear the dark when the sun itself led the way. A million stars twinkled in the crystals hanging from the ceiling, and malformed mares in magical armor stared back at them. Their hooves filed through the same paths the miners had opened thousands of years ago when Canterlot was first built.

Their training kept their mouths shut and attentive eyes scanning the dark passages, avoiding the abandoned carts and broken railways. Except the mares at the front, the only ones who would dare walk by Celestia’s side. Legatus
Radiance Fellbane, speaking softly and keeping her eyes moving, and Domina Ferraria Hammer Fellbane with most of her face hidden under the red hood of her order. Her cloak showed a collar of golden tools at the tips of little articulated arms: from delicate magnifying glasses to small brushes and even a couple of precise drills and pincers. It all rested immobile, tiny arms folded on top of its base. An expensive yoke with utility tools rather than an implement for transferring force.

“Do you expect any hindrances?” Radiance asked while Hammer remained quiet, more interested in the crystals than in the conversation.

“In the absence of all four princesses, rulership should fall to the Archduke and a council of trustworthy ponies in association with the Hall of Friendship.” Celestia explained in a somber tone, keeping her eyes on the path, barely glancing at the branching passages. “Blueblood is too conscious of his incompetence to do anything while the Majesties and Representatives in the Hall are too quarrelsome to agree on doing anything. The government has basically stalled,
and that is what our enemy wanted.”

“We are infiltrating what sums up to be a ship without a captain whose sailors agreed to not do anything out of the ordinary,” the princess concluded, focusing on the path to follow.

“Not much has changed, then?” The warrior mare kept her serious tone, but smiled at Celestia. Even if the princess was not looking and she received no answer.

Celestia stopped when the narrow, winding corridor opened abruptly. Hooves silenced, and armor pieces stopped clinking. The magical chiming from her horn increased tenfold into the rushing roar of a hurricane, and the purest of lights dissolved the gloom to uncover a grand hall of unpolished, natural stone. Dark walls gleamed with minute streams of infiltrated water, but more with the different colors from the crystals. They sprouted from the stone, and even fogged by untold years of abandonment, they responded to her magic with a light of their own. Ancient stone tables still held chunks of glass and old tools, shining under all the colors in the rainbow.

The mares watched in silence, but their eyes sparkled, overflowing with wonder while they let their sisters spill into the gallery. Celestia directed her magic to the wall across the room. A stone door, not unlike the one which had sealed her
battlehorns in their dungeon, filled with golden light. The lines of the sculptured Sun and Moon of Equestria gleamed like the sun had turned liquid to fill its grooves like liquid gold. Stony doors creaked and parted to make way to a staircase made of marble and covered with a red carpet. White walls beyond held blue flags hanging from silver holders. Celestia’s light disclosed the steps going up to a right turn with enough space that twenty of them could pass shoulder to shoulder.

“A hidden magical passage under the palace. How… original,” Hammer proved neither the Battlehorn training nor old age could beat the sarcasm out of her.

Celestia raised an eyebrow at her comment but decided against replying. Hammer was right. Instead, the princess started towards the stair while Radiance turned to the centuriones, which hurriedly gathered as soon as she turned to them. With their strategy previously agreed upon and distributed to the others, all Radiance was doing was performing a formality. Meanwhile, Celestia climbed the stairs slowly until Radiance and their escort caught up. A group of the less armored scouts rushed past them and Celestia pretended not to have seen Farseer avoiding her stare.

At the top of the stairs, after a couple of U-turns, they arrived at another hall. Despite the same architecture from the inhabited areas of her palace, it was devoid of anything other than cobwebs, dust, a couple of old oak barrels and magical
light fixtures. A normal sized door, and a modern one too, painted with white, closed a passage. It did not have a knob, or a keyhole, at least not in the common sense: Celestia knew the spell which would open the door and cast it immediately upon approaching. A chiming sound and a clicking lock confirmed it opened for her and revealed a wall of clear barrels.

“Hurry along.” Celestia hushed as Farseer’s mares hurried through the door and immediately began moving sloshing barrels out of the way for her to pass. “Our mission is simple, but we must finish it. Do not tarry, for the night will end too soon.”

The barrels hid the door from servants fetching wine in the cellar and contained nothing but water and provided no challenge to the battlehorns. The rounded ceiling and pillars of polished stone seemed ancient compared to the modern aesthetic of the palace above, but Celestia quite liked the olden appearance of the hall. She was told by engineers and masons of the time of its building it would better keep constant the humidity and temperature for storing wine.

The hidden door was more like an accident because somepony had dug deeper than they should have. But it served as a secret entrance.

“Fortunately,” she told the others, stepping into the cellar as Farseer’s scouts moved the barrels out of the way, “there should be nopony in here at such a late hour.”

Celestia stopped just as she walked in between the barrels. Barrels without number, open space, and pillars greeted her, along with a group of surprised ponies. A yellow unicorn stallion stopped in the middle of rolling a barrel of wine with his legs draped over the round wooden container. He stared at her through his navy mane with the same eyes of a deer surprised by a hunting griffon. A mare, creamy and white with violet roses on her bonnet, stopped in her tracks while floating a barrel in the air and into the cart. The third unicorn had just pushed another barrel into place on top of their cart and hid behind it.

The fourth jumped in the air and screamed when he saw the white alicorn.

Celestia knew all of them, as they often took part in the court proceedings. The very rich magnate of luxury pastries, Viscount Rollin’ Dough and his wife, Viscountess Éclair. The third was the very rich banker, Moneybags. And the fourth was
Celestia’s own adopted nephew.

“Are you stealing from my cellar?” She yelled at the scared pony before turning his associates, more surprised, outraged, than angry. “And you are all helping him? What travesty. I never… How… I cannot believe this!”

“It is not what it looks like!” the pony in the cart squealed. He was still wearing his black court dress and wig over his honey mane.

“In what context is raiding my cellar acceptable?!” the outraged princess asked, while Radiance and Domina Hammer walked past her to flank the invading ponies and block the stairs up. Meanwhile, the warrior mares in armor filled out of the door, curious and amused. Celestia could only imagine the effect of seeing the formidable mares in armor and cloaks had on them, but it was entirely deserved.

“He told us you were dead!” the mare’s hoof shot at Blueblood, and he squealed again.

“Not at all like that!” he promptly defended himself.

“What was I supposed to do?!” Blueblood whined, turning back to Celestia. “All this perfectly fine Sang’real was gonna go bad!”

“Restrain these thieves!” Celestia barked while pointing a hoof at the back of the cellar.

“An inauspicious start to our mission…” Hammer complained.

“It will be fine,” Celestia assuaged her while their warriors herded the four ponies into a corner and promptly magicked bonds and gags. “Leave two mares to take care of them. We’ll lock the access from the palace and once we are done, I’ll figure out what to do with them.”

“I suppose a time under the Royal Guard’s hospitality will do them some good,” the princess said as she glared at her nephew squirming against the magical chains of magical light. “Things are going to change around here when this mess is over.”

The noble ponies’ complaints went ignored, while Celestia led her soldiers up the stairs out of the cellar. The door was open, as though Blueblood and his harebrained friends expected the palace’s guards would not bother them.

In fact, Bluelood certainly had strong-hoofed them out of the wing, or even the entire palace, to cover for his little heist. After checking the empty corridor, Celestia turned to the higher ranked mares with her and grinned. “This works! Radiance, have our mares secure the palace. Tell any maids or housekeepers that you are here with me, and they should not create any difficulties. They would probably be in their quarters if my nephew kindly removed the guards for us.”

Rather than simply keeping her mouth shut and obeying like Radiance did, Hammer raised her mechanical leg. “Nephew? You have a Blueblood nephew? Of all the noble houses from our time, the hoofing Bluebloods survived?”

Behind them, Radiance dutifully relayed Celestia’s orders, but the Princess’ smile scrunched into a frown and a grimace. “It’s complicated. They are not like they used to be.”

“We just caught him trying to loot your cellar after telling his accomplices you had died,” Hammer deadpanned at Celestia. “Complicated does not seem to do the situation justice, and I do not know what part of that amuses me more.”

“We’ll deal with that when we must.” Celestia offered her an appeasing hoof and serene lidded eyes. “For now, we must focus on reaching the archives and finding the prototypes.”

“You changed a lot, Celestia.”

“And for the better,” the Princess fixed a stare on the mare under the red cloak. “Otherwise, you would not still be talking to me like that.”

“Point taken.” The hooded mare let a frown creep into her muzzle, peeking out from under her hood.

Satisfied, Celestia led her, Radiance, and their escort of twelve armored mares through the corridors. The others would spread around the palace and ensure nothing surprised them. During the night, public areas of the palace remained uninhabited save for guards or housekeeping staff, both of which Blueblood seemed to have gotten rid of for them. Their steps echoed in the labyrinthian corridors, quickly past the closed doors of offices, meeting rooms, storage, the substrate for the machinery of the government.

Were Shining Armor on duty, Blueblood’s trick would have backfired so spectacularly they would have awakened Celestia and Luna just to watch. And speaking of Luna, that would have been a spectacle on its own. To the point Celestia doubted they would have attempted their little stunt if she was around. Her mood soured at such a tiny, yet powerful thought. Hammer was right: Celestia had changed. But she had changed for the better, right?

The princess rolled her eyes at her own thoughts. Although, even if her self-pity was misplaced, it was not necessarily unjustified: ponies knew not to test Luna’s patience. Unlike Celestia, whose patience was often misread. Instead of kindness, they saw leniency in her, didn’t they? With a huff, Celestia almost laughed at the idea of the northerner griffons tempting the Harpy so. She didn’t even know what the Harpy would do if someone tried to steal wine from
her.

By the time they reached the long and wide corridor connecting to the Royal Guard headquarters, she had already tired of her self-pity and envious thoughts. Right on time. The pair of pegasus ponies on guard gasped and flared their wings at the sight of her. Protocol spoke louder than shock, as the golden armor wearing pair bowed respectfully and then stood, waiting for her commands.

“Good evening, my little ponies,” she told them. “I am sure there are multiple questions in your heads, but I must talk with the commanding officer.”

Fortunately, they understood she was in a hurry and the one on the right rushed through the door while the other stayed, looking up at her and the mares with her. “We were… all of us were worried to death, Princess. What in Tartarus is going on? Who are they?”

“The situation proved to be more complicated than I had assumed when I left for Hippogriffia.” She gestured to them. “These are Radiance Fellbane and Hammer Fellbane. We have to deal with a new enemy, and we may need an unorthodox approach to solve this situation. I suppose they are the unorthodox approach.”

“When is it ever not?” The guard deadpanned inside his golden helmet.

The other guard returned with a third pony in armor. A frail unicorn, yellow with a pretty caramel mane. Celestia was used to seeing him busy with coordination and control rather than command. She raised an eyebrow before she remembered Blueblood and his heist.

She sighed. “You are relieved from your post, Aether Quill. Where is Crucible Wings?”

“Thank you, princess.” The unicorn said with a sizable dose of relief before regaining his composure and showing the confidence Celestia knew him for. “He traveled to Whinnyapolis to address new recruits over the recent rumors. We’ll summon him back immediately. He left orders for that and has a team of unicorns standing by.”

Celestia nodded. “Meanwhile, summon all available guards and reserves. Do so with as little fuss as possible. Put all headquarters on alert and inform all local militias to halt all unrelated operations and wait for further orders. Nopony needs to know what is going on yet, just that I need them to be ready. What is the situation in Griffonstone?”

“We passed law and order back to the local militia once we had the situation under control. Crucible’s orders were to wait for your return,” little Aether told her. “Things got bad there, though. We thought that the Lion’s sympathizers had all left, but the military installed martial law. Observers are reporting a heavy presence of northerner agents within the military and some ghastly persecution of hippogriffs and certain griffons. Lord Protector Gilmara is helping them, even though nocreature is sure what is going on. Nopony wants to find out, either.”

According to her little pony, in the ensuing chaos, the northerners came up on top. Celestia scrunched up a grimace and raised a hoof. “Two more things. I need access to the armory in the Archive, and to the griffon prisoner from the Lord Protector’s escape attempt.”

“Already at Shatteredrock, Princess.” The unicorn told her before Domina Hammer interrupted.

“There is an armory inside an archive?”

The pony shrugged. “It is where we stash everything that is important, ma’am. All that needs to be kept out of the wrong hooves. Like prototype manaflow weapons.”

Celestia smiled at his perspicacity. “Precisely.”

“Well, the guards along the way ought not to bother you of all ponies, and your highness can open all the locks,” he spelled out the obvious with a shrug. “Things kinda ground to a halt everywhere. The Hall of Friendship is not even meeting anymore.”

‘Typical,’ Celestia thought. She had become the government. The Mare. Without her everycreature with a smidgeon of power just turned to their own interests and the truly altruistic creatures saw themselves left without leverage. It was almost like the old times already. The alicorn didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

Aether Quill’s eyes bulged, and his muzzle scrunched in a grimace. There was something else he wanted to say, but an arriving pair of guards brought a pony under custody. A unicorn, wearing a fancy cyan suit to go with his gray pelt and white mane, including a blue top hat. His nose was so high in the air, Celestia remembered an old joke among the servants. That the maids must keep the carpets straight and clean all the time or the nobles would trip on them.

“Your highness, thank Harmony, you’re back.” The officer said as soon as her eyes were on them. “We caught this one doing mischief.”

“Thank Harmony, indeed! I will say, this is outrageous!” the overly pampered up unicorn stallion complained. “Can a pony not wait for his friends by the palace gates anymore? Just as soon as your highness was gone, these thugs took advantage of every privilege they could afford. The gates used to be a popular meeting place, for pony’s sake!”

“Aye,” said the earth pony guard, unimpressed. “Waiting for your friends while they were raiding the palace’s cellar.”

Any complaints never left the pony’s lips as Celestia raised her hoof. “Radiance, have our mares escort him to the cellar and keep him with Blueblood and the others. I don’t want them talking too soon.”

Further complaints from the pony never manifested. Something about the irregularity of the situation. At a nod from their Matriarch, horns shone, and the pony found himself with his mouth shut by magical bindings. He offered no resistance when a pair of armored, alicorn-sized mares herded him along the way.

“If I ever have to suck up to another noble because your highness vanished again, I swear I’m going to resign,” the pony said nonchalantly, and Celestia simply acknowledged his complaint. It was valid, after all.

Her attention turned to the large mares following her. “The Royal Guard will take care of things around the palace. Come.”

She could trust her ponies to take care of things now that they knew she would have their backs and swiftly made her way to the Archives. The more she dallied, the higher the chance news of her return would make it all the way to Snow Mountains. She wanted to talk to the northerner agent, but the unicorn efficiency proved too good for once. What was his name? Grufnor? Getting him out would require a lot of red tape or the use of executive powers, both of which would draw too much attention. That would have to wait. At least until she had her Battlehorns fighting their way up north to Griffindell and surprise was no longer a factor.

The mares made their way to the Archives, leaving the main building through a service door. Celestia led them to the entrance under guard by two of Luna’s loyal thestral Royal Guards. They bowed to Celestia and saluted the Battlehorns, much as they would salute one of their own. It was amusing to see, not only because they had assumed they should, but also because the mares had no idea how to respond. The awkwardness washed away in the common ground that everypony was bound to serve the princess, anyway. The two thestrals offered no resistance when the twenty-odd of them followed The Mare inside.

A small corridor allowed Celestia’s battlehorns to line up while she worked the spell that unlocked the inner door. It took her only a dozen seconds. Past the doors, magical lights lit a hall with a giant hourglass and radial bookshelves. Nothing too extraordinary, mere books and scrolls; not necessarily dangerous, as it was the knowledge which they held she wanted to safeguard.

Past the bookcases, hidden behind more bookcases, and under a soft illusion spell, was a staircase. The hoard of books wrapped around the underground hall, taking a visitor upstairs to where more books, scrolls, and a selection of mildly powerful artifacts waited. But those were not the ones Celestia wanted. She guided the battlehorns down the hidden stairs, skillfully navigating past a powerful space-folding spell which concealed them from anyone unaware of their location, even if they had seen past the defensive illusion.

“Clever,” Hammer commented casually from under her red hood.

“Luna made it.” Celestia acknowledged her words absentmindedly. “She was always much better than I am at spacetime manipulation.”

A mere flight of stairs took them to the lower floor under the hall. A single bookshelf with a thousand niches covered the walls in a round room. Three doors opened outward into a surrounding corridor. A blue and white carpet covered the cold floor with a star and swirls of magic while a candelabra of ancient magical lights provided enough light, but just barely. The myriad objects exposed in the niches flooded the room with sufficient magical energies as to make it slightly warm, with bouts of cold from evil magic in between.

“There are several rooms surrounding this hall. Find the weapons; you will know when you do.” Celestia ordered the mares as she occupied herself with the wards over the stored objects. Her horn shone as she directed her magic to examine the powerful spells protecting them.

Once satisfied, she started looking for a certain report that, hopefully, ought to have made its way to the Archives. Only Radiance stayed with her, patiently waiting for any command or request that never came. Even Hammer had left, curious about the weapons they were meant to retrieve. Staying behind with Celestia, Radiance kept staring at the alicorn and her radiant armor of sunlight.

“Is anything the matter?” the white alicorn asked while her horn gleamed at the objects on the shelves and her eyes bounced in between them.

Celestia knew ponies, and they were particularly good empaths. Even battlehorns. While she supposed Radiance saw that she was not ‘fine’, decorum would not allow her to voice her concerns within earshot of their subordinates. The princess was fine with that: her worries were her own to mind and she was satisfied that Radiance replied negatively.

Finally, she found what she was looking for. Not a vanilla folder or a neatly rolled up scroll, it was a small book with a dozen pages and cured leather covers. Deep scorched letters punched into the leather told the title.

ON THE POLITICAL SITUATION OF SNOW MOUNTAINS HOLD, GRIFFONIA

BY HER ROYAL HIGHNESS’ JUSTICIAR, MALLET GAVEL

Sparing not a second, Celestia yanked the booklet from the shelves and opened it. Her eyes scanned through the lines with the agility of millennia spent thoroughly reading official documents from the plainest reports to the most hermeneutical and arcane legalese. Miss Mallet’s report was not only concise and precise, but it thoroughly unfurled all the chicanery that was involved.

The Blackfeather Division—the griffonian military’s intelligence branch—had been spying on the northerner griffons with little success for years. Long enough that they must have smelled the rot almost as soon as Lady Gwendolen married Lord Gilad. To Celestia’s surprise, there was a classified operation where they hired a mercenary to find out what was going on with the iron that stopped reaching the south. That mercenary was the griffon veteran from the Second Griffon War known as Flying Snake, who was Celestia’s friend. The same that got himself involved in the situation between Celestia and the younger princesses. And that likely had absconded with the griffon’s airship teleporting device and enabled Twilight and Cadance to escape from the Break of Dawn.

During his mission, Mister Flying Snake infiltrated a northerner military base. It routed the ‘disappeared’ iron to the dockyards responsible for building the previously unknown northerner flying dreadnoughts. An added layer of absurdity was that Celestia only heard of such airships when one of them showed up trying to abscond away with Twilight and her friends from under Celestia’s hooves. In said base, he happened upon a changeling agent on a similar mission who shared information.

After their initial report, the Blackfeather lost contact with Mister Snake. Later, they realized he had betrayed them, working for the Lion after the northerners. They never knew what happened. Suddenly, his appearance at Ponyville did not seem so fortuitous, much less random to Celestia. In retrospect, she should not have trusted him. But she kept reading to find out that the changelings also failed their mission. The northerners captured them at Griffindell and only one escaped with his life.

The Blackfeathers quickly found the changeling and stashed him in a secure home at Beachhome after debriefing. Mallet visited the changeling and what he told her allowed Miss Mallet to draw some connections. He told her the same he had told the griffons. That the iron was being used for their super ships and that Mister Snake had betrayed them, albeit with good reason. He also talked about the airships and that they were supposed to be used by the Lion if Chancellor Gail offered resistance when the Hall of Friendship gave him the Throne of the Griffon King.

Not even at her most naïve, Celestia believed Gail would just let go; she simply did not believe the northerners would be ready for war all by themselves. Since the beginning, the plan was to go to war and those twin dreadnought battleships were much more than needed to guarantee the throne. With all the xenophobic rhetoric against the hippogriffs, their following move was obvious.

Celestia’s eyes rose from the paper. The most important thing was that it was damning evidence that the Lord Gilad and his catbird goddess wife were up to no good and now Celestia could drop the hammer on that whole mess. But there was more, and it made her smile.

The Blackfeathers had made connections between the vulgar griffon lady that attacked the hospital and Lady Gwendolen and how it all had the Lion’s blessings. If those idiotic, paranoid griffons in the Griffonian government had presented her with that information, all that mess could have been avoided. On a happier note, every word in that document felt like a sharpening stroke in Celestia’s shearing blade she could now take to the murderous catbirds without even needing to exceed her authority. Bless Miss Mallet. She had just delivered Celestia the means to deal with the griffons.

Right on cue, one of the Magi mares under Hammer walked from one of the corridors, and as protocol demanded, she bowed to Celestia before addressing Radiance. Even if Celestia was just there to listen and all Radiance did was look at Celestia for her reaction. Silly, but ponies were silly. Even battlehorns.

According to her, they had found the weapons, and Domina Hammer was waiting for her because they decided against forcing the secure chests open. As Celestia walked over, another battlehorn excused herself to discuss something else with Radiance, and the princess ignored them, knowing that the matriarch would address her if necessary. She simply followed the mare in the red robe into one of the connected rooms. A variety of griffon-made firearms sat on display on a table and further inside were large chests covered with white linen and gold and along with the idling waiting Magi.

Hammer had busied herself taking apart one of the griffon ‘machineguns’ and ignored the emptied water tank and hose that connected to it. “This one is intact… The specimen we recovered from the battlefield at the crash site had suffered too much damage.”

Celestia walked closer while the mare extracted the weapon’s main body and barrel from inside the carcass around its barrel and looked up at her, terribly disappointed. “There is not a gram of Astrani steel in this thing.”

“This monstrosity is a tool for killing as quickly as possible rather than something their prouder warriors would use. It is easier to train a bird-brained cat to use one of these things than fight, as their proudest warriors once did. I doubt their more talented warriors would touch a weapon of such lesser quality.” To be fair, Celestia doubted the Harpy had any love for those weapons either.

“Well, quality is not exactly the word. This is quality metal. It just doesn’t like magic very much. There seems to be friction between the projectile and the… rod,” Hammer explained and misnamed the barrel. “It probably heats exceedingly, and the water is a clever cooling system. They probably mix it with something in the colder places. We are talking of heat that is not usual without magic. This thing amuses me as much as it disgusts me, too. Killing should never be as casual. Regardless, we have recovered at least one firearm from the crash site, which probably belonged to one of their elite soldiers, too.”

“The Sky Sentries.”

“It was still mundane steel, but of much better make. We will be at a disadvantage if they can field too many of these, or those quality firearms. The tests we did showed grim results. We simply cannot replenish our mares fast enough to keep up in a potential conflict of attrition, much less repair our Leafplate armor sets, lacking materials from our time,” Hammer said categorically. “But you know this, and that is why we are here.”

Celestia nodded and, once her horn gleamed with its golden magical aura, the lock on the nearest chest clicked. Two mares in red robes stepped back as light radiated from inside, almost comically painting their shadows in the now pink walls. Inside, cork separators neatly organized the magical weapon prototypes. The very same ones Celestia had once ordered stashed on her command ship, completely undisturbed despite everything that had gone wrong.

In its most basic shape and as far as the basic functions of a firearm defined such a thing, they were magical firearms, without a doubt. A gun that transcended the boundaries of the mundane, imbued with the very essence that made the universe. Its magical scope, shaped with floating gold, crystal, and magical energies, manifested once touched by a unicorn’s telekinesis. A long frame, a work of art made of the purest gold, held a pink crystal, twisted by magic to resemble a unicorn’s horn at its tip. Several small dials and needle meters broke the sleek and elongated shape. The weapon resembled, most of all, a pony-made musket with a lever instead of the griffon-preferred trigger.

A selection of gold and crystal cylinders, stacked inside the chest and responsible for the glow, would fit a well on the side of the weapon to serve as its living heart. It was, for all effects, a small mana battery, much like the ones in an airship. How did all of it work? Celestia barely knew the basics, but it was an application of the same arcane technologies of magical induction engines. Layers of complex spells and mechanical components, all working to transfer bare magical energy.

Very few things in existence could amaze an old Magus such as Domina Hammer, but she smiled like a filly with a new toy, levitating the weapon above her eyes and drawing the others to look at it. Every piece and part covered with a spell matrix of multiple layers, interconnected magic ready to spring into action much like the chemical energy in the powder, except pulsating with power, like an artificial living being with a soul of its own.

More important than how it all worked was what would come out of her battlehorns’ heads once they examined those. Celestia allowed the old mare all the time she needed to soak in what she was seeing. If only Celestia could read minds. What would she see? An old mare amazed by the advances beyond her time, or an envious filly looking at the new toys she could never have in her youth? She was not a filly with a new toy; she was an old researcher and engineer of means to put down the enemies of Harmony seeing the new paradigms from millennia of advances in the magical sciences. The shine in the old mare’s eyes was that of her brilliant mind, already concocting all she could with her new tools.

It ripped open a hole in Celestia’s stomach. Like in the story Chocolate Velvet had told her, from his old world, of when the king of the gods gave the woman a box. Radiance entered the room and interrupted Celestia before any further thoughts of repentance manifested. The look on her face was even worse.

“You must come see this, Celestia. Now.”

Celestia turned after one last stare at the old mare and the giant grin on her usually stern complexion. Telekinetic magic had moved a monocle with a crystal filter before her eyes to examine the weapon and she mumbled excited words while examining the fascinating weapon.

The die was cast. A quick trot carried the alicorn along with Radiance’s hurried pace to another corridor. As she passed the threshold into the room, the warmth of the spells hanging in the air enveloped her. No more than the presence of the spells gave her warmth; the sight tore her heart into pieces. A single table occupied the center of the room, flanked by six tall golden candlesticks. Each held a single candle, casting a lugubrious light over a casket on the table. It cradled a large body that remained unmoving under a sheet of pristine white silk and a flag with the phoenix, sun, and moon of the Royal House.

Her mind ground to a halt and her hooves carried her closer, whether she wanted it or not.

The sight was missing the horrifying shock value of the soaked, bloody, and scorched library. Most of all, the grievous wound in his chest. Under the veil, the spells that kept his body from rotting and degrading also kept his face from showing the ghastly grimace of the dead. The brown alicorn seemed to sleep peacefully, and his coat lost little of its living vigor. Celestia sat next to the casket, letting her telekinetic magic hold the veil lifted. If not for her memory of his grievous wound and the efforts to keep it hidden, she could even believe he was still alive.

“Chocolate Velvet…” the words squeezed through the clenching muscles in her throat, and she closed her eyes against the stinging tears.

Another life that did not deserve it ended before its time. Another body to bury, another painful goodbye. Bless her Royal Guards: they wanted to give him a proper burial and would not have left him abandoned in a decrepit library, soaked in
blood and rainwater. In the griffon’s talons. Harmony knew what the northerners would have done. Probably parade him around the hold for the Harpy and her lapdog to gloat.

To think that Celestia once thought of Lord Gilad as a noble warrior of the forgotten old times. An honorable leader the like of which did not exist in the present times. A frown crept over her brow. How naïve she had been.

Trampling hooves echoed from the hall outside the door. A pony called her name and skidded to a stop by the door, where Radiance still watched over Celestia with a pair of silent battlehorn mares. Crucible Wings stood there, missing his golden armor, with his white pegasus wings flared open and a conflicted expression that tried to hold joy, worry, and grief all at the same time.

“Your highness…” the white pegasus whispered. Her ‘sergeant’, the lieutenant, just under Shining Armor, who helped her in all matters of her personal guard. An old friend she had abandoned in the den of catbirds. He approached and allowed her to hold him in a tight hug, not caring she wore a magical armor of magical sunlight that grated against him like metal.

He reached around her best as he could and neither let go for half of a minute before she found the words to tell him. “I’m sorry I left you in Griffonstone, Crucible.”

He looked up at her. “It doesn’t matter. I’m more worried about you!”

“It was taxing, to say the least,” Celestia sighed before she waved at Radiance. “This is Radiance Fellbane. She is… I activated an ancient contingency, and they will help us deal with the griffons.”

“It’s a mess, princess. Creatures are mostly paralyzed, and some have started preparations for an event of apocalyptic proportions. It’s mostly under control as I have, at least, got the Majesties in the Hall to calm their peoples down, but… Well,
Queen Novo has commissioned an increase of hippogriffian military fleet and conversion of civilian vessels. Things that are not likely to be of much help, but she is doing it, anyway.” He paused for a second with a pained stare. “I’m not sure it is helping the populace calm down or just making it worse.”

“We will fix everything, Crucible,” she told him softly, but his eyes followed hers to the casket on the table.

“We brought him here for a decent funeral, princess. I was not about to leave one of us behind for the griffons to do whatever they wanted with him.” He muttered. “He deserved a better burial, more than a footnote on the present situation. And I just didn’t want to do anything without your highness and Princess Luna. Wherever she is.”

Celestia nodded at his words. When her eyes again fixated on Chocolate Velvet’s peaceful expression, she could not help but think of the loremaster she killed. She was only one of the numberless griffons which died recently, not unlike many ponies who Celestia knew and would never see again. Her lover, her knight, her consort included. All that amid dreary thoughts of the betrayal she had suffered. Her closest friends distanced themselves from her, and political allies to whom she had lent her gravitas betrayed her.

Luna was unreachable, doing Harmony knew what, deep inside the Harpy’s territory. At best, the northerners had somehow captured her. At worst, she had betrayed Celestia. No, no. Luna would not. But then, why couldn’t Celestia reach her? Why did she not try to reach back? What of Twilight and Cadance who had spited her ageless wisdom in pursuit of a problematic quest? They reached the extreme of consorting with the Harpy’s agents.

And the worst of all, all those deaths weighted on Celestia’s shoulders. Not because she was to blame for them, but because they haunted her. All the creatures she had lost and would still lose to such a petty and stupid conflict. It amounted to no more than the Harpy’s inability to understand she had lost. Despite that, Celestia was the one who would never see those creatures again, while the Harpy’s friends all returned to her like she was allowed to cheat death on their behalf. It should not be possible. Why must Celestia endure the gaping wounds they left, and that odious monster did not? The Harpy had her son and her husband by her side; Celestia had mourning and sorrow.

A frown, again, took over Celestia’s brow; an idea seated at her sorrowful thoughts like a fly on festering meat. The seeds of a weed took root in the fertile grounds of her imagination. Her idea bordered on necromancy, and it struck her gut as an abuse of her privileged position. And yet, the excuses quickly came to the rescue of her crumbling convictions: had she not suffered enough? Celestia had, after all, earned her position through sweat and blood, but also through entire generations’ worth of a lifetime.

The decision of which exceptions to allow was in her hooves, especially when she fought such an unorthodox enemy. Celestia would need a captain, a general. Someone she could trust implicitly, and who would not trot after Cadance’s tail. It was, after all, high time Celestia remembered who her potential enemies were, and what they were capable of.

“Radiance,” she said somberly, “have Domina Hammer and her Magi move Chocolate Velvet to the bunker and prepare all the life-saving magical implants we have. Send a message to Panacea to prepare the surgery room. Coordinate with Crucible Wings to organize our efforts across the world. I must see someone, and you have a day to prepare his body for a most intensive magical and medical procedure. Crucible, keep our forces waiting in the meantime, but tell our assets inside Griffonia and neighboring lands to prepare for war.”