To Chase The Shadows of Redemption

Celestia was inside of her war room within the command tent they had setup when the news broke.

"What?! Did you misspeak?!"

The in uniform messenger pegasus looked like he wanted to be anywhere but where he currently was.

"Err... it is as I said. I'm sorry to report that... the forces led by Mosier were wiped out."

Celestia hoped her mouth didn't look as agape as it felt. What in the world? How was this even possible? The war had just started not too long ago. How had they befallen such a travesty...

"Did General Reacher already respond?" she struggled to get out after a moment.

"Yes. He sent reinforcements to prevent further invasion of Equestria - but the griffins had already retreated. It seems they know we've pierced closer to the heart and want to focus on defence."

And what a pain it had been! It had been like they had read her mind. Ever since her little showing not too long ago they had refused to fight in any open way, and the path to the capital was no easy treading to say the least. Constant harassment, it seemed, had been intended to whittle down the ponies. Guerrilla warfare in fact, and it sucked. Just when they had thought they would get a break, a new set on griffins would swoop in firing bolts, and then be gone quicker than they came. It was an infuriating tactic, especially when it caused loss of life. Mostly because they could not give chase to a satisfactory degree in the terrain. It was too risky and would spread them too thin for further counter-play.

Speaking of loss of life, Celestia was feeling mightily guilty right now. In front of her soldiers she had forced an air of dignity and effete to remain a statuesque symbol for them, but it was beginning to dawn on her just how much blood was on her hooves.

Her mind unable to focus any longer, she went through the motions the rest of the day, hearing of several towns being destroyed and the other remaining forces she had left all taking some level of casualties had been harrowing and humbling. Sure, the griffins had also taken massive losses, but it was still horrible all around for their chances of finishing this as fast as possible. She was almost tempted to storm the capital alone to get this over with. Who cared of the risk?

That night, when she reached her tent and was finally alone, and away from judging eyes she finally began to show some cracks.

She knew how bad all of this was. She was not in denial. Enough time to think about it and her entire life for the past few months had been called into question. It was an endless loop of mental destruction, guilt leading into the eventual wretched clutch for anything to save her sister in the end, even if it tore her and Equestria apart.

A mountain of bodies - griffin and pony alike, stood under her hooves, phantasms grabbing and doing anything they could to pull her down with them into the darkness. Their cries wouldn't go away, it was all she could hear. She felt like she was going mad. Reflecting on the fact that she had viewed killing griffins with her massive fiery inferno the other day as some kind of stress relief had nearly caused her to throw up in front of all of her ponies as she realized it. The version of herself from a few years ago would've died inside to see what she had become.

She felt trapped. No, it was more accurate to say she was drowning. In the end that was what this was. She had already gone so far, and it was all she could do to tell herself that she had to make all of this worth it. All of her horrible planning for the worst case scenario came to mind, and she reached rock bottom. She never wanted to think about that. Why couldn't the Sanctuary have been easy to collect? Why had everything gone so wrong with the Emperor. Why, why, why...

She couldn't even bare to think about how ponies would react if they knew what she had become. That was probably the worst part. She remembered Twilight and imagined her reaction to finding out about all of this, and couldn't handle it anymore. Their last meeting already had been too much, her pouring a part of her heart out only for Twilight to try and make excuses for her in her own lack of awareness. She started whimpering without realizing it.

"Your highness, is everything okay in there?"

It took all her willpower to steady her voice before speaking, "yes, everything is alright, please carry on."

"Yes your highness."

She struggled to care about what he had actually heard, and that night as she fell exhausted into sleep as she struggled to believe she'd be able to look a pony in the face again outside this tent by tomorrow morning. She knew deep down that by tomorrow, she will have reset mentally just like she always did, back into her cold and calculating side she had recently come to hate. Her base mentality had become twisted, and she struggled to admit to herself how split her moods had become now. Which version of herself was the real her? The desperate sister on a mission to save her other, or the sorrowful introspective mare she found herself in quiet times. She knew which she would be by tomorrow. Not even her dreams offered reprieve that night, continuing to torment her.

In the heart of the Griffin Kingdom, amidst towering cliffs and rugged terrain which melted into the stone of the buildings from the ground up in all the capital, Roeshak wanted to claw his eyes out.

His feathers ruffled with anxiety, like they did all the time these days, as he gazed out towards the horizon of the looming threat. Below him, bustling preparations for defense were underway if you wanted to believe that some of it wasn't just panicked flight. The weight of the situation hadn't just gotten to him alone, it seemed.

The griffins were seasoned warriors. They had never come close to facing a threat of this magnitude before. Both were true.

Yet why did it have to be?

He loathed with all his being the fact he had been forced into this situation. Leadership, he told himself, was not his forte. It had fallen into his claws after tumbling a little, so to speak.

Not only had something entirely unprecedented happened, but what came after had just been the icing on the cake. If you asked any griffin if it was safe to travel in the ponies lands, they would've laughed at you not long ago. No one had ever seen the news of the Emperor's demise coming from a mile away. It was ridiculous to even think about. Yet it had indeed happened.

The sole survivor of the affair had been bloodied and mortified, and it had taken a while to even get him to spit it out, the poor lad had been too traumatized. The ensuing chaos of finding out their grand leader was gone had been disastrous. Declaring war against Equestria had been the easy part.

Apparently, as if things hadn't been tragic enough, some of his own had felt it time to return to more brutal traditions. They had quite literally fought for leadership afterwards, and between the double-death of Durk and Veer duelling like imbeciles and the chain of command being cut short, he had somehow arrived at the top of the pecking order. He had wanted to improve his life and move up in society, not arrive at the top with all of the pressure. It was always better to be just under leadership by just enough for the benefits, but not at risk to be promoted into the hot seat. How he had been so unlucky that the seat had moved so many times was beyond him. At least he had gotten them to accept the title of "acting" before commander.

At first, he had seen some success against the ponies in his quickly rushed plans, but that had quickly turned around once Celestia started making her move. What could you even do against such a monster? She had started all of this and now she wanted to finish it too. It wasn't fair. Hearing the accounts of her unleashing an explosion that would nigh-destroy their capital had him close to wanting to just up and leave everything behind himself. It wouldn't have sounded realistically true for any other threat in the first place. He'd rather have believed his men were simply incompetent and got wiped out the natural way. He had adjusted the strategy, sure, since it was obvious they needed to after that, but the ponies continued to reach deeper and deeper into their land, lead by their demonic princess hellbent on ruining them.

Surrender was obvious. Surrender was not an option. The others around him, steeped more deeply in their culture than himself, would basically finish him on the spot if he even suggested a thing. They were fighting for better or worse, and it was going be the latter. While he didn't have it in his heart to sabotage his own men, because he still cared for the lives of his fellow griffons, he had continued to make adjustments even now to counter the ponies even while knowing it was losing long term. Raid teams had been circling in and out of rotation for some time now. Everyone was tired. All this did was delay the inevitable he knew, but they had to fight as hard as they could in the end anyway, right? Not that he personally agreed...

Roeshak didn't have any close family, and he was glad because at times like these he wouldn't want them to see his state when he got home.

I'll do everything I can... it's the least I can do for the place of my birth he thought to himself. He felt like this was something that actually validated why he was working as hard as he was.

He heard a wave of messengers approaching him, and knew he'd have to tear his vision away from horizon. Work never ends... he just hoped that negotiation could be a strength of his when tested.

It was somewhere in there monotonous ramblings that he heard it.

"They're going through Enocs point?"

"Yes... is there something you've come up with?"

"Hold on."

He quickly took out an old map that they been studying with fervour to almost no point. There it was, just like he remembered. He had thought it a good look for his men as he tried to appear busy studying it earlier.

"Do we still have the ammunition stores? And the rest?"

The three messengers looked at each other.

"Listen, we're going to..."