The Blueblood Papers: Prince of Blood

The Blueblood Papers: PRINCE OF BLOOD

Prince Blueblood and the Battle of Ponyville

Explanatory note:

The following section of the Blueblood Papers - the vast collection of personal and private memoirs found amidst my nephew’s personal effects some years following his passing - continues on directly from the previous instalment, which, as the official story goes, ended with Lord Commissar Prince Blueblood foiling a daring Changeling plot to attack Fort E-5150 through the same tunnels they had used before. The previous instalments describe in astonishing detail his rise to fame during the Changeling War with the rescue of Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, the first furtive attacks into the Badlands, the reform of the Royal Guard into the Equestrian Army, and the commencement of all-out war in the Heartlands Campaign. This instalment picks up after his recovery period in Canterlot, where he undertook administrative work in the Royal Commissariat before he was urgently reassigned to the defence of Ponyville.

The Battle of Ponyville remains perhaps the most fascinating and, as Prince Blueblood himself had put it, one of the most strange of the major battles fought in the Changeling War. Therefore, it is no wonder that it has attracted a lot of attention in the years in both popular media and serious academic study in the years since, however, with the exception of his official published memoirs that are so heavily edited that they are better classified as historical fiction, despite being a central figure in the events surrounding this battle, the full extent of Blueblood’s own experience had yet to be fully revealed until the discovery of these documents. While the events described herein will be familiar to our circle of chroniclers, it is still refreshing to read a narrative that is unconcerned with such things as saving one’s reputation, as is the case of most published memoirs of officers. Indeed, my nephew continues to provide an uncompromising description of the battle and his involvement in it, and readers will be familiar with his unusual honesty in his assessment of his own actions and how they contrast with both his public reputation and the ideals of the Royal Commissariat he embodied. It remains my opinion, however, that his awareness of his own shortcomings leads him to judge himself much too harshly.

As with the past extracts, I have refrained from excessive editing of this extract in order to preserve Prince Blueblood’s own narrative of events; I have restricted myself to correcting only his occasional lapses in spelling and grammar and breaking up the largely unstructured text into chapters to aid readability. His powers of recollection remain remarkably accurate, especially when one considers that he was likely writing these memoirs in his old age, but as before he is still frustratingly vague about events that he did not personally witness or he did not find of interest to him at the time. Therefore, I have continued to annotate the text to provide the reader with further context for some of his more obscure references. These annotations are in parenthesis, italicised, and in red ink. The text remains, however, purely Blueblood’s own.

H.R.H Princess Celestia

***

It is simply an immutable law of the universe that whenever I have finally managed to contrive a way to keep myself permanently out of mortal peril, fate finds a way to undo it all; apples fall to the ground when dropped, the tides go in and out, and Prince Blueblood finds himself wading knee-deep through cloying filth and stinking blood yet again. Until the exact moment I was thrust unwillingly into that awful mess in Ponyville, and given that particular village’s tendency to attract both the strange and dangerous I fear I may have to narrow which exact mess of which I write, I had truly thought that I had finally secured a permanently safe and cosy position through which I could ride out the rest of this horrible war in comfort. I suppose I ought to have seen it coming in hindsight, as the war always finds a way to drag me back into its unique horror, but this time I had believed, perhaps foolishly but I think I can be excused clinging onto a little hope here, that my troubles were finally over. No such luck.

It was some time after that unpleasantness under Fort Nowhere with those damned Crystal Pony archaeologists when it all went wrong. I’d escaped, yet again, minus one leg, and had a nice, long recovery period to look forward to in Canterlot in a comfortable hospital with many pretty nurses fulfilling my every need, medical or not. I still had my new leg to get used to, of course, and as many ponies had told me many times throughout the recovery process, prosthetics were indeed very good these days. I’d opted for a basic military model of prosthetic hind leg, which, like every other one that you might have seen on now elderly stallions and mares on parade during Veterans’ Day commemorations, was a simple one made of wood and brass. I could have afforded a fancier model even with the wartime rationing going on, but the propaganda teams got a kick out of a Prince accepting the utilitarian prosthetic that hissed steam and never felt completely right just like the lowliest private who had his leg blown off. One could never get used to the blasted thing. It operated as a leg ought to, and after some physical therapy with a rather pretty mare who seemed to spend a little too long lingering around my hindquarters than I thought necessary for the treatment, I could accomplish all of the things that I could do with my old flesh-and-blood limb, provided I remembered to maintain it. However, the lack of any real feeling in the false limb, besides that which my mind decided to hallucinate once in a while, remains a constant distraction, and even today I’ll find myself tripping over nothing while walking merrily along.

[The prosthetic in question was but one element out of a suite of devices originally designed to aid ponies in surviving the unforgiving cold during winter engagements, and the referenced maintenance largely involved topping off the steam-powered assembly that would keep the other units running. Blueblood opted for just the prosthetic leg version of the kit without the bulky 'core' that would be carried like saddlebags, which was less cumbersome, but required more frequent maintenance on its own.]

Ponies, of course, would comment on the new leg. “How’s the new leg?” they would ask, as though it was a growing collection of stamps or some other new hobby, and I would say that it’s ‘still there’ if I felt flippant. Its presence was difficult to ignore, not being something I could cover up with a sleeve if it had been a foreleg instead and I would not dream of wearing trousers as I am not a farmer. It became tiresome, even when it was out of seemingly genuine concern for my recovery, to have to sit through everypony’s unrequested advice on how to manage life with one less leg, not to mention having to tell the heavily redacted version of the story of how I lost the damned thing in the first place.

However, I had been in this exact situation before, more or less, for after I’d been flogged by Earthshaker I had returned home to convalesce only to be shoved back to the frontline after helping Princess Twilight Sparkle sort out her reforms of the Royal Guard with the House of Lords by way of gratitude. This time, I resolved, there would be no such repeat of that, and barring delaying my recovery with some self-sabotage as I’d seen some of the more desperate and creative deserters from the front perform on themselves there was only one thing that I could do, and it seemed just as upsetting as the thought of mutilating myself beyond what the war has already done to my mortal frame - I would have to work.

Ponies who are already familiar with my work would expect me to return to form and indulge in as much of the drink, debauchery, and casual fornication that the seedier side of Canterlot, buried beneath the pretty white marble and glittering minarets of the Old City, had to offer, and indeed that is what I had very much wanted to do. However, this time my mind was very much focused on keeping myself firmly here and not over there, so that I would have more time to attend to my base desires and need for luxury once this benighted war was over and the looming threat of glorious martyrdom at the front had fully passed, and so I threw myself into making myself as useful as possible until the thought of Yours Truly leaving Canterlot for any reason, particularly to die valiantly at the forefront of our great crusade against the tyranny of Queen Chrysalis, would seem as poor a strategic decision as any of the others committed in the first year of the war. That isn’t to say that I never indulged, for there were mornings when I dragged myself into the office with bleary eyes and a sore head after drinking myself into oblivion the nights before, but I at least was able to temper myself in the hope that I could truly celebrate once victory had been achieved and my safety thus assured.

The work, such as it was, was light in nature; dreary office business involving pushing pieces of paper around, signing them, sometimes reading them, and attending the occasional meeting where I would make seemingly insightful but fatuous comments to remind everypony just how important I was to the smooth running of the war effort. My ‘job’ (for a lack of a better term, as officially I took no salary from this posting but my royal stipend was quietly increased to make up for it and I largely got away with it) had me working closely with Princess Celestia, or Warmistress Celestia I should say, for it was in that particular ancient and august capacity that I saw her the most during those days. Clad in ornate ceremonial armour that was about as old as Equestria itself, she presided over weekly meetings with the General Staff to direct the conduct of the war at the highest level, and I attended each as her personal liaison with the Royal Commissariat. I was hopelessly out of my depth in these frankly tedious meetings. Ponies might imagine that plotting offensive after offensive would involve a lot of exciting speeches, drawing big arrows on maps or moving painted figurines around on them, and then at the dramatic conclusion a pony would ruin a perfectly good map by stabbing it with a dagger. In reality, these meetings were several hours of ponies in ostentatious uniforms arguing at length about such obscure details of whatever operation was being planned with a few little tea-and-biscuits breaks in between to break up the monotony of talking about the upcoming slaughter of a few hundred ponies and Changelings.

I have always suspected that Celestia knew exactly what I was doing here. Each time I would ask a silly question or point out something that was already blindingly obvious to everypony else present and they scoffed at the stupid Prince’s ignorance about the finer points of the supreme art of strategy, she would smile politely and rephrase whatever I had said as a rather insightful piece of military wisdom, and like most ponies they would all nod in agreement so they could be seen to be agreeing with my divine Auntie. On one occasion, Princess Luna, for she also attended these meetings, had posited the idea of launching a surprise amphibious assault behind the enemy’s frontline on the stalled Eastern Theatre, which aroused much excitement from the butchers all gathered around the table, until I pointed out that all of those soldiers would be on their own and surrounded on all sides by the enemy save that which faces the sea. This brought much condemnation and jeering from the gathered generals, who deplored the overly cautious approach Market Garden had exhibited through the Heartlands Campaign, until Celestia gently reminded them that those troops there would have to be supplied and reinforced constantly via the sea and air, thus straining our already stretched supply lines even further. They then sheepishly acknowledged this rather salient fact, while Princess Luna glared at me with the expression of one trying to make my head explode via the power of thought.

[The Royal Commissariat had requested Prince Blueblood’s urgent return to the frontline, citing his invaluable contribution to the morale and the fighting spirit of the Equestrian Army. However, though I had underestimated his desire to remain in Canterlot, I decided that he had done more than enough for the war effort on the frontline and so I quietly vetoed the request. Blueblood downplays his contribution to these meetings, but Princess Luna and I valued his input during incidents such as the one he described. Hundreds of miles away from the front, it is useful to have the perspective of a pony who has lived and fought there to remind the officers in Canterlot of the potential consequences of their decisions on the ponies who must risk their lives executing their orders.]

Ponies reading this expecting a blow-by-blow account of these meetings will have to be disappointed once again. I’m sure the Royal Archives has the extensive notes taken down by Raven Inkwell should one’s curiosity for the dreary minutiae of military planning overcome one’s need for more stimulating entertainment, but alas I have little further to add beyond what I have already told historians. For the most part, they were simply far too boring to register at all in my memory beyond a relatively small number of tedious anecdotes; there are precious few insights that I can give about grand strategy at its highest level or the relative leadership styles of Princesses Celestia and Luna that have not already been expounded upon by far more erudite scholars than I, save that their accounts fail to grasp the sheer, unalloyed tedium of waiting for two officers to finish arguing over which corps should receive the dubious honour of taking yet another occupied native village from the enemy before we can all clock off and go for a lunch break. However, there is one such meeting that still stands out clearly in my memory, if only because of where it eventually led.

As with most disasters, there was very little in the lead-up to suggest just how badly things were about to go. From what I can recall it was a morning like any other, though for once I was not suffering under another appalling hangover and felt remarkably chipper for it, which in hindsight ought to have been the warning I should have heeded. Still, it was terribly early, as these strategy meetings were always irritatingly scheduled for sunrise so that Princess Luna could attend after a long night of fighting the nightmares that still plagued her subjects, so that she might offer up another risky plan that could either end the war within a matter of days or have us pushed right back to Black Venom Pass again.

Ordinarily, which is to say during peacetime, I wouldn’t have risen out of bed for another six hours, but I had to maintain the appearance of being a professional little bureaucrat whose vacuous advice was taken as golden words of wisdom channelled from an ancient pagan god of war, and so I was there bright and early so I could have a mug of hot coffee and find a prime spot around the conference table as close to Princess Celestia as I could manage. Besides, even I had to go through the rather invasive security checks before being allowed anywhere near the castle, and there was always the chance one of the guards would seek to exercise what little power he had in the most petty way imaginable and contrive an excuse to keep me detained for a lengthy search even after it had been conclusively proven that I am not a Changeling infiltrator.

The War Room, or Conference Room 27-B as it was officially known, was an enormous room buried deep within the bowels of Canterlot Castle dedicated to the administrative running of the kingdom, now fully repurposed to serve as the Warmistress’ headquarters. It was from that vast wooden table, large enough to host a spirited game of badminton upon, that the direction of the war was decided (our direction, that is, and I imagined Queen Chrysalis was doing the same in rather dingier conditions). This ancient and sturdy table was all but covered in a vast array of maps, reports, memos, diagrams, and notes all spread out in that sort of chaotic system that only a general officer was capable of understanding. The table was surrounded by a halo of comfortable chairs, though often meetings spilled out into distinct sub-meetings as officers, taken by one particular idea or plan, would split off to hash things out without taking valuable time away from everypony else, and so there were other sets of smaller tables with chairs dotted around the perimeter of the room for such things.

Despite its name and the seriousness of the topics discussed therein, the War Room was, just like almost every other room in Canterlot Castle save perhaps the now-defunct torture chambers in the basement, a bright and airy place. Much light was afforded by the vast open windows, which provided a lovely view of the expansive courtyard at the centre of the castle. The same white and gold colour palette, tastefully accented with regal purple, still applied here. Highly polished marble reflected the yellow light of the early morning, bathing the scene in a pleasing glow. From all around the walls, portraits of statesponies long dead gazed down beneficently at the proceedings, as though to encourage this latest generation of leaders to not accidentally tear down what they spent their lives building up.

Celestia and Luna were already there, collecting breakfast from the catering table; one, apparently, should not discuss operational strategy on an empty stomach. The Princess of the Night, having come straight from her nocturnal duties, looked about ready for bed, as she regarded me with bleary, dark-rimmed eyes and uttered something that was halfway between ‘morning’ and a zombie-like groan. Raven Inkwell, Celestia’s private secretary and all-round dogsbody, was busy at the conference table, adding to its already considerable accumulation of official papers with fresh sheets. A few other officers were already deeply engrossed in a conversation about something that sounded rather technical and much too complex for me, so I ignored them and went straight for the coffee.

There, I bumped into Fancy Pants, the Prime Minister at the time, who I imagined felt rather redundant with Princess Celestia having taken up supreme power over the entire Equestrian state once more (technically, it was always hers, but in peacetime she let other ponies borrow bits and pieces for a while), but I suppose she still needed somepony around to represent the small proportion of the population that was allowed to vote at the time, Yours Truly certainly not included. Indeed, as the only civilian there besides the few serving staff still working, he stood out amongst the military ponies in their red, blue, or black service uniforms by wearing his usual black tailcoat, purple waistcoat, and matching bow tie. I observed him very carefully stirring his cup of tea in the manner approved by all etiquette guides, by swishing the teaspoon back and forth without it striking the delicate porcelain, with the sort of fastidiousness that only a common pony who has been raised to nobility and trying very hard to fit in can muster.

“Ah, Your Highness,” said Fancy Pants, complete with the curt little bow. “How’s the leg coming along?”

“It’s still there,” I said dryly, as I helped myself to a mug of coffee from the breakfast table. Normally, I would have allowed the servants to do their jobs and bring me one, but, given that the majority of able-bodied young ponies were involved in some manner of essential war work and domestic servitude had been determined to be non-essential, there was a shortage of them in Canterlot. “How has your latest attempt to bring Chrysalis to the negotiating table developed?”

Fancy Pants pulled a face; he would not be so rude as to pull one of irritation in front of royalty, but it approached that. “I simply don’t understand it, sir,” he said, as he flicked the last drops of tea from his spoon directly into his cup in the manner directed by those same etiquette manuals. “They have lost, completely and conclusively.”

“Not yet,” I said. “Chela is still putting up a fight.”

“It’s only a matter of time; the Changelings cannot sustain this war for much longer, and eventually they’ll run out of soldiers and weapons. Every moment they prolong this war only leads to more blood being spilled, more suffering, and more new horrors unleashed.” He shook his head sadly; Fancy Pants might have been somewhat deluded in his expectation that the enemy would be in the slightest bit open to negotiation while our forces rampaged through their lands and freed all of their slaves and ‘livestock’, but something about his pathetic hopefulness was endearing to me. If only it was truly as simple as that. “If they would just accept my invitations to negotiate terms of honourable surrender, we could end this awful nightmare now.”

“Tell me, old chap,” I said, for he had at least a decade on me, “were our situations reversed - that is, if the war-swarms of Queen Chrysalis were advancing through Equestria, taking Dodge City, Appleloosa, Baltimare, and Ponyville, and were converging on Canterlot as we speak - would you accept ‘honourable surrender’?”

Fancy Pants looked around, presumably to see if there were any journalists around who might print his response to the verbal trap I had laid for him and he had so merrily blundered into. A single phrase taken out of context could end his premiership so soon after it had just started. A few of the officers nearby and Princess Celestia were pretending not to be listening in on our conversation and doing rather poor jobs of feigning great interest in the croissants. “Of course not!” he said, not quite at the level of indignation that would cause his monocle to pop free from his eye socket just yet.

“Even to spare Equestria more bloodshed and death?” I asked. “Purely a hypothetical situation, of course, but I would imagine that to the enemy the thought of ‘honourable surrender’ would be met with just as much revulsion as you just showed.”

“But we’re not the same, sir,” said Fancy Pants, adjusting the old monocle and peering through it with an accusatory stare. “We have Harmony on our side. Equestria has been in terrible situations before with Nightmare Moon, King Sombra, and Griffon invasions but thanks to the Princesses we’ve always pulled through in the end. The Changelings fight for the very tyrant that oppresses them, and whose refusal to consider our terms is prolonging the suffering that we are forced to inflict upon her subjects.”

I became aware of a malevolent presence just behind me; it was not Princess Luna, whose shadow has an icy cold feel to it, as a cloudless night in December with the light of the full moon to illuminate the various sins that taint one’s soul, stripped bare by its chill light. No, this one, and unfortunately just as familiar to me, felt malignant, like the essence of cancer itself creeping over oneself like a slimy cloak. The officers who had been eavesdropping on our fascinating conversation rapidly dispersed to take their places around the conference table, while Fancy Pants took an involuntary step back.

“It never ceases to amuse me,” said Odonata, stepping out from immediately behind me. “You ponies still fail to understand that the Changelings love Queen Chrysalis as much as your kind love Princess Celestia.”

The sound of a loudly clearing throat brought my attention to Princess Luna, who now stood by her elder sister. She nursed a hot mug of the thickest, blackest coffee I had ever seen excreted from the much-abused machine in the corner of the room, and the smell of it alone was enough to trigger both a sense of vague nervousness and an elevated heart rate.

Odonata smirked; she had still yet to unlearn the habit of playing the sort of petty mind-games with her associates that her former ruler encouraged amongst her underlings. “And the other ones too,” she added. “And Blueblood, you should visit more often! Elytra should know who her father is.”

I felt my cheeks flush red with embarrassment, and a pony somewhere coughed much too loudly in the awkward silence that fell. My supposed relationship with Odonata had become the origin of much rumour in Canterlot, and one that I suspected she had been spreading.

“Our Princesses and Queen Chrysalis are hardly comparable,” said Fancy Pants, deftly easing the social awkwardness. “The Changelings follow Chrysalis out of fear, but we follow the Princesses out of love.”

“I sometimes wonder what is the point of my being here if you ponies continue to ignore everything I say,” said Odonata, still grinning like a cat about to pounce upon a helpless mouse. “Changelings love Chrysalis because she is order, discipline, unity, and strength. When they see your armies driving into their lands, taking their hives and freeing their slaves, they don’t see a liberating force, but a conquering horde bent on tearing down and burning everything they have. For them, Chrysalis is now the bulwark between survival and destruction, and as things worsen they will gladly follow her into damnation.”

Fancy Pants snorted contemptuously and shook his head. “Which would make your little venture here rather pointless, don’t you think? Your Organisation for Changeling Liberation has just barely scraped enough to form a single regiment.”

I felt the need to interject, mainly so we could get this meeting going in the hope to be out of here before elevenses or when Luna finally succumbed to exhaustion and fell asleep with her head on the conference table, whichever came first. “History will remember that there were Changelings who stood up to Chrysalis,” I said, “no matter how small their number. They will serve as a good example for the rest of them when we finally have peace.”

“And so we consign ourselves to yet more misery and slaughter for all,” said Fancy Pants, sighing in defeat. “If only the Changelings could see sense, as you do, Odonata.”

“For as long as Chrysalis remains Queen of the Changelings she will drag her subjects into devastation and ruin out of sheer spite rather than give up her throne for the good of the Hives,” said Odonata, the snide tone in her voice softening just a little. “And neither will her subjects forsake her, for she is their final defence against the evil rampaging Equestrian swarm.”

It was, ultimately, very silly and rather stupid to entertain even for a moment that Chrysalis would consider abdication or surrender, and likewise that her subjects, in the process of entwining themselves in a grim and one-sided suicide pact with their leader, would do away with her when they fully believed that our forces would commit wholesale slaughter upon them (and I knew a few certain ponies who relished the idea, but mercifully Princess Celestia was canny enough to keep them away from any apparatus that would allow them to influence such things). One can certainly look back and laugh at Fancy Pants’ intense naivety, and I would always encourage ponies to point and laugh at that ridiculous parvenu, but it was one born of an earnest hope for peace that, while incredibly silly for a supposedly seasoned politician, I could thoroughly empathise with.

“The quickest way to end a war is to lose it,” I said. “The trouble is that nopony likes losing.”

With that bit of faux-philosophical nonsense, the meeting could finally start. It was an important one this time, which brought in a number of senior officers who otherwise would have sat this one out, and so while I was distracted by that rather awkward conversation, an over-eager staff officer had taken his chance and occupied the prime spot next to Celestia on the side that was not already filled up by Raven Inkwell. As more and more officers filed in around the table, some bickering with one another for the more popular spots closer to their favourite Princess or the snack table, I felt the chances of us being finished in good time become vanishingly small. This left me with a place further down the enormous conference table, which found me sandwiched unhappily between Fancy Pants and Odonata. At the very least, the presence of the former Changeling General made everypony else in the immediate vicinity rather uneasy, much to her quiet amusement judging by the superior smirk on her face, which I felt ought to impress upon others the importance of keeping the sort of unnecessary questions that prolong meetings to a bare minimum.

One pony was conspicuously absent—my poor aide Cannon Fodder had been left out of the proceedings due to their strategic importance, and I did not argue the point, not even when he protested rather endearingly that he should be close by in case the Changelings came for my other legs, in such fashion that I wondered if the ordeal had made him forget just what we faced below that benighted bastion. I did, however, strenuously insist he be allowed to stand guard outside the room, the idea being that his Blank aura could foil many potential infiltrators' disguises—although this was ruined somewhat when the other door guards politely assigned him to patrol the halls, no doubt to avoid his stench.

Fancy Pants remained quiet throughout most of the meeting, only offering a few comments here and there to remind everypony that he was still present; he seemed out of his depth, which, again, more than adequately described how I felt in these meetings, but in his case it seemed rather more tragic. For one, I was simply better at hiding it than he, despite his status as the head of government, and indeed from what little I had picked up from ponies discussing his oratory in the House of Commons he was hardly the shy and retiring sort that he appeared now. I could imagine that he simply felt totally powerless here, as a voice calling out for peace in a situation where it had been very much established that circumstances beyond the control of any one individual here had made it impossible. As the officers talked and bickered, sipping tea and coffee and nibbling on pastries as they discussed offensives, supply lines, operations, and projected casualties with the same tone that I imagined other civil meetings demanded, the feeling of being alienated from the reality of what was truly being discussed here became all the more pronounced. The maddening psychology of war required that level of alienation, for if the pony sitting directly opposite from me making the case for a broad offensive across all three fronts was to stop and fully consider every horrific implication of the words he spoke, that ponies would die as a direct consequence of what he proposed, it is unlikely that he could find the wherewithal to continue. Yet he must, as must everypony else here, for final victory.

Again, I cannot recall the entire meeting, and nor would I wish to. Provided one’s security clearance is high enough, one can always request the transcripts from the Royal Archives; indeed, Raven Inkwell was furiously scribbling into her notepad at a rate that seemed impossible to accomplish, yet somehow she was able to keep up even when standards of civility were abandoned and the meeting degenerated into a shouting match until Celestia restored order with judicious use of the Royal Canterlot Voice and a hard stare. However, I recall, aside from the meaningless bits and pieces that would only be of interest to those ponies who simply must know about every single trivial thing that happened during this war, that the main thrust of the entire meeting was centred around how to end the blasted thing in the first place.

There had emerged two schools of thought on this matter, well, three if you include the Prime Minister’s exceedingly optimistic position that if we keep asking nicely then the war will stop—push straight for Queen Chrysalis’ seat of power in the Queen’s Hive; or first take Teratoma Hive, the largest and most populated of the hive cities and the base for their war industry, and then use that as a launching-off point for taking the Queen’s Hive. Both ideas seemed to me to be rather bloody affairs, with much of the difference being where the acts of horrific violence were to take place and how quickly. At the very least, I reassured myself, if I carried on as I was here then whatever was decided here would not have to be personally experienced by Yours Truly.

“No monster survives decapitation,” as Princess Luna had put it, and she had injected rather too much relish in that statement than I’d have liked to hear. “Cut off the head and the body dies. With Chrysalis gone, the veil she has cast over the eyes of her subjects will be lifted and they will see that she had brought them nothing but death and ruin. They will lay down their arms and surrender.”

The Princess of the Night, sleep-deprived and therefore more even irritable than usual, glared at the assembled ponies and the one Changeling gathered around the table, daring one of them to contradict her. However, as Odonata was apparently rather used to working with difficult bosses, and, unlike Chrysalis, Luna was not allowed to send underlings who disagreed with her to forced labour camps or to face firing squads, she was the first to point out the rather obvious flaw in that plan.

“My Queen- uh, My Princess,” Odonata began. The mother of all death glares she received from Luna for that little mistake, intentional or not, made her pause for a moment. “While you are correct in saying that the Hives will abandon this war if Chrysalis was to be captured or killed, being a contingent for peace between us, I do not think it likely that she will remain in the Queen’s Hive and allow herself to be captured.”

An older stallion with an impressive moustache that was bleached white with age scoffed. “We ought to know by now to do the opposite of what the Changeling says,” he said, pounding a hoof on the much-abused conference table. “We take the Queen’s Hive and the rest will fold like dominoes. Even if she does flee elsewhere, it will become plain that they have lost!”

Odonata bore the insult well, and I’d imagined she’d been called far worse by far more powerful creatures before. “The Queen’s Hive is not Canterlot, and we Changelings are nothing if not adaptable; should the capital fall but Chrysalis escapes then her headquarters will move with her, and that will form the new base for resistance.”

“Would Chrysalis not remain in the Queen’s Hive to lead her soldiers in the final defence of their homes?” asked Princess Luna.

“That is what I would do,” said Celestia, speaking for the first time in this meeting for a while. She avoided dominating these sorts of meetings, instead preferring to allow her officers to discuss the matter at hoof at some length and offering only a few comments where needed and restoring order when things became a tad too heated. The final decisions and responsibility thereof still remained solely with her, but being both Princess and Warmistress she was wise enough to listen to all sides of an argument before reaching a conclusion. While it remained a testament to her experience as a leader, it did make these meetings drag on much longer than if she simply told everypony what to do.

“Of course,” said Luna, bowing her head a little in contrition; I would assume that her elder sibling’s comment was in reference to the last battle of the Nightmare Heresy.

Another officer, rather younger than most and with a smaller moustache than the one who spoke up before, chipped in: “Taking Teratoma Hive first would cripple the enemy’s ability to continue waging war.” He picked up a few of the sheets of paper off the table and flicked through them. “It accounts for two thirds of their remaining population and three quarters of their arms manufacture, excluding that which they import from overseas.”

“It also has a vast number of pony slaves,” said Fancy Pants. “If they continue to ignore my requests for peace negotiations” -a few of the officers audibly tutted and shook their heads at that- “then liberating our fellow ponies must be a priority.”

And on the meeting went in much the same fashion, back and forth between the ponies around the tables, each making arguments and counter-arguments for the direction of this war and growing increasingly technical and obscure as the more academically-inclined officers cited whole reams of statistics that they hoped would justify their position. It was around that time that I failed to keep up with the conversation, and instead found a window with a rather lovely view of the bright morning sky beyond and imagined myself being anywhere else but here. This may sound silly, but I imagined myself as a pegasus, flying freely between the puffy, cotton wool-like clouds, and perhaps simply flying away from all of this mess, never to look back.

[Blueblood’s summary of the meeting thus far is mostly accurate, though, as he mentioned, the discussion about the decision to aim for Teratoma Hive or the Queen’s Hive went into much greater detail than he has described here. The full meeting notes are available upon request, however, for the purposes of his narrative here, this will suffice.]

Ultimately, no decision was made, and just as the soreness in my backside from sitting for hours on end was starting to become unbearable, Princess Celestia made the decision to postpone the final decision until such a time that the conditions on the frontline made it necessary. “Market Garden is still bogged down in the Heartlands,” she said, attempting to mollify the more ardent members of either camp. “I have the utmost trust that she will prevail in time, but until then this is all very much in the long-term. The situation may yet develop that necessitates commitment to either proposal. In the meantime, you are to draw up detailed plans so that this war council may make an informed decision when that time comes.”

That seemed to work for now; part of Auntie ‘Tia’s job here seemed to be as much about managing ponies like a glorified team leader than being a warlord, but such was the nature of modern war. Far be it from me to pass judgement on the immortal alicorn princess who has steered our great kingdom from its very inception, but, on balance, I can be reasonably confident in saying that I think she did about as good a job of it as one can expect. Historians have already compared her leadership style with that of Chrysalis, who I’d witnessed bully her staff into submission and reduce her advisors to the status of mere yes-drones, and given that we went on to actually win this war I’d say puts our dear Princess of the Sun far ahead of the Queen of the Changelings as far as ranking goes.

I’m getting ahead of myself again. While it might have been all but certain that our victory was inevitable (and I struggle to think anypony fights a war in the anticipation that they would lose, but that appeared to be the path Chrysalis was about to drag her subjects down), it was just as clear that there was a lot of work to be done, which all entailed a great deal more fighting, suffering, and death before we could start planning the victory parades. As the last bits of business started to wrap up I noticed that other ponies, including Fancy Pants, had started closing up their notebooks, filing their various reams of paper, and returning pens to pockets in anticipation of finally leaving. However, as I began to detect the first faint whiffs of freedom, a certain Purestrain had to spoil it.

“My Qu- Princess,” she said, apparently still finding that certain old habits die hard. She had dropped the sneering, domineering attitude that she wore earlier, and when addressing the ultimate temporal and spiritual authority in the land she had slipped into something approaching due deference. “My proposal,” she continued, “have you found time to consider it?”

“Do you mean the one regarding the Free Changelings?” asked Celestia. She sorted through a ream of papers on the table before her, before Raven Inkwell helpfully found the right one for her.

“Yes, my Princess.”

Celestia spent an uncomfortable few seconds skimming over the page, all the while a few other officers grumbled about having whatever it was they were due to attend next delayed by another few minutes. “I’m afraid we would have to decline your proposal, Odonata.”

“My Princess, there are more than a thousand drones prepared to fight alongside ponies for Changeling freedom!” snapped Odonata, her voice rising in volume. “They are being wasted doing menial work here in Canterlot. They want to fight.”

[It should be noted that relative troop numbers only tell part of the story vis-a-vis any confrontation between ponies and changelings. Ponies have no true equivalent for the Purestrain creature, especially, aside from perhaps alicorns such as myself, a fact Odonata pointed out to me early, along with referencing Twilight Sparkle's ascension—but as I'm sure most if not all creatures trusted enough to read this passage are aware, it is not so simple to produce an alicorn or 'evolve' another pony into one. Suffice to say, relying on numbers in a conflict with uneven distribution of technology, magic and other potential force multipliers is inaccurate at best, and dangerous at worst, a fact the Twilight Sparkle Reforms had by this point addressed.]

The officers grumbled again. “How does she think we’re fighting for the freedom of Changelings?” I heard one say. “Just use them as cannon fodder,” whispered another, “let them wipe each other out.”

“I understand,” said Celestia in that motherly tone of voice she used to try and let ponies down gently, interrupting the gossiping around the table. “Equestria is grateful for their offer. However, I fear that we are still some way before ponies will accept Changelings fighting alongside them. We cannot afford such distractions at a crucial point in our operations. I’m sorry, but the Free Changelings will continue to serve their noble cause in non-combat roles.”

“You mean fetch and carry,” hissed Odonata through set teeth. “Give them the chance, please, and they’ll prove their worth.”

It was at that moment, just as I started to mentally tune out the developing argument and return to another little daydream inspired by the clouds beyond, that I realised that ponies had stopped talking and were all staring at me. Now, I’m rather used to being stared at, it merely comes with the territory of being a Prince of the Realm who doesn’t exactly blend in with a crowd, but usually when two of the few ponies who outrank me on the royal totem pole are present I tend to be ignored unless I do something scandalous. However, when I noticed their stares, I also saw that they were looking at a particular part of my anatomy that, frankly, I didn’t think warranted such attention.

“What?” I blurted out; I imagined that this was what pretty mares felt like when stallions stared at their flanks, except their expressions were merely confused rather than lascivious.

“Your cutie marks are glowing,” said Odonata. “Is that normal? I didn’t know they could do that.”

I turned my head around to see, yes, they were indeed not only glowing, but also pulsing like the beat of a heart. The compass rose emblazoned on each side of my rear flashed in perfect synchronicity, and while I certainly didn’t feel anything before, I thought I could detect a faint tingle there. Fancy Pants, who stood to my left, inched away from me, as though whatever it was might be contagious.

Fortunately, the attention was drawn away from my flanks when a pony in a staff officer’s uniform burst through the doors, panting for breath as though she’d been running a marathon. In her mouth was a folded slip of paper, which, after going through the security measure of being zapped by the Changeling Reveal spell, she quickly passed to Celestia without bothering to bow or salute (there was still disagreement over which was more appropriate when greeting her in her capacity as Warmistress, with some fellows injuring themselves attempting both simultaneously). Whatever it was had to be important enough to interrupt this meeting, and as Celestia’s brow furrowed into a deep frown and the practised, pleasant smile she wore most of the time faded into a thin, set line across her elegant muzzle. Indeed, my divine Aunt had always had as close to perfect a poker face as possible, given she had several thousand years to practise it, and for it to drop so readily inspired a certain fear within me that had little to do with my oddly glowing flanks.

“Changelings have been sighted near Ponyville,” she said, lowering the letter to the table before her. “A full war-swarm within two or three days march, according to the reconnaissance reports.”

A collective shudder struck through the assembled ponies; whispers and murmurs spread like ripples in a pond, growing louder and louder until all was drowned out in the noise of several, panicked conversations happening at once. “How could this happen?” blurted out one officer. “Ponyville is hundreds of miles from the front, it shouldn’t have been possible for so many to get through.”

“The Changeling will always get through,” said another, repeating that old adage from ex-Prime Minister White Hall. “They always find a way.”

“Especially if they had help!” Another pointed at Odonata.

“Oh please,” sneered Odonata, dismissively waving her hoof at the petulant officer. “If I’d helped infiltrators cross the frontlines, I can promise you that you would be the first to know about it, lined up against the wall facing a firing squad. I’d never waste such an opportunity on a minor target like Ponyville.”

“How dare you!”

“Ahem, be that as it may,” another officer interjected, “but Ponyville occupies a strategic point on the rail line between Canterlot and the front, that alone makes it of vital strategic importance.”

“And Princess Twilight Sparkle lives there!”

A loud, resonant ‘thud’, like a nearby artillery piece going off, brought blessed silence once more. Looking at the source to my right, I saw that Luna had stomped her silver-shod hoof on the ground, cracking the marble again. She looked at each of the officers, and I found myself averting my eyes when she looked at me, and, apparently satisfied that everypony was quiet and attentive, said, “This emergency calls for immediate action.” Her sharp gaze settled on me again, and I couldn’t help but wonder what I’d done wrong this time to deserve this attention. “Commissar Blueblood, you are hereby reassigned with immediate effect to Ponyville to supervise the defence of the village. The Cutie Map must have called you.”

Damn. Blast. Bother. I was so bloody close to getting out of this infernal war only to be dragged kicking and screaming back into it. Now even ancient artefacts were conspiring against me. As much as I wanted to tell her into which orifice that has never seen Celestia’s sun she could stuff her reassignment, I could only nod my head and say, “Yes, ma’am.”

Luna nodded politely, and then addressed her sister. “Celestia, do we have any units of sufficient size within a few days' march of Ponyville?”

Raven Inkwell had already found the appropriate sheet of paper and given it to Celestia. Her worried frown deepened ever so slightly, which could only indicate bad news. “There is only one,” she said, before looking up from the report to the traitor Purestrain standing at my right side.

The largest and happiest smile that I’d ever seen on a Changeling formed very gradually on Odonata’s face as Princess Celestia read out the name of her regiment.