The Blueblood Papers: Prince of Blood

“They can’t be the only regiment close enough to help,” said Rarity. “I can’t imagine that the Princesses would leave Equestria so undefended!”

“The War Council had to make a strategic decision,” I said, feeling rather annoyed that these country bumpkins thought that they were fit to criticise the decisions of their betters. “A regiment guarding central Equestria from a potential invasion that may not come is one not actively contributing to the defeat of the Changelings on the frontline. They had made a calculated assumption that the enemy would prioritise defending her hives over another daring scheme.”

“Looks like the War Council’s ‘calculated assumption’ was wrong, then,” said Rainbow Dash dismissively. “Changelings love their ‘daring schemes’.”

“Be that as it may, we cannot defend every square inch of Equestrian soil and bring the fight to the enemy. It’s one or the other,” I explained; civilians, I found, tend to have a rather inflated view of what the military was capable of, and it was very easy for them to sit back in their armchairs and say what ought to have been done with the benefit of hindsight and a more complete picture than the one officers had at the time.

“Yeah, but…” Rainbow Dash trailed off a bit as my unassailable logic sank in. “Changelings, Prince Blueblood, Changelings. Led by Odonata. She tried to kill both of us.”

“And me,” interjected Cannon Fodder, who had remained dutifully silent throughout the entire meeting thus far. He usually kept his thoughts to himself, if he had them at all, but I could assume that he didn’t have a particularly high opinion of Rainbow Dash.

“I haven’t forgotten about that,” I said, as if I could ever forget about that particular near-death experience. Those damned flogging scars on my back continued to cause me trouble, even today. The blasted thing was that I now had to defend the sneering whore in order to survive this latest mess I found myself floundering in. “However, she and her Free Changelings have dedicated themselves to our cause of bringing Queen Chrysalis to justice.”

“That’s what she says, but what if she’s just playing the long game?” I suppose I should have expected that the Bearer of the Element of Loyalty would have some problem with trusting a known traitor. However, Rainbow Dash had a point there, and though I knew that Odonata faced certain death should the Queen of the Changelings get her grubby hooves on her again for her failure to defend Virion Hive, the thought that this was all part of the most needlessly elaborate plot ever devised remained a persistently stubborn suspicion that couldn’t be dismissed with rational arguments. One tries to avoid falling into simple stereotyping, and that’s a lesson that hadn’t quite sunk in by that point, but, let’s be uncharacteristically honest here, the Changelings had hardly done much to undo their particular reputation for stabbing everypony in the back at any given opportunity by that point, so perhaps paranoia was really the sensible option.

It was Spike who came to the defence of Odonata, and rather unexpectedly too. He had hitherto spent the entire meeting taking notes, and I’d ignored him as I would any other servant, maid, or assistant, except when he giggled to himself inanely over some simple thing that amused his foalish sensibilities. “Remember Thorax?” he interjected. “If one Changeling can change, then so can the rest of them. Even a Purestrain!”

I never thought that I’d see Spike of all creatures being the voice of reason here, but stranger things have happened in times of war. At that time I hadn’t even heard of the future King of the Changelings, but the name seemed to mean something to the other ponies there, and from what I gathered he was one of the very few drones who had defected who hadn’t been first captured as a prisoner of war. If they were expecting Odonata to have fully embraced the way of Harmony and the Magic of Friendship, ‘gone pastel’ as she had explained was the term they used when drones undercover amongst ponies start feeling a sense of belonging with their unwitting prey, then they were in for a shock when they would finally meet her. This damned affair was about to become a whole lot more complicated, should I survive to see it.

“That’s what we have commissars for,” I said, giving a pointed look to Starlight Glimmer, who squirmed uncomfortably. “We will watch Odonata carefully, but unless she proves otherwise, she and her Free Changelings will be treated as any other loyal regiment of ponies.”

“Perhaps we can ask the Free Changelings to take on the forms of ponies,” said Rarity, “just until this is over.”

That thought had occurred to me, but unfortunately I knew rather too much about Changeling physiology than I would have otherwise liked or needed to. “Maintaining a disguised form like that requires more love,” I said, and I received another encouraging nod from Twilight Sparkle as though I was her student delivering an assignment. “Unless we allow them to feed on the ponies here, they won’t be able to keep their shapeshifted forms for very long. It would be better to tell the ponies now and get it over with, rather than try to deal with the outcome of a failed cover-up later.”

“It will be difficult for ponies here to accept,” said Twilight Sparkle with a defeated sigh, “but we don’t have a choice. Prince Blueblood, thank you for your honest assessment of the Ponyville Militia; it’s clear that we need the Free Changelings if we’re to win this, but I’m sure that the ponies of Ponyville will accept whatever help is offered, even if it is from a very unlikely source.”

That remained to be seen, for the ponies here still remained a rather insular lot, despite their new Princess’ best efforts. There was one other point that I had wanted to raise, and that the fact that I was the one raising it implied that the other ponies had either also considered that same thought and dismissed it or had somehow ignored the completely obvious thing that would have resolved this issue without problems.

“What about Discord?” I asked. He was officially ‘neutral’ in this war, as he had demonstrated when the Prime Minister at the time, that rather grey and boring fellow White Hall I believe, asked him if he might intervene on our behalf. I was not in Canterlot at the time, but had heard that Discord loudly declared that he was not the ponies’ attack dog that they can point at a problem to make it go away, and then turned the Prime Minister into a Prench poodle with cotton candy for fur until Princess Celestia demanded that he turn him back in time for the next cabinet meeting. I’d have hoped that the Prince of Chaos would make an exception now that it was his home and the ponies he supposedly called his friends now under threat, and he would simply banish the Changelings to an alternate dimension or turn them all into sheep or whatever solution his depraved mind could dream up.

[Blueblood is correct here. Discord expressed personal disgust at the thought of being used as a weapon and refused to help with the war effort in any way. However, his refusal to interfere went both ways, and aside from the incident that Blueblood described, where after the casualty figures from the Siege of Virion Hive were reported White Hall all but demanded that Discord do what he could to end this war as soon as possible, he did not hinder it in any way.]

The ponies gathered here looked to Fluttershy, who I understood was effectively his guardian here, responsible for keeping him from backsliding into old habits. “He’s on vacation,” she said.

“What do you mean ‘he’s on vacation’?” I asked, rather perplexed. “He doesn’t have a job.”

Fluttershy appeared to be trying to disappear under the table, as she shrank somewhat from what I thought was light inquiry, but I suppose the rather intimidating qualities of my uniform had gotten the better of her. “Oh, he takes spreading chaos very seriously, so sometimes he needs to take a little break.”

I struggled to wrap my head around the concept of the demi-god of chaos requiring a ‘break’ from his nature, but when it comes to that particular menace it was best not to think too hard about any sort of thought or drive behind whatever it was he did. “Can we get him back here?” I asked, it was worth a shot.

“I’m sure he’d be very happy to help us out,” said Fluttershy, and I remained sceptical of that claim, “but I don’t know where he is. He said he was returning to ‘the primordial darkness that has existed before time itself and from which all chaos flows like an ever-flowing stream’, but I don’t think we can reach him there.”

So much for that idea. I knew from the moment that it first sprang into my head that it was simply too good to work, but I held onto the vain hope that there would be a neat and tidy little solution to this problem. If we could just aim the omnipotent embodiment of chaos at the enemy and have him turn them all into fluffy, harmless bunny rabbits then the entire problem would disappear in an instant, and I could go back to Canterlot and carry on ‘advising’ Princess Celestia. ‘Neat and tidy’ are concepts that simply don’t exist in the messy world of reality, not when the universe can contort its way into making life needlessly difficult for me; it was a rather unfortunate coincidence that Discord had chosen the time when we really need him to go on a holiday, and were I of a conspiratorial persuasion I’d have suggested that there was no such coincidence.

I had paid close attention to Filthy Rich when Twilight Sparkle called my assessment of ‘his’ militia ‘honest’. Of course, had I been truly honest in my appraisal I’d have likely been thrown out of the meeting for using unbecoming language in front of a Princess or for physically assaulting the stallion when my words failed to encapsulate just how unlikely their chances were in a straight-forward battle, if there was such a thing. He did not protest, as I would have expected any other officer whose ego vastly exceeds their competence would when the latter is called into question, but maintained the sort of blank and neutral expression that must have served him well either in a board meeting or at a poker table. It was a good sign, thought I, and when the meeting finally came to an end, just as my legs had grown stiff from standing still for so long, I calmly asked him for a quiet word in private with Commissar Starlight Glimmer.

Judging by the mortified look that came over his face, he had worked out precisely what we wanted to tell him; when two commissars ask for a ‘quiet word in private’ it very rarely means anything particularly encouraging in one’s near future, after all, our entire profession is dedicated to making sure that officers do their jobs properly and punishing the ones that don’t. Filthy Rich was all nerves and anxiety when we found a small, empty room near the throne room but away from anypony else, which, given the vastness of this castle that the Tree of Harmony had apparently thought that Twilight Sparkle had needed to execute her royal duties, was not particularly hard to do. I suppose that I could have found a rather less threatening place to do this than a dimly-lit and cramped store room deep within the bowels of the castle, lacking any windows so as to make it all the more claustrophobic for everypony involved, but, like everything else related to this whole ridiculous affair, I wanted to get this over and done with as soon as possible.

“What’s this about, sir?” he asked, much of his boardroom bluster having evaporated now. I expected that the dim light from the too-old light in the ceiling had cast my face in a dark shadow from the brim of my peaked cap. It was just the three of us there, as I’d ordered Cannon Fodder to go and find the best available room in the castle for me, and given his surprising knack for procuring things for me and his stubborn personality that treated every command from Yours Truly as though it was divine edict from Celestia herself, I trusted him to do precisely that. I would not have put it past him to attempt to evict Twilight Sparkle from her chambers to make room for me.

Starlight Glimmer looked almost as nervous as Filthy Rich here, and therefore didn’t do what I had expected her to do immediately. Therefore, I had to prompt her, “As commissar of the Ponyville Militia, Starlight Glimmer has something to tell you.”

“Oh, um…” She trailed off, mumbled a bit, then after pulling another one of her anxious grins she said, “You’re fired.”

There are two schools of thought when it comes to delivering bad news to ponies. The first is to do so with kindness and empathy and understanding, which requires patience and time on behalf of the messenger to spare the feelings of the recipient, and the second is to simply get it out in as quick and efficient a manner as possible with no regard to the emotions of the individual on the receiving end, in the hope that they ought to be able to come to terms with it themselves quickly enough. Commissar Starlight Glimmer proved to be a student of the latter, and to a degree that surprised even me, who has been forced to work with ponies for whom manners was a concept that was for others to learn for longer than a prince really ought to. It was no bad thing, of course; her bluntness would allow me to swoop in with a profuse apology, perhaps with an investment in his business that I could cover by asking Auntie ‘Tia for more money or the promise of a Royal Warrant for his shop to help smooth things over, which would allow me to both remove Filthy Rich from his position and look like the better pony compared to Starlight here. However, more fortuitously for me, that was all unnecessary.

“Phew,” he said, smiling. “I was waiting for you to do that. Though am I to understand that Prince Blueblood put you up to this?”

“I may have nudged her in the right direction,” I said, giving her another look. “So you wanted to be removed from the militia?”

His smile faded, and a look of justified wariness came over him. “Now hold on, did you really think I was being serious when I said that nonsense about not needing to change into my uniform?”

“I had an inkling,” I said, lying as usual; I’d met far too many incompetent officers in the first few years of the war to ever give another one the benefit of the doubt, not when I had seen the bloody outcome of their stupidity and had been at least partially responsible for it for failing to act when I could.

“I don’t understand,” said Starlight Glimmer. “You wanted to be fired? Couldn’t you have just, you know, stepped down?”

“I wanted us to have a frank discussion about this,” he said. “It’s my wife, you see. All of her friends’ spouses bought their commissions when that was still allowed at the start of the war, while I stayed back to re-align Barnyard Bargain’s business model to better serve its customers in the new economic reality of the war. As a result, we have…” he reeled off a staggering array of numbers and statistics that were utterly lost on me, but they were big numbers so I made the safe assumption that they meant everything was going well for his company, “...so, as you can see, not only has Barnyard Bargains survived under these circumstances, but thrived. Securing contracts to supply the Ministry of War with weapons, uniforms, rations, and everything else a modern army needs to get the job done will be the next step in growing our business.”

Some ponies might call that war profiteering, and I would be one of them, because Filthy Rich was precisely the sort of the new breed of aspirational, grasping, middle class commoner who didn’t know his place that I rather distrusted. He, much like Fancy Pants, had not inherited his wealth and prestige from generations of nobility dating back to when Equestria was a twinkle in Princess Celestia’s eye (though I’d later learnt that he in fact inherited his business from his father, who in turn had received it from his father, but that still didn’t go far enough to count), but had done so through what he might call ‘hard work’. Whatever position, money, and power that he might have ‘earned’ through his business would never be enough for his sort, constantly demanding more and more, and with none of the decorum, grace, and tact that those who have their positions through right of birth possess. They will always be jealous of our kind, the nobility that have guided Equestria since time immemorial in Princess Celestia’s name, and yet feeling inferior for lacking the very qualities that we possess.

“She’d rather you seek glory on the battlefield?” I asked. Something could always be arranged, I thought; a penal battalion somewhere would always need some luckless officer to keep the scum not suited for frontline service in check. Still, it was an old, predictable sort of story, and though I felt the urge to tease him about what was presumably a nagging wife, on this occasion I suppressed that bullying instinct of mine and held my tongue.

“I’m a bit too old for that, you see,” he continued. I would have guessed his age to be in his late thirties or early forties, which, while being rather late to start a mediocre military career, was still young enough to enroll in the Royal Academy, if he didn’t mind sharing classes with ponies half his age. “Commanding the Ponyville Militia was an acceptable compromise. We protected the new Princess of Friendship and the village from Changeling spies, though most of them turned out to be ordinary ponies going about their daily business. It was all funded by myself and supplied by Barnyard Bargains, and that gave Spoiled something to brag about to her friends in her weekly book club and mimosa meetings.”

The final pieces of the puzzle fell into place to reveal a perfect picture of the tedious and vacuous social politics of a tiny, provincial village; he had been content to parade about as the commander of the militia, after having financed much of it, and collect the rather dubious credit for it without actually needing to put any real work or effort into the whole thing. I almost admired him for the scheme, and he might have carried on doing that were it not for the unthinkable happening and he would actually have to lead ponies in battle, which was something that he, to his dubious credit, acknowledged was something that he was incapable of doing properly.

“And it would help you get the lucrative deal to supply the Ministry of War,” I said.

“Wait, hold on,” said Starlight Glimmer. “Wouldn’t being ‘fired’” - she made the gesture that I believe the youth call ‘air-quotes’ with her forehooves - “be more of an embarrassment than quitting the job voluntarily?”

The easy grin of a seasoned salespony was quick to return to Filthy Rich’s face. “I thought we could make a deal,” he said. “After all, keeping my shops supplied with all the goods a pony could want at a discount price is much like supplying an army with weapons, ammunition, food, and all that. Indeed, the Ponyville Militia is the best-equipped militia unit in all of Equestria. Nowhere else can boast a home guard where every single member has a modern musket, and that’s all thanks to Barnyard Bargain’s efficient procurement and supply chain.”

[Militia units were primarily supplied by the Ministry of War, but as frontline units received top priority the local defence forces had to make do with what was left and what they could scrounge up themselves. Some, like Ponyville, were able to gain funding from private individuals, but most rural settlements of similar size were equipped only with a small number of muskets, homemade armour, and whatever other weaponry they could improvise.]

“That’s all very impressive,” I said, feeling anything but. “What does it have to do with you stepping down?”

“Spoiled Rich would be very disappointed if I lost the command of the militia; I’ll never hear the end of it. But, if I could have that contract with the Ministry of War, then that would keep her happy.”

Well, as long as it kept his wife happy, I thought bitterly to myself; clearly that was the greater priority here than the horde of two thousand Changelings about to besiege the tiny village. Ponies behave oddly in times of unprecedented crisis, as decades of experience had told me, and part of training to be an effective officer was to learn how to avoid focusing on the less important matters, which ponies will tend to do to put off having to deal with the very large and scary impending disaster in the hope somepony else will do it for them. Perhaps in these later years, when I have had far too much time to think upon these things and wonder if events could have transpired in a different way to another, I feel inclined to be at least a little bit more generous to just some of the ponies who history has judged to have failed in their duties. After all, if another pony had looked a little too closely to what I was doing at the time, I might find myself in the same position. Not everypony, of course, but in this one particular case with this one particular pony standing before me, as grasping and greedy as his sort tend to be, I now can’t entirely condemn him for floundering about uselessly now that the war, with all of its well-documented horror, had unexpectedly arrived at his home. Back then, however, it was damned tricky to keep my temper in check.

“And who would you have lead the militia instead?” I asked.

“Applejack,” he said without hesitation. “As the militia’s senior NCO, she’s already doing most of the job of running the militia for me. She knows almost everypony in the militia, and it’s her farm that we’re fortifying. She’s perfect for the job.”

I found that I couldn’t disagree, but that was only because I lacked any more information about the ponies here. My other choice would have been Twilight Sparkle, were it not for that law that forbade alicorn princesses from leading ponies-in-arms. Upon reflection, her many neuroses and tendency to get bogged down in detail, all of which had helped her lead the inquiry and write the report that led to the reform of the Royal Guard, would not be of much benefit in the rapidly-shifting space of a modern battlefield, but I concluded that she could look after supply lines and count cartridges while other ponies got on with the fighting and the dying. Still, from my position as an amateur whose interest in these matters was entirely against his will, Applejack seemed like a good choice; the Bearer of the Element of Honesty might have seemed like a poor choice given how much of warfare is based upon deception, but it also meant that she could be relied upon not to tell great big fibs for the benefit of her own career like some officers I’d worked with. That it was her home and business on the frontline, as Filthy Rich had said, added further incentive for her to apply herself. I hadn’t had the pleasure of her company for very long, but from what I had heard from others, including Twilight Sparkle, the young apple farmer was as stubborn as they come, which, as I understood it, was a trait most suited for fighting a defensive battle.

It was going to be grim, either way, and I knew that nopony here was in the least bit ready for it. However, nopony ever is until they find themselves thrust head-first into the blood and fire of battle, and even then, though I have waded through the filth and fog of war far too many times than ought to be considered sensible for a single pony, I could never say that I ever thought myself ‘ready’ for it. If I were to find the silver lining in all of this, this unreadiness meant that I kept some measure of my true self intact.

“Commissar Starlight,” I said, and she stiffened in response, “please tell Applejack the good news about her promotion.”

“Oh, um, okay sir.” She made a clumsy salute by slapping herself on the forehead with the back of her forehoof, the wrong one, and trotted out of the room.

“So, you’ll arrange the contract?” asked Filthy Rich, just as I was about to follow Starlight Glimmer. He had moved to block the way out of the room, and for a moment I considered if, after all of the pain and damage inflicted upon my body through these years of conflict and drink and insufficient exercise, I had the strength to push him out of the way. He was an earth pony, and while he had the rather stocky frame of his tribe I thought much of that was merely the padding in his suit. It was unlikely that he regularly performed the hard manual labour that their kind was built for, and he probably lifted nothing heavier than stacks of hardcopy. “Like you said.”

“I said that I will send a letter to the Secretary of State for War, nothing more. I’m in no position to make any sort of promises about future contracts.”

“Of course, sir,” he said, suddenly all rather deferential. The grasping middle classes will do that when cornered by a pony of superior social rank, for though they envy and despise us for our privilege, they will not be above resorting to the deference appropriate to our gulf in station in order to get what they want. “However, you understand that I can’t simply give up the command of the militia without something in return, and their weapons, ammunition, and uniforms are supplied by Barnyard Bargains.”

“And you must understand that I must put the defence of this village above all other considerations,” I said, advancing upon him. “It is well within my right to declare martial law and seize what is needed by force, but I trust that it won’t come to that.”

He tried to look serious for a moment, and though it might have intimidated a junior executive at a tense board meeting it had rather the opposite effect on me. Despite my reputation, I was never what one would call a tough pony, but years of regal training as a prince and the sense of superiority that comes with it have made me immune to most ponies’ attempts to cow me into submission with a glare or by shouting, with or without threats of violence upon me. Or rather, they have made me much better at concealing it than most other ponies, with the notable exceptions of the two alicorn princesses who outrank me. Perhaps two years ago, when I first donned the cap and scarlet sash, I would have been gripped by indecision until events proceeded to the point where I could not ignore the problem, by which point too many ponies would be dead for my failure to act. No longer would I be bound by such inaction, to stand by and watch the stupid and the incompetent waste lives, and besides, I could still blame Applejack and Starlight Glimmer if things went to Tartarus.

“Ponies here won’t stand for that,” he said. “We might be at war, but we still have laws. We would be no better than the Changelings if we allowed the military to seize property like that.”

“If the villagers are still here to complain about my overreach, that means I’ve done my job and they’re still alive and free,” I said, “and they may be more interested to learn about how you have just tried to extort their safety for profit, Mr Rich.”

With that, I pushed past him and strutted out into the corridor. The contemporary accounts, historical records, and abysmal fiction regarding this ridiculous battle for this tiny village make little to no mention of the conversation I’d had with Filthy Rich there, and the few ones that do have him graciously step down as commander of the militia in favour of Applejack of his own accord; the truth rather complicates the comforting narrative of the inhabitants of a small village banding together and prevailing against impossible odds. If you, dear reader, are reading this, then I will presume that you have also read the other entries in this long, rambling screed of a private confession, unless you decided to pick out a page at random and are wondering what on Equus I’m writing about, and are therefore familiar with the idea that the reality is far more muddled and complicated than the stories our nation tells about itself. Nevertheless, that was that, and I’d ejected a pony thoroughly unsuitable for command from his position, and in his stead would be somepony else who was, in theory, better able to lead ponies into battle.

Now that that was out of the way for now, I caught up with Princess Twilight Sparkle and the others out in the castle grounds again. There, a single section of the Ponyville militia, about ten ponies, were ready to show off the shiny new muskets that Filthy Rich’s business had procured for them. To their credit, they performed about as well as I would imagine a group of earth ponies with a dubious background in education would with only a few hours’ practice with the things. Only one of them accidentally fired the ramrod into the air, but by and large they had demonstrated that they knew how to go through the drill manual with a reasonable amount of competence, if not with the sort of speed and accuracy required. One of the ponies even managed to hit the target, and he whooped excitedly. What remained, however, was to see if they could perform just as well with a swarm advancing upon them, wings buzzing, muskets and cannons roaring, and smoke filling their lungs. Some ponies might scoff at the emphasis placed upon repetitive drill, of marching pointlessly up and down the square in formation or standing perfectly still for hours at a time, but all of it is necessary to suppress that natural and perfectly rational instinct in all of us to turn tail and run away from a mortal threat. As Square Basher would put it, all that she demands of a soldier is to stand her ground and fight, which is easier said than done, but performing drill until all the physical motions were entirely automatic certainly helped with that. I would not trust these militia ponies to hold.

After that was finished, Starlight Glimmer broke the good news to Applejack, who gratefully accepted the promotion with a phlegmatic, “Well, I guess someone’s got to do it, and it might as well be me.”

The rather somber mood, however, was somewhat spoiled when Rarity, having overheard the short conversation, loudly declared, “Oh my! You’re an officer now, Applejack! Which means you must have a new uniform to match.”

“Can’t I just swap the stripes for those crown-things?” said Applejack with an exasperated sigh, the sort that indicated that this sort of behaviour from her friend was hardly a surprise.

“Well, yes, you could,” said Rarity, trotting around Applejack with the sort of scrutinising eye one of my tailors would give when I told him I’d like a white mess jacket made for evening wear. “But as an officer you need to look like a beacon of leadership and inspiration to the soldiers under your command. Now, how much gold braid do you think the new Lieutenant-Colonel of the Ponyville Militia requires?”

While the two of them bickered, and it went on for quite a while, the rest of us moved onto the next portion of the demonstration. I assumed that Rarity was feeling quite useless in this impending disaster, and indeed there was not much use for a seamstress in a siege unless we wanted to look particularly smart while starving, and so this would allow her to at least pretend that she was being somewhat useful here. It is a rather unflattering explanation, but not an inaccurate one either. They continued arguing about Applejack’s uniform as we carried on towards an open field, and I commented to Twilight Sparkle that it would have been far simpler for Applejack to simply let Rarity make a uniform for her.

“It would,” said Twilight, smiling as she glanced over her shoulder to where Applejack was trying to stop Rarity from taking her measurements. I hoped that she would remain just as obstinate about defending the farm as she was about this rather petty thing.

We arrived at the next demonstration rather more quickly than I had anticipated, located in a field just outside of the village outskirts, and it was here, gathered under the warming Spring sun that I discovered that the most terrifying words in the Ponish language were:

“Behold! The Great and Powerful Trixie’s Deadly and Accurate Rocket Artillery!”

To say that I was alarmed to learn that the militia possessed artillery would be under-selling it - I was mortified that civilians would possess modern weaponry capable of gradually reducing fortifications to rubble. However, over the course of the walk here, I reasoned that any such ‘artillery’ would either be a handful of museum pieces or something they’ve improvised, and either way it was unlikely to be particularly effective. When we arrived, greeted by a showpony whom I did not expect to see here, much less involved in military matters, I saw that it was the latter sort.

“Trixie,” said Twilight, with the sort of tone of voice that one typically reserves for addressing mortal enemies, “those are fireworks inside drainpipes.”

Said showmare scoffed, and trotted around where she had set up a number of black, plastic tubes with various rockets poking out of the end to come face-to-face with Twilight. She had a smug, superior smirk on her face. “Yes, to the unimaginative sort of pony they would appear to be merely fireworks inside drainpipes, but the visiting Commissar Blueblood here can clearly see that this is a fine example of the ‘can-do’ spirit of this little frontier town. Explosives are packed inside a convenient and aerodynamic delivery system, and launched from a sophisticatedly accurate launch apparatus. After all, the only thing that separates a firework from a devastating weapon of mass destruction is what it is aimed at.”

“Of course, Trixie,” said Twilight, forcing a grin. “If, for example, it was aimed at my bedroom window and detonated in my en suite bathroom then it would be ‘artillery’.”

“Progress requires sacrifice. I was calibrating the aiming system and Twilight’s garish castle is the biggest landmark in all of Ponyville. Besides, you shouldn’t have been sleeping with the window open while I was testing the Great and Powerful Trixie’s Deadly and Accurate Rocket Artillery.”

“It was two in the morning!”

“The wheels on the cart of innovation never stop turning, Twilight.”

They were very clearly fireworks inside drainpipes. Trixie, whom I last saw being chased from an RASEA show by an angry mob of unhappy Horsetrailian sappers who had burned down the stage, had half a dozen of these drainpipes, each of varying size and some still with their fittings attached, which implied to me that she had seized them for military use from ponies’ houses and business, propped on bricks and cinder blocks. We stood at the top of a small slope, and at the far end of this field were a couple of scarecrows, dressed in black so as to vaguely resemble Changeling drones, to serve as target practice.

“Nevertheless, I shall now demonstrate the Deadly and Accurate Rocket Artillery for the benefit of our visiting Commissar! Whom the Gracious and Magnanimous Trixie has forgiven for his unfair banning from all military entertainment shows.”

As Trixie trotted away to perform the procedure of lighting the fuses with a box of matches, I leaned in close to Twilight, catching a whiff of her scent, and whispered, “This ought to be entertaining at least.”

“I don’t often hear that word in close relation to Trixie,” remarked Twilight under her breath.

I watched her struggle a few times with the matches, and despite being ‘Great and Powerful’, it appeared that Trixie didn’t know any basic fire spells. A small pile of dead matches formed around her hooves. Knowing a basic one that I used to light my cigars, I was about to go and help when Twilight Sparkle gently touched her hoof to my side and shook her head. I detected some measure of animosity between the two ponies, and Trixie certainly had the sort of personality that could earn the opprobrium of even the Princess of Friendship here. However, while Trixie continued to struggle with the matches, Starlight Glimmer trotted on over and obliged with a few sparks from her horn.

“Fire in the hole!” bellowed Trixie. The fuses were lit, and the flames licked up the length of rope alarmingly quickly. A look of panic came over the two mares, and both turned tail and ran back towards our group. However, in her mad flight, Trixie had knocked over one of the drainpipes. It lurched over to the left, colliding with its neighbour, which in turn tipped over and knocked into the next one, and the one after that. Trixie and Starlight raced back together to arrest the domino effect, gathering up the ‘launch apparatus’ in hooves and magic as the fire raced further up fuses that seemed much too short.

“Trixie!” screamed Twilight Sparkle.

“Trixie is a little busy!” she yelled back. In gathering up some of the pipes in her hooves, she, apparently heedless of her surroundings, aimed them directly at us. Within the three or so that were pointed in my direction, I could see, immersed in the darkness, the nose cones of half a dozen rockets packed into each drain pipe. She finally looked down at the ‘rocket artillery’ in her hooves, the lit fuse, and then the assemblage of ponies who were gradually backing away from her. “Fu-”

I threw myself to the ground just behind Twilight Sparkle, forehooves over my ears, just in time to see her horn light up with a powerful purple glow that spread out as a vast magical shield. Rockets shrieked through the air and detonated harmlessly against the shield, erupting in dazzling displays of glittering sparkles and smoke. But as the cacophony filled my ears and the stench of burnt powder wafted in the air, I clenched my eyes shut and trembled. The noise and the smell dragged up memories that I’d rather have forgotten: a front rank of Night Guards shredded by canister shot at Black Venom Pass when the Changelings turned our own artillery against us; the shattered walls of Virion Hive slick with blood as ponies stormed the defended breach again and again; hiding in a hole atop a desolate hill while the enemy pounded us with cannon and mortar fire…

Somepony touched my shoulder, and I stood with a jerk. I was shaking and felt quite unsteady, my heart pounded, and I saw that the ponies had gathered around me and all wore expressions of concern. Smoke wafted on the thin breeze around us, the grass at our hooves was scorched and littered with the burnt detritus from Trixie’s fireworks. Said showmare had the decency to look a little sheepish for her near-assassination of a Prince and the entire leadership of the Ponyville Militia. Thus far she’d come closer than any Changeling assassin to finishing me off, were it not for Twilight Sparkle’s skill with magic and admirable reflexes. Beyond, I saw that the field was pockmarked with craters, but the collection of scarecrows were entirely unharmed.

I say everypony looked worried, but a certain infant dragon did not. “So much for the great war hero,” scoffed Spike. “Scared of some fireworks.”

A few ponies glared at him. “Spike,” hissed Rainbow Dash. “Not. Cool.”

“Are you okay, sir?” asked Fluttershy. I was a little surprised to find that her concern was genuine, though I ought to have expected as much from the Bearer of the Element of Kindness.

“I’m fine,” I said, dusting the grass from my much-abused uniform. Embarrassment quickly overrode the odd feeling of mortal fear, dredged up from those past battles by being subjected to an unplanned bombardment by Trixie’s fireworks. I regained my composure quickly, standing straighter, and determined to move on and pretend this unfortunate display never happened. “I need to see Sweet Apple Acres.”

“We could have a break if you want,” said Twilight Sparkle. Damn her, I wasn’t used to this sort of empathy from others and certainly didn’t deserve it. So I brushed it off with a shake of my head.

“The enemy aren’t going to take breaks.”