A Song of Storms: Snow and Shadows

Chapters

Chapter 2: Troubling Winds
Chapter 3: Cursed Snow
Chapter 5: Winds of the West
Chapter 6: Sky Above, Wind Behind
Chapter 7: Dreaded Shadows
Chapter 8: The Long March
Chapter 9: The Best Laid Plans
Chapter 10: Onyx Ridge
Chapter 12: The Narrow Strait
Chapter 13: The Wind Turns
Chapter 14: A Trial of Ice
Chapter 15: A Trial of Fire
Chapter 16: Skyfall
Chapter 17: The Storm
Chapter 18: End in Fire
Chapter 19: Follow the Sun
Author's Notes
Epilogue: Castle Black
Prologue: Frozen Caverns
Chapter 1: Siege
Chapter 4: Heated Talks
Chapter 11: Warlords and Unity

Chapter 2: Troubling Winds

A loose strand of wintry wind, lost in the caverns far below the snowy world, tugged gently at Twilight’s mane as she set the book down. Rainbow Dash had already prepared a fire in the ancient stone hearth embedded in the walls of the crypt, letting the water cook a soup of boiled greens and flowers for the two of them to eat. Both the unicorn and the pegasus gave each other surprised looks at what they had just read.

“Well… I sure haven’t ever heard of that story before,” Rainbow commented as she turned back to the soup. She inhaled deeply, allowing the smell of tendered lettuce to waft into her nostrils. The warm, moist steam was a very pleasant change from the excruciatingly cold and dry cavern air that she had been breathing for the past hour. Her powdery blue wings fluttered, creating currents of air that forced the steam together in front of her face as a loose cloud of vapor. With a puff of air, Rainbow blew a hole through it, causing the steam to change into a ring as it dissipated.

Twilight Sparkle had unfolded a scroll of parchment paper and was busy writing down passages from the chapter she had read, annotating the copies instead of the text itself. Setting her quill aside, she gathered the notes and buried her nose in them as she spoke.

“This passage predates the Eternal Blizzard by twelve years, so it wouldn’t be common knowledge to the general population. Actually, I had read of this defense of the Unicornia province of the Diamond Kingdom in some of Star Swirl the Bearded’s logs from the era. Who knew that this was where Hurricane got his armor? I just assumed it was standard for the Cirran commanders of the time.”

Although obviously intrigued, Rainbow lazily brushed her hoof across her mane as she watched the soup. “Who cares about some dingy old armor? It’s been thousands of years since then. Don’t you think the guardsponies would have come up with better armor by now?”

“Hurricane’s armor is legendary, Rainbow, not just because it was worn by Commander Hurricane, but because no other pegasus armor in existence has ever matched its durability despite its age. It’s still worn by the commander of the Royal Guard, and as far as Shining Armor told me, it hasn’t had to have been mended once since its creation. It’s capable of absorbing incredible amounts of Arcana or Empatha attacks, and allows its wearer to turn into one of the basic manifestations of Empatha, like fire or earth.”

Rainbow’s brow rose slightly as she considered how awesome it would be to turn into fire. “That’s pretty cool. But what about some of the other stuff that Hurricane said, like the Crystal Ponies actually trying to attack the city? I thought the Crystal Empire was supposed to be a pretty chill place full of love and friendship and crap like that. That doesn’t sound anything at all like how Hurricane described them.”

“Actually, I read about some of this in the books Princess Cadence lent me from the libraries of the Crystal Empire.” Using her magic to sift through her numerous bags, Twilight produced one of the many accounts she brought with her for the expedition. “During the Age of Tribes, the Crystal Ponies were a bunch of scattered groups led by powerful warlords. It was around the time of the Eternal Blizzard that they began to cast aside their traditionally violent ways and unify into the Crystal Empire that we know today. The process took fifty-odd years with the warlords opposing the movement, but eventually, enough of the groups united to cast out their violent leaders and establish their empire of love and friendship.”

The soup was boiling now, so Rainbow quickly removed the pot from the fire and poured two hot bowls for herself and Twilight. Bringing the wooden bowls back to the table, the colorful pegasus sat down next to her companion and looked over the text of the book. “I don’t see what any of this has to do with the Hearth’s Warming story, though. Does he go on about it for much longer?”

Twilight’s horn illuminated as she skimmed through the pages of the book. “For about another hundred pages. It talks a lot about the proliferation of skysteel weaponry and the advanced Empatha training the Praetorian began to receive after that battle. He said this was a log of what happened, but it seems more like a journal to me.”

Rainbow brought her hooves to her forehead and groaned. “Can we just skip to the good stuff, please? I’m afraid if we have to listen to twelve more years of this I might as well ask some of the corpses here to move over.”

“First, this isn’t a burial temple. It’s a crypt of knowledge, so there aren’t any corpses here. And second, how could you want to pass up on all this learning?!” Twilight regarded Rainbow’s lack of zealotry in a manner not dissimilar to the Harmonist Inquisitors that rooted out heresy in the Principality during the first hundred years of the fourth millennium, Age of Equestria.

Rainbow simply ignored Twilight’s glare and shrugged her wings. “Because it’s just, like, boring. Don’t get me wrong, Commander Hurricane’s a pretty cool pegasus, but I want to hear about the Hearth’s Warming story.” Her chest inflated slightly as her features hardened into her classic cocky grin. “I want to know how awesome a portrayal of him I did!”

Twilight rolled her eyes, knowing very well that Hurricane was hardly the brash and insensitive military hothead that the stories made him out to be. “Fine, we can jump to the later pages. At least I’ll be able to look over the whole book in detail when we get back to Ponyville.”

The pages fluttered past Twilight’s nose as she pressed forward twelve years, finally stopping when she found the relevant dates. “Ah, here we go. This is one of Commander Typhoon’s logs. Nineteenth of Bare Trees, Four Hundred and Twenty-One After Empire.”

Amber Field was one of those towns whose unassuming façade belies a rat’s nest of danger and crime that thrives within the shadows of its dirty and worn buildings. The capital of the Low Valleys was considered the birthplace of the earth ponies, but despite its thousand years of history it was a wide but thinly populated town. Thousands of acres of fields surrounded the settlement in every direction, dotted here and there with large communal farmhouses. In the summer they would be overflowing with abundance in wheat and grains, but the year’s exceptionally harsh winter had killed off much of the excess. Instead, hardy vegetables such as broccoli and lettuce were all that grew in the cold season.

Despite its rickety wooden houses, weathered brick storefronts, and stained governmental buildings, Amber Field was the single most important city in the entire tribal area. Everything the earth ponies produced passed through Amber Field on its way to the holds of Cirra to the north or the Diamond Kingdom to the south. Its central location between Cirra and the Diamond Kingdom made it the political center of the tribal world, and hundreds of unicorn merchants and traders had permanent residence in the earth pony city. Delegates from the three tribes would meet and discuss business in Amber Field, although in those days not much was discussed anymore.

Such a prosperous city along a central trade route was a beacon to all manner of organized crime, with several powerful gangs operating out of the town. The proliferation of criminals and felons of all sorts warranted the garrison of an entire legion of the mighty Cirran armies to be permanently stationed in the city just to cut down on the crime. The excessive use of Cirra’s already incredible force had choked the once rampant gangs into the shadows, freeing up the streets in broad daylight to be safely travelled. The shadowy alleyways, however, were absolutely teeming with the scum of the equine world, and not even the Legion dared to commit regiments to clear them out.

The first fifteen years of Cirran policing in the city were well received by Amber Field’s inhabitants, and it was considered a dishonor amongst the residents if you didn’t stop to salute a passing platoon of the mighty Legionnaires as they patrolled the city. Citizens were more than happy to provide food or drink to the soldiers in the summer months, and many of the merchants offered their wares at discounted prices to the enlisted. A party couldn’t start until off-duty Legionnaires entered the bar and filled it with their drunken songs and war stories from that unimaginable empire that once thrived far to the east. Knowing a Legionnaire was an honor, and their natural agility and grace that came with being a pegasus made them highly sought companions during any of the numerous balls that were held on a routine basis in the Town Hall.

How the times had changed since then.

With the increasing pressure from the Crystal warlords to the northwest, crime in the city had spiraled out of control despite the heavy Cirran presence. In response, Imperator Secundus Cyclone, the Praetorian directly responsible for maintaining order throughout the tribal lands, tightened the Legion’s grip on Amber Field and imposed martial law. Platoons of Legionnaires led by imposing centurions prowled the streets with a strict regimental order, and archers watched the citizens below from every rooftop, their bows always fitted with an arrow. Gone was the friendliness and cheer from the pegasi who once walked the streets, replaced by coldness and distrust to those who came near. Such was necessary in those times, when ponies could be murdered in plain sight and not even the Legion was safe from attack.

Imperator Tertius Typhoon walked the streets of Amber Field alone, accompanied only by her own thoughts and the regular click of her scabbard against her flank. She had known these streets when they were much friendlier, and it pained her to see so many closed shutters and cold shoulders. Amber Field was practically her home despite her heritage; once she had learned how to fly, she routinely accompanied her older brother Cyclone on patrols, tagging along at his side with nothing but a kitchen knife she had stolen from the cooks in Cloudsdale as some foalish approximation for a skysteel sword. ‘The Little Legionnaire’ they had called her then, and Cyclone’s platoon was always happy to have her with them.

Despite her youth at the time, she was as well trained as some of the Legionnaires that she accompanied. Her father was Hurricane, Commander Maximus of Cirra, and her mother was Swift Spear, Imperator Primus of the Cirran Legion. She had never seen the heights of Stratopolis or the gates of Nimbus, and all she knew of the old Cirran Empire was what her father had told her. She was born in Cloudsdale, two years after Cyclone and three after the exodus, and had been trained from the first day she flew to become one of the Praetorian Guard.

Those years of training had paid off, and she joined the Legion when she was sixteen. In only two years, she fought her way through numerous skirmishes and battles to climb into the ranks of the Praetorian, eventually being appointed Imperator Tertius with recommendations from her brother. With Cyclone being Imperator Secundus of the Cirran Legion, he commanded it from the field, and Typhoon became his top officer. The siblings fought as a remarkable tandem, a perfect balance of Cyclone’s fiery aggression and Typhoon’s calm and patience.

Now, however, Typhoon cantered through Amber Field by herself. Cyclone was busy leading a raid against a Crystal Pony encampment to the west, leaving his sister in charge of the town in his absence. In direct violation of Cirran protocol, however, she patrolled the streets alone. A company of Legionnaires attracted too much attention for her purposes, and despite her Praetorian’s armor and colorful mane of red, yellow, brown, and black hair, she would be able to get much closer by herself.

Her target was never more than fifty feet in front of her, yet not once had he seen the elusive mare in his walk across the city. The streets were full of earth ponies and unicorns under the frosty sun, providing her ample cover to stalk her prey. They wandered past old storefronts and around crumpled corners until they finally entered the markets. Typhoon felt her wings twitch in anticipation as the pony she was following began to slow down and peruse the various stalls and vendors.

The target in question was an earth pony stallion with a brown coat and matted black mane. He must have been near thirty, and his thick hooves struck the cobblestone with a heavy clop that made him easy enough to follow by sound alone. Typhoon did not need to listen to figure out where he was in the crowds, however. The stallion was perhaps the tallest pony she had ever seen in her life, a titan of over four feet from hoof to head. Adorning his flank was a horseshoe surrounded by three stars. To the nobility in River Rock, it would have looked like he was some kind of stunt actor or some other dazzling profession, but Typhoon knew it represented what a pony saw if his hooves collided with their head.

The behemoth had stopped at one of the fruit stalls and was idly browsing through its contents when he suddenly glanced over his shoulder. Typhoon’s heart jumped into her throat as she saw his eyes drift over her form from the corner of her vision, and she simply continued walking as if she didn’t notice him. After walking to another stall, she spared a quick look back to where the stallion was walking away. Seeing his tail swish lightly with his gait, Typhoon let out a sigh of relief and began to follow him again. If he had been aware that she was following him, he would have been much more tense and his steps a little too easy. Reading ponies was something that the pegasus mare excelled at, and no ponies were easier to read than the inhabitants of the Low Valleys.

They were approaching an alleyway along the west end of the markets. Her heart pounding, Typhoon began to accelerate her pace and close on her target. Once he disappeared between the shadows of the buildings, he would essentially be lost from her. Being a Praetorian, she had the skill to take on five earth ponies by herself, but even her legendary rank would not be enough to help her there. If she had learned anything in her years of training, it was that you never fought against unicorns alone, and despite their aristocratic stereotyping, there were certainly several horns who had made the streets and gangs of Amber Field their home. The last time she had fought a pair of unicorns alone they had screwed with her internal compass, making her body think west was north for a week. She couldn’t fly straight the whole time.

She was ten strides from the stallion, and he was five from the alleyway. Knowing that now would be her only chance at apprehending him, Typhoon popped the latch on her sword and spread her wings, ready to leap onto the brute’s neck and wrestle him to the ground. Her blood roared through her ears with anticipation of the fight, but instead of adrenaline and excitement, it seemed to carry an icy sedative. Imperator Typhoon was known for being calm in combat, even borderline statuesque, and that level-headedness made her as dangerous as her more reckless brother.

One flap of her wings, and she was airborne. Another flap set her in motion towards her target. The stallion’s ears perked at the sound of feathers pushing through the air, and he began to look across his shoulder. Three flaps and Typhoon had halved the distance between them. Four…

A ball of ice and snow slammed against her helmet, exploding into a hundred tiny pieces and bringing the startled Praetorian to the ground. Snarling, she jumped to her hooves in time to see the earth pony disappear into the alleyway. To her right, three children, two colts and a filly, were giggling in amusement at the pegasus’ clumsy fall to the earth. Staring daggers at the children, Typhoon reached deep into herself and summoned an icy burst of Empatha at their hooves, freezing them to the ground. Satisfied that the wailing brats would learn their lesson in the two hours it would take for their hooves to thaw, Typhoon ignored her better judgment and jumped to the rooftops to pursue her target from above.

The stallion was quick, using his long legs to push himself to speeds difficult for even a pegasus to match on hoof. Typhoon’s hooves clopped against the slippery tiles of the rooftops as she followed him, shattering several as she leapt from building to building. She would have taken to the air and pursued him directly, but he was penetrating deeper and deeper into gang territory, and unicorns loved to take shots at Legionnaires flying over their turf. Despite the attention her target was raising in his scramble for safety, she could do much worse by taking wing.

Although the brown earth pony was exceptionally gifted in strength and size, his higher thought processes were lacking in how to shake his pursuer. Not bothering to consider whether Typhoon was following him from above, the stallion turned and twisted through sharp corners and narrow alleyways to lose the pony he assumed was chasing him on the ground. Instead, Typhoon bounded across the buildings, adding a flutter or two from her manila appendages to cross streets.

Swift Spear was renowned for her quickness and agility, and those were certainly traits that Typhoon had inherited from her mother. Diving off the edge of one building, the Praetorian tucked her body into a tight roll and smashed through the window on the top floor of the house across the street. Streaking past a terrified unicorn mare and her foal, Typhoon broke through the window opposite from her entrance and fell onto the stallion’s neck below.

The saying ‘the bigger they are, the harder they fall’ assumes that the subject in question can be toppled. Typhoon found herself on the unfortunate end of the exception to that general rule of feather as she clung onto the brown stallion’s neck for dear life. She had fought manticores before and had grappled with the mane of one rather large specimen in particular, and to say that they were easy to take down would only be valid if compared with the pony she was currently trying to pin. The brutish earth pony was furiously jumping and bucking, and the small pegasus had already lost her breath as her armored chest slammed repeatedly against his spine. It was then that Typhoon wished that the Legion had adopted the idea of the spiked horseshoes that the Diamond Guard wore so she could cling onto the stallion’s hide.

Slowly fighting her way up her target’s neck, Typhoon strained to reach the stallion’s forehead. The titanic pony was slamming his back against the sides of buildings to shake her off, and the Praetorian had to keep her wings tucked against her sides to avoid having them accidentally broken. Locking the earth pony into a stranglehold, Typhoon managed to set her hoof at the base of his skull and discharged her built-up emotion. The creation of such emotion allowed the pegasus to channel her Empatha into freezing the droplets of sweat and water along the pony’s neck, effectively numbing his spinal column and bringing him to the ground. It was a neat trick that Hurricane had taught her on one of their many father-daughter camping trips, although by ‘camping trip’ she meant dispersing small groups of bandits from their campsites and back into the wilderness.

Once his legs finally gave out from under him, the big stallion hit the ground with the grace of a crate of liquor being dropped from the streets of Cloudsdale. For the first time in what seemed like ages, Typhoon was afforded the opportunity to inhale as she slid off of the brown pony’s back. Shaking the cramps out of her legs and wings, she casually trotted over to where the earth pony’s head lay panting in the snow.

“Big, strong, fast, but certainly not smart.” Crouching down in front of the lethargic pony, Typhoon leaned her magenta eyes closer to his brown irises. “You would have had a better chance running in a straight line. Tut. Now that we can finally speak, I’d like to get to know more about you. Or, more specifically, your employers.”

The earth pony coughed and managed to raise his head off of the snow just enough to appear somewhat dignified. “I don’t talk to peggers… especially not little mares in big suits. Did your father get you that sword?” He started to laugh, but the feeling of sudden pain through his ear caused him to choke on his words.

Typhoon withdrew her sword from the ground and shook the blood and remnants of ear-fur off its surface. “Actually, I made this weapon myself. Skysteel sword, the most dangerous kinds of weapons in Cirra. Forged it from a high-flying cirrostratus when I was thirteen. It makes a remarkable weapon if you ask me; incredibly lightweight and fast, and tends to freeze things it cuts through.” Sure enough, the trickle of blood that the stallion’s severed ear had spawned had already crystalized into dark crimson gems around his head. “And Commander Hurricane isn’t the topic of this discussion. Now, unless you would like to answer to him, I suggest that you talk.”

The massive earth pony’s head shook vigorously, and Typhoon was convinced his bugging eyes were going to drop off of his terrified face. Smiling, she returned her frosty sword to its scabbard. “Good. Let’s start with the basics now. Give me your name, who you’re working for, and what you do.”

The bulge in the stallion’s neck quivered as he swallowed. “Name’s Brown Oats, though most juss' call me Brown or Big Oats, it don’t really matter much—” The stallion grunted as Typhoon’s hoof brought him back on topic. “Right. Been on the streets for two year now, smugglin’ food for th’ gang. Lotta profit ta be made in th’ smugglin’ bidness, ‘specially in th’ winter months.”

“You know what that food smuggling is a capital offense established by the Tri-Pony compact twenty years ago, correct?”

Brown Oats’ head nodded nervously.

Typhoon sighed and clicked her tongue in disappointment. “Then you know that all smugglers are supposed to be executed on sight, as per Imperator Cyclone’s directive. Now,” she wrapped her hooves around Brown Oats’ neck and pulled him into a lopsided sitting position, “you have luck going your way. For instance, I’m not my brother. If you want to cash in on those few extra chances that I’ve given you, then you’ll tell me who it is you work for, hm?”

“He would, but he’d die if he so much as considered telling you.”

Dropping the cumbersome earth pony in her grasp, Typhoon wheeled about and drew her sword in the same instant to confront the origin of the voice. Strutting out of the shadows was a blue unicorn stallion accompanied on each side by another horned bodyguard. His long horn pressed out of a crop of silvery hair that was cut short even by unicorn standards. His limbs were muscular, rivaling those of well-built earth pony farmhooves. A cuirass of sapphire and gold armor covered his chest and flanks, obscuring his cutie mark. Typhoon noted all this in the breadth of a second, but her eyes remained focused on the length of his horn. A deadly shade of blue aura covered the structure from base to tip, and the Praetorian knew he already had gathered an exorbitant amount of mana into his next spell.

More ponies, unicorn and earth pony alike, emerged from the various alleyways and shadows surrounding the clearing that Typhoon stood in. The mare’s wings were flared and ready, and the sword gently rose and fell with her breath. She wasn’t going to get out of this one without losing a few feathers, but she planned to splinter as many horns as she could in the process.

The unicorn stallion’s lips twitched in amusement as he approached. “Imperator Tertius Typhoon, fourth-highest ranked officer in the entire Cirran Legion. I would have thought you smart enough to remember where your boundaries lie, Praetorian. You don’t just intrude on Blue Coat territory whenever you feel like it.”

Despite the unicorn’s obvious attempts to rile her up, Typhoon maintained her calm and stared at him coldly. “You’re one to talk, aren’t you? The Legion chased your kind off of the streets years ago, and now you hide in the shadows like so many rats from Cirran wrath.” Perking her ears, a slight smile came to her face. “You have no more than fifteen seconds to disappear now before your soldiers start to fall.”

Typhoon was sure she could see the unicorn’s face convulse with rage for a brief moment. “Typical of a pegasus, to think that you hold all the cards just because you’re good with the sword! We know what happened to your kind, Typhoon. You were beaten to the brink of extinction, and only because you fled with your tail between your legs did you have any hope of survival!” He leaned closer, and the sour smell of alcohol and grime made itself all the more present to the Praetorian. “The Legion thinks it owns this city, but they’re only on lease from us. When the time is right, we’re going to drive you feathered bastards back across the ocean from whence you came.”

“I would be awfully disappointed if you didn’t try.”

Typhoon grinned as the voice reached her ears from the rooftops. The blue unicorn stepped away from Typhoon and backed towards the rest of his soldiers, whose eyes were glued to the sky. There, clad in their legendary skysteel armor, were sixty Legionnaires, each with their weapons drawn. A red pegasus with a short black mane and tail stood on the highest rooftop, and the fire in his eyes was clearly visible under the gold and onyx armor of the Praetorian Guard. Adorning his helmet were strips of forged nimbus skysteel added for visual effect. From his lofty perch, Imperator Secundus Cyclone extended his intimidating command over the entire city block.

“I told you that you had no more than fifteen seconds,” Typhoon whispered in the unicorn’s ear right before she slammed her helmet against his nose. The blue stallion released a surprised snarl as he stumbled backwards, discharging his mana in a powerful bolt of Arcana that pierced the sky.

The slight offset of his rival figure was all it took for Cyclone to dive into the fray. Ignoring the twenty or thirty gang members surrounding their leader, he tackled the unicorn in a wreath of fire that caused the snow and ice to suddenly burst into steam as he passed. As the unicorns in the clearing struggled to channel their mana into spells to repel the pegasi, the Legionnaires descended on the earthbound ponies like hawks, outnumbering each three to one.

Typhoon, like any good pegasus, didn’t waste time jumping into the action. Immediately after Cyclone had tackled the blue unicorn out of the way in his spectacular kamikaze, she slammed her wings against her sides to propel herself at the unicorn closest to her before his horn could even light. The poor creature shouted in alarm as Typhoon drilled her shoulder into his neck, spinning off of the impact to draw her bladed wing up and under his chin. A splatter of blood coated the wall behind him, and the unicorn was dead before he hit the ground.

The unicorn next to the one Typhoon felled was much faster on the draw. Rather than trying to summon a time-consuming spell, the stallion drew a sword with his horn and pointed it at the pegasus mare. With a cold sigh, Typhoon prepared herself for the next fight. She always hated dueling with unicorn bandits, as their magical grip on their swords made them much harder to disarm and substantially more dexterous than a pony holding a weapon in their mouth. At least she had three blades and years of training to compensate for it, and her armed wings flexed in anticipation.

The unicorn struck first, using his magic to jab his weapon at Typhoon from a distance. The sword travelled remarkably quickly through the air, and she had to spin to her side to dodge the lethal blade. Even then, she thought she heard the tinny sound of metal bouncing off of metal as it passed. Knowing that it would take time for her opponent to apply enough Arcana to reverse the direction of travel of his weapon and bring it back at her, Typhoon practically leapt on top of the yellow unicorn. Her skysteel sword flew in a rapid succession of strikes afforded it by its lightweight construction, and it was impossible for the unicorn to dodge all of them. The white blade traveled in a blur, and when the first drops of blood hit the ground the stallion had already been stabbed three times.

“Fall back! Fall back to the sewers! Come on!” The gang leader’s voice echoed off the walls of the houses as he stood to the side of the battle, burnt and bloody. Only three of the original twenty-odd earth pony and unicorn gang members had survived the fight, and they too fled with their leader into the shadows between the buildings. The Legionnaires in the street shouted derogatory remarks about the purity of their blood as they ran, then turned back to their commanding officers.

Cyclone limped over to where his sister stood and flicked several flakes of ash and snow off of his wings. “How is it that I always end up covered in your mess, Typhoon? This must be the third time this month.” If Cyclone could laugh, he would have, but in all her eighteen years Typhoon had never once seen her older brother honestly laugh. Instead, a slight loosening of his primary feathers and a smile that on anypony else would be considered a grimace told her that he was amused.

Completely disregarding the formalities that the Praetorian was taught to always display, Typhoon playfully slapped a wing across Cyclone’s back. “Nopony’s making you get involved, Cy. I think you just enjoy it.” She laughed lightly, and Cyclone lazily nodded his head.

“Maybe. I’m not letting you get hurt, at least not until you find a stallion and you don’t have to worry about scarring your pretty face anymore.” Typhoon’s face twisted into mock-rage, and she punched his foreleg. “Hey, watch it sis. The horn hit that leg up pretty good in our fight. Slippery bastard. He had great training, that’s for sure, and his armor took much of my Empatha when we hit. I think the two are related.” Seeing that his troops were watching them, Cyclone scowled and stomped his hoof against the ground. “Well, you know what to do! Standard procedure after a fight, ID the bodies and pile them for burial. You, you, and you, I want you three to see if you can find where those cowards fled to. The rest of you, get to work. Now!”

Extending their wings in salute, the Legionnaires quickly dispersed with their assignments, allowing Cyclone and Typhoon to walk together, alone. They stopped at the body of one of the blue unicorn’s personal bodyguards, and Typhoon removed the helmet to examine it. “Related, you say. What do you think of this?” She tossed the armor piece to Cyclone, who set it down to examine it.

“Sapphire and gold armor. Even for unicorn merchants, that’s incredibly expensive. Either these unicorns stole it from somewhere, or they got it off of a Diamond Guard. I’d say the former, because no matter how bad the horns’ military is, there’s no way that they’d get bested by a bunch of two-bit street thugs.”

“But you said the two were related, though. I’m assuming you mean that wherever they got their military training from was also where they got their armor?”

“Yeah. I’d rather it not be that possibility, ‘cause then we’re looking at some serious political ramifications. Diamond Guards don’t just renounce their positions to join street gangs. Appointment to King Lapis’ personal military is strictly hereditary, almost like its own nobility in a sense. You don’t just leave that, unless you were told to.”

Typhoon stripped the cuirass off of the dead equine’s head and looked inside it. “Dispelled for poor behavior, or something else?”

“Something else, obviously. The bucking Diamond Guard isn’t worth its weight in the damn gemstones it’s named after, and its officers could care less about insubordination. If they would actually tighten up their discipline like the Legion, we wouldn’t have to be saving their sorry horns every time a sizeable barbarian force attacks River Rock.”

“Whatever it is, I’d say these guys came from the guard recently. Let me ask you this, how many suits of armor does the Diamond Guard have with skysteel in them?”

“Let me see that.” Completely abandoning the helmet he was observing, Cyclone grabbed the cuirass between his hooves and flipped it over. Sure enough, under an additional layering of sapphire gems, there was a thick piece of cumulus skysteel embedded in the bulk of the armor. A few shattered gems on the helmet uncovered more of the metal.

“That explains why that horn was able to absorb my Empatha so damn well,” Cyclone muttered. “Cumulus skysteel is the best material at absorbing Empatha. How the hell these unicorns got their hooves on it I’ll never know. We only sent the Diamond Kingdom one shipment of steel the entire year, and most of the cumulus was supposed to go to Star Swirl for academic purposes. Damn it.” Despite his apparently calm intonation, a few sparks of stray Empatha sprung from his wings in anger.

“Perhaps we should go talk to Aunt Twister about this?” Typhoon offered. Twister was Hurricane’s sister and Cirra’s Legatus, the chief diplomat for the pegasus nation with the other two tribes. She had lived through the Red Cloud War in Dioda and had spent her entire two decades in the tribal lands as Legatus. The mare was at least respected by the Low Valleys and the Kingdom, if not universally liked.

Cyclone shook the soot out of his feathers again and nodded. “I suppose it’s at least worth some discussion. I was due to talk to her about the results from the raid anyways. Is she still in Cloudsdale?”

“Yeah, she hasn’t left for tomorrow’s summit meeting yet. Typical of her.” The two siblings shared knowing smiles, even though only one of them was actually smiling.

“Right. My centurion can take it from here. We should have a favorable tailwind at least, if there’s to be any benefit to this winter weather.”

“Good. I would enjoy the winds around here more if they weren’t so damn cold. There’s not a single thermal to be found in the winter. At least Cloudsdale always has some good air.”

“Heh. It’s been too long since I last visited. Been stuck garrisoning this pathetic town or out in the field for months. It’ll be good to get back.” Taking a few short gallops, Cyclone launched his armored figure into the air with his powerful red wings.

“That it will,” Typhoon said to herself as she followed in his wake, letting the spiraling currents of air off her brother’s wings toss aside the falling snow before the flakes entered her eyes.

Cloudsdale. The home of all pegasi. That was the popular moniker affixed to the floating city by the earthbound unicorns and earth ponies, but to the Cirrans who lived there it was an egregious insult to their history. Although the more conscientious and thoughtful unicorn scholars gave it names such as ‘the City of Warriors’ or ‘the crown of pegasus might,’ the Cirrans themselves knew it by a much less flattering title: the City of Survivors.

When the pegasi first arrived from Dioda, Cloudsdale was nothing more than massive puffs of cumulus cloud in the sky. With over three years of hard work, however, a sprawling metropolis had been formed quite literally from thin air, filling several cubic miles of sky. Millions of tons of cumulus had been compressed into cloudstone, the weatherproof material that all pegasus buildings were constructed from. When the plans for the first three years were finished, Cloudsdale could support five hundred-thousand pegasi. That number only continued to grow exponentially as more and more buildings and residences were constructed and attached to the white city.

The Cirran architecture from Dioda had been seamlessly carried over to the new city, and massive white columns supported solid roofs over spiraling stratocumulus foundations throughout the city. The Commander’s palace in which the functions of Cirran government resided was almost a complete recreation of the Emperor’s palace in that forgotten capital Stratopolis that lay in ruins across the ocean. Somehow, the designs for that building had escaped the Gryphon rage that had destroyed nearly everything else, and they had found use in new lands.

Typhoon found herself staring out one of the windows of the palace over the city below as Cyclone reported his findings to Legatus Twister. Twister was a light brown mare of thirty-six years old with a long but neatly-styled dark brown mane and tail. She was Hurricane’s younger sister by four years and seemed to carry enough enthusiasm between the two of them to make up for her brother’s traditionally stoic outlook on life. That wasn’t to say that she was wild or excitable as her windy cutie mark seemed to allude at, but within her golden irises there was a spark of energy that made her seem twenty years younger than she actually was.

“…they fled shortly thereafter. I sent some of my scouts to find out where they ran to, but at this point it’s unlikely we’re going to find them without more soldiers—and casualties.” Cyclone had taken off his helmet and was resting a hoof on its side as he spoke to his aunt, gently rocking the onyx piece back and forth from where it lay. Outside of his official Praetorian garb, the red pegasus seemed considerably less severe to Typhoon, but his scowl would still light a fire if the wood happened to cross him.

“Unfortunate. The more of those criminals we put to the blade or under lock and key, the better for the tribes and the easier my life will be. Chancellor Puddinghead called this meeting among the tribes tomorrow in large part to discuss your policies, nephew. The more news I have to tell the other representatives that they’re working, the better.” Looking over her scribbled notes, Twister picked up the unicorn helm that Cyclone had brought with them. “And about this armor…”

Cyclone nodded and cleared his throat. “Yes. Typhoon found that it incorporates skysteel into its construction, specifically cumulus steel. These materials are one of the secrets of the Legion, and I would like to know how they got into not only the hooves of the Diamond Guard, but those of common street thugs.”

Twister examined the helmet and procured a length of iron from one of the drawers at her desk. Sticking it into the inside of the helm, she lodged it under the edge of the skysteel and pressed down on it. After a few frustrated attempts, the piece of metal broke free of the interior and clattered noisily onto the table. Balancing it on her hoof, the brown mare brought it towards her eyes.

“Hmm. That’s definitely cumulus. A very fine specimen, too.” Released from her hooves, the metal unnaturally bounced several times on the surface of the desk as it hit the wood before settling down. Looking back at Cyclone, Twister waved off the rest of the helmet. “I can tell you a few things about this. I’m no blacksmith, but that helmet was retrofitted to hold the skysteel. The quality is something that our smiths haven’t been able to produce until the last half-year, so whoever made this got it from our last shipment. Strange, I thought that the cumulus skysteel request went directly to Star Swirl. At any rate, we didn’t send out more than thirty pounds of the stuff.”

Cyclone nodded and took the helmet back. “Thank you, Twister. I’ll pass this along to military intelligence and see if they can find out anything more about it. You will mention this incident to the other representatives tomorrow, yes?”

“When the opportunity presents itself, I will, Cyclone. I’m sure Typhoon’s adventures today will be the cause for heated discussion.” Typhoon dipped her head in embarrassment, while Cyclone only seemed to ignore the remark.

“Good. I’d better be going then and see if I can follow up on this. Good day.” He flared his wings in a quick salute before turning to leave, but Twister stopped him with her voice.

“Perhaps you would like to pass that along to Star Swirl? I’m sure he could tell you about the armor.”

The Imperator’s eyes glared over his shoulder for a moment before he continued walking again. “There’s no need to get the horns involved in this. For all I know, they could be the ones behind it.”

The doors mercilessly slammed shut as he left, causing Typhoon to flinch. Twister watched the seam of the doors for a forlorn second before shaking her head in disappointment. “Your brother is certainly a fun one to hang out with, Typhoon. He’s the spitting image of the old Praetorian Guard back in Dioda. I just wish he’d come to respect the other tribes for what they do. He doesn’t have to like them, I just ask that he’d respect the earth ponies for their food and respect the unicorns for the sun and moon.”

The last statement caused Typhoon to raise a skeptical eyebrow. “You don’t honestly believe that, do you? About the unicorns raising the sun and moon?”

Twister shook her head. “No, but it doesn’t matter what I think, it’s understanding what they want us to think. The earth ponies were foalish enough to fall for it, and they expect us to believe it as well. Regardless, it’s easier to do business with them if you just ‘accept’ it and move on. Their real importance to Cirra is their trade. We’d never survive without half of the supplies their craftsponies and artisans manufacture for us. As for your brother, just make sure he doesn’t grow a red tail.”

Typhoon winced as she heard the Cirran insult be applied to her brother. ‘To grow a red tail’ became popular pegasus jargon for any pony that let overt ambition drive their life after the infamous Legate Red Tail assumed power in the middle of the Red Cloud War twenty years ago. The young mare preferred to stay away from that part of history and the gory process that had ultimately caused Hurricane to have to come to power.

“While I can understand your concern, Aunt, I assure you that Cyclone has nothing but Cirra’s best interests at heart. He would never do anything like that, because it would require him to weaken the Legion. And nothing is more important to him than his Legion.”

“That's assuring, and I trust your judgment over mine. You know him better than anypony else does, I daresay even better than your mother. Regardless, your brother is not the point of this argument. Now,” Twister sat down in her chair and looked over the report Cyclone had given her, “you were pursuing this ‘Brown Oats’ pony on suspicion that he was a smuggler. In the process, you froze three young ponies’ hooves to the ground. Tell me, was that really necessary?”

Typhoon bit her lip but refrained from lowering her head in submission. “No, Twister, but they had interfered with my pursuit of the smuggler. That they provided him the opportunity to get away was the reason that Cyclone’s company ultimately had to become involved. Twenty-six ponies died, and four of them were Legionnaires. Frankly, my little lesson was the least punishment they should have expected to receive.”

Twister sighed and leaned back in her chair. “Representative Smart Cookie’s going to have a fit about this. Honestly, Typhoon, I would have expected such actions from your brother.”

“Cyclone would have lit them on fire.”

“I’m going to pretend I didn’t just hear that, for his sake.” The Legatus placed a hoof on her forehead and sighed. “Very well, so you felt justified in your actions. I’ll try to explain that tomorrow. What about this ‘Brown Oats’ fellow, is he in stable condition to talk?”

“He was secured by the Legion after the fight, and he was supposed to be taken in for questioning. The unicorn gang leader, though, said that if he talked it would kill him.” Typhoon rubbed a hoof against the back of her neck in thought. “I don’t know if he spoke the truth, but he was a powerful mage. I doubt he would lack the skill to create some sort of enchantment that would kill Brown Oats before he said his name.”

Twister scratched a few lines down on her parchment and nodded. “I’m not sure I would use ‘enchantment’, but I suppose you’re right. I trust that either you or your brother will be present whenever he is fit for questioning?”

“Of course. I plan on supervising the process once he’s healed. Cyclone’s Empatha fireball burnt his flesh pretty bad when he descended.”

“Shame. Well, keep me informed how that goes. I would like to have something concrete to build upon when I discuss this with the other tribes.” Writing a few words on an envelope, Twister rolled up a scroll and bound it. “Now, is there anything else you would like to discuss?”

Typhoon thought for a moment, then shook her head. “Not at the moment. You will tell me how it goes tomorrow, right?”

Twister smiled and stepped out from behind her desk to rest a wing over Typhoon’s shoulders. “Of course, Typhoon. You just take care, alright? I always worry about you and your brother whenever you go on deployments. The world’s a dangerous place, and the pegasi, Praetorians especially, are universally disliked by the other tribes. Be careful who you trust.”

Typhoon briefly leaned into the embrace before separating again. “Right. I’ll take your word for it, Aunt.”

“Please don’t call me Aunt. It makes me feel old.” Twister’s lips twitched into a smile as she set her youthful eyes on the city outside the window. “I’m only thirty-six. You can call me Aunt when my hair starts falling out and I’m too weak to fly.”

“Right.” Typhoon chuckled and shook her head. “Thanks for the time, Twister. It’s always good to speak with you.”

“Bah, you’re the only family of Thunder Gale’s blood that I talk to these days anyway. Your father’s too busy running the whole nation and Cyclone’s usually off playing his war games in the field. Hell, my own foals spend more time with their father than they do with me.”

“It’s not your fault, you’re just busy. Maybe after tomorrow’s summit you’ll have some time to spend with them, eh?” Typhoon offered helpfully. Twister simply raised the corners of her lips into a smile as she waved her off and went back to sorting through paperwork. Taking her cue to leave, Typhoon respectfully nodded her head to her aunt and left the office, carefully shutting the doors behind her. Picking a few splinters out of her fetlocks, the Imperator began to mutter to herself about how the Legion needed to fortify all the doors Cyclone used on a regular basis. Closing doors gently was one of the many manners he had never learned as a child, and the cost of replacing them was one of the most frequent deductions from his Imperator’s pay.

As she walked out of the palace and down the stairs to the streets below, the strong winds forced her to tighten down her saddlebags and helmet as she descended. Several ice crystals embedded themselves in her coat, threatening to flash-freeze her flesh were it not for the protection of her natural Empatha. Instead, they were simply a nuisance, a minor inconvenience of the winter months.

“Damn wind,” was all she said on the subject, and thought about it no more.

Chapter 3: Cursed Snow

“Wait, that Typhoon guy was actually a mare?” Rainbow Dash’s brows creased in thought. “And not only that, but she was also Hurricane’s daughter? I didn’t know that Hurricane had children.”

Twilight set aside her emptied bowl of soup with her magic and relaxed in her chair. “Of course Hurricane had children, but I had never known Typhoon to be related to him. The only child of his I had ever heard of was Princess Platinum III, known in the stories as the Warrior Princess. The stories say that she was the offspring of Hurricane and a unicorn noble, but I’m close to labeling that information as false. From what I’ve read in his journals, Hurricane and Swift Spear had a really steady relationship, so it makes sense that if any pony was Hurricane’s child it would be Typhoon. Platinum’s story is likely the tale of some popular unicorn noble who believed he was related to her and wanted to throw in a few extra bits of worth to his heritage. Still, we don't know enough to disprove it.”

“What about Cyclone? Didn’t Typhoon say a bunch of times that he was her older brother? How come I’ve never heard of him?” Rainbow flinched at a tug of cold air that pulled on her mane from the surface, and she glared at the open door.

“That’s the funny thing. I’ve never—and when I say never, I mean never—seen anything talking about him or his role. It sounds like he had a fairly important role in Cirra’s Legion, but for him to be absolutely forgotten leaves much to the imagination. This is the first Cirran text I’ve seen referencing his existence, and if anypony should have information on him, it would be the Cirrans.” She grumbled like she was prone to do when a mystery escaped her ability to solve it, and instead she turned to the book for answers. “Regardless, whatever other information there might be about him would be in here.”

Rainbow had gotten up and was intently examining the mechanisms for the door. After a few puzzling seconds, the pegasus found the latch and promptly tugged on it. With the grinding of polished stone sliding across smooth tracks, the doors closed again, effectively blocking off the pestilent cold air that kept drifting in from outside. “Then let’s get back to it. I want to learn more about Typhoon. She seems like a pretty cool mare.”

As Rainbow Dash returned to her seat, Twilight noted the similarities between her friend and the description of the long-dead Praetorian. The same kind of colorful mane and tail, magenta eyes, even the similar construction of their cutie marks—at least from what she had read. She briefly considered mentioning this to Rainbow, but ultimately decided against it. The last thing she needed to do was build connections where there were none.

“Right then. Well, we’ve got plenty of time, and now that you’ve closed the door we shouldn’t have any more drafts in here.” She was happy that Rainbow hadn’t seemed to have lost interest in reading yet, although she dared not say that to the athletic pegasus. “I recognize this date. The Twentieth of Bare Trees, Four Hundred and Twenty-One After Empire. The day the Windigo curse began in earnest.”

There was always something about the skyforges that Commander Hurricane found calming. Maybe it was the rush of hot steam and soot past his feathers, or the Empatha-fueled chill condensers, whose blasts of cold air froze the sweat on his down to provide icy relief. Or perhaps, simplest of all, the forge was the only place where the other pegasi saw him as an equal, not a superior.

Grabbing a pair of tongs from the fireside, Hurricane reached into the pit of bluish Empatha fire that the skysteel was roasting in. Heated skysteel was notoriously difficult to handle, as the pegasus Empatha still hadn’t crystalized the water vapor into its rigid form and the material was very slippery. Dragging the glowing piece of skysteel out of the fire, Hurricane quickly threw it on an anvil and grabbed his hammer.

Shaping skysteel was almost as hard as handling the stuff, and a smith never had more than a few seconds to mold the metal before it would begin to diffuse back into its original cloud form. Giving three swift blows along the length of the steel, Hurricane began to flatten out the edge of a blade for the sword he was making. Seeing the vapor trails leaving the orange surface, he pulled a thick iron box next to him with his rear leg and transferred the weapon blade into it.

Working with skysteel was, for the most part, alternated cycles of heating and cooling, providing barely enough time to shape the metal in between. Focusing his energy on the condenser, Hurricane supplied the Empatha necessary to chill the blade and help solidify its form. After cooling the metal for ten seconds, he opened the condenser and withdrew the steel.

The metal was considerably closer in semblance to a sword than it had been before, but the balance still wasn’t quite right and the blade was nowhere near sharp enough for his liking. Turning back to the blue Empatha fire, Hurricane plunged the blade in again and let it heat.

Out of the corner of his eyes, the stallion saw a pale brown figure round the corner of the building adjacent to the skyforge and walk closer to him. Knowing that the sword would require some time to heat back up to the level where he could work on it again, Hurricane took a rag from his workbench and rubbed the soot off of his face before turning to face the new arrival.

“Busy as ever, I see. Is the soot you trying to appeal to the Low Valleys, or…?” the mare’s voice trailed off into a friendly smile, and the two pegasi met in a loving embrace.

Hurricane laughed softly and shook his head as they separated. “No, Swift, that’s just me working. Cyclone’s got my blood pressure through the roof, and I need some way to expend my excess energy. Besides, I’ve had that piece of storm cloud hanging out in the workshop for long enough, so I figured I’d finally put it to use.”

Swift Spear ran a hoof through her short, brown mane and looked over Hurricane’s shoulder to where the skysteel was glowing a brilliant orange. “About time. You got that cloud from the last hurricane to pass through here—what was it, three months back? At least you’re finally doing something with it rather than just letting it take up space.”

“Heh. That wasn’t just any cloud, that was from the eyewall. That took a lot of effort to drag that one back without getting ripped to shreds in the process. Fun.” Hurricane slowly walked back to the forge with his wife by his side and began to work on shaping the metal again.

“Yes, fun. You disappeared for five minutes in there! I thought the storm had torn you to pieces!” She sighed, then laughed. “I should have known that you’d be able to tame your namesake at least.”

“And now I’m going to have a new sword from it.” Satisfied with the final shape of his sword, Hurricane put it in the condenser and redirected his Empatha from the blue fire to the iron box. Forging skysteel required excessive use of Empatha, and since that magic consumed emotions, it was a good way to cool off after a stressful day.

Swift watched her husband’s work with genuine interest. “What happened to your cumulonimbus sword? I thought you liked that one.”

“I did. The lightning and fire charges in it did wonders on the front line. But it wasn’t my own creation. The blacksmiths made it for me twelve years ago, and the skysteel smithing process has changed considerably since then. I figured it was time to get a new one, and I might as well put some of my personality into it.” Giving the condenser a light tap, Hurricane cracked his neck and looked towards the gray winter skies. “Nopony’s ever made a sword out of the center of a hurricane before, but that was a strong cloud that I wrestled out of it. I think my Empatha suits it.”

Skysteel was an art of many intricacies, and matching a wielder's Empatha with their sword was almost as essential to its creation as shaping the steel itself. Since the production of the metal required an intensive investment of the smith’s Empatha, the weapons made from it tended to be more particularly attuned towards their creator and their preferred magic. Imperator Typhoon’s cirrostratus sword and its icy charge worked much better for her, for example, than Imperator Cyclone’s cumulostratus and the fiery slashes it produced ever would, were she to wield it.

Swift Spear maneuvered herself around Hurricane and kissed his cheek. “That’s good to hear. Would you like to spar, then, and test it out?”

Pushing off the lid to the condenser, Hurricane withdrew his sword and held it up to the light. The blade was a cloudy mix of white and gray steel with intricate etchings running the length of the metal. Directing his emotions into the blade, the Commander felt out the character of his new sword. It was very light but incredibly strong, and he could feel the resonance of fire, ice, and lightning charges in the metal, courtesy of the unique composition of the eyewall cloud. That there were three charges in the weapon excited Hurricane, as most skysteel weapons could only carry one or two.

“Yeah, I could use some friendly competition. That is, as long as you don’t want to get beaten too badly.”

Before he could even laugh, Swift already had his neck in the grip of her headlock. “Please, Cane, wait until we take it to the field.” Releasing his neck, she began to walk towards the sparring grounds. Hurricane chuckled to himself and grabbed his new sword, holding it in his mouth as he walked to test the weight.

Side by side, the two pegasi leisurely trotted around the grounds that the palace was built on top of on their way to the sparring arena. The palace, much like the building it was based off of in Stratopolis, rested on a section of cloud considerably higher than the rest of the city, giving it a commanding view of everything that transpired within its borders. Thousands of pure white buildings lined streets that stretched outwards from the palace in every direction like the spokes on a wagon wheel, cascading in a seemingly random pattern of two and three story buildings right up to the city walls.

The positioning of the city itself was along the border of the northern edge of the mountains that surrounded the Diamond Kingdom and the plains that stretched to the southwest towards Amber Field and the Low Valleys. Being situated on the boundary of two distinctly different topographical environments gave the city strong winds to anchor it in place as well as the raw material needed for the skysteel that Cloudsdale used as its primary export. Cumulus clouds were often trapped against the sides of the mountains, providing ample foundation for the cloudstone mortar that the pegasi used to construct their buildings, while the stronger clouds of all types, especially nimbus and cumulonimbus, were prevalent enough to supply the whole Legion’s need for skysteel.

Other than the ornamental or structural skysteel that the pegasi forged for export, there wasn’t much else that the floating city produced for the other tribes save a vigilant and impressive military that not even the earth pony and unicorn nations united could muster. An entire wing of the city had been dedicated to housing and training the thousands and thousands of Legionnaires in Cirra’s military, and this section had been symbolically placed in the east, the direction of the lost homeland.

Here Hurricane stopped to watch the dim sun rising through the gray skies, shedding its feeble light over the countryside below. That ever-powerful longing in his heart returned as he watched it, wondering what had become of the beloved land he had once called home. It was morning in Cloudsdale, but thousands of miles to the east it was surely close to noon. Did the sun even rise there anymore, now that its equines had been driven off by the barbaric hybrids? Did the griffon emperor Magnus revel in his final victory at Stratopolis, or was he still there, seething in demonic rage that his enemy had escaped extinction, and planning to find them and wipe the pegasi out once and for all?

Swift Spear saw Hurricane’s distraught expression, and she calmly rested a wing across his back. “It’s okay, Hurricane. They won’t find us, and I doubt the average griffon cares much about whether we survived or not and where we are. Magnus may despise us, and he may spend the rest of his life dreaming about our destruction, but he’s only one griffon. As skilled or as powerful as he may seem, without an army that’s willing to follow his every command, he can’t bring us to our knees.”

Hurricane sighed and looked at the sword he had set on the cloud by his hooves. “I don’t know, Swift, I just don’t know. I see everything that we’ve accomplished since we came here, and I wonder if it could have helped defend the Empire had we known about it then. Skysteel, Empatha, everything that’s a regular part of the Legion now; would it have saved Stratopolis or Nimbus? Would the Empire still be here today otherwise?”

“Hurricane, if you keep thinking like this, you’re going to drive yourself insane. Yes, it was very unfortunate that our smiths didn’t discover skysteel until after we had fled, or that we didn’t understand the power behind Empatha in time to turn the tide of the war. The Senate was so sure of their power and so afraid of change that they didn’t let our smiths and our soldiers experiment like you have. But you can’t dwell on it. Think about everypony who died for us, and let’s honor their sacrifice by living our remaining years to the fullest, not mourning their loss. Come now,” she placed a hoof under Hurricane’s chin and angled his head towards her own, “Silver wouldn’t have wanted to see you like this.”

It took great effort for Hurricane to hold his tears back, and that effort was transformed into freezing the cloud beneath his hooves into ice. “You’re right. I just wish I could see it all one last time. I want to know how he died, and what has become of our lands. To visit the ruins of Zephyrus one last time…” His voice betrayed him, and he coughed to shake the emotion away. “But it won’t be so. It’ll never be. Perhaps it’s for the best that we avoid opening old wounds.” Turning away from the rising sun, Hurricane continued his walk towards the training field.

There was nothing Swift Spear could do or say to comfort her husband, so instead she simply walked by his side. She knew the sparring would be good for him, as it always was. It provided one of the only outlets for the Empatha Hurricane stored within his collected atmosphere, and with the lack of Crystal Pony activity as of late, he needed that release more than ever. Skysteel forging was good for clearing the mind, but actual combat, attuned to the very nature of the pegasus soul, was the best remedy for clearing the heart as well.

The sparring field was a wide stretch of flat cloudstone covered with a springy layer of cumulus that was similar in texture to the grass on the fields below. Situated directly behind the palace itself, the grounds were also home to the training regimen of the Praetorian Guard, as well as numerous festivities for any popular occasion. Now, however, it played host to only two pegasi in the chill of the early morning.

Swift separated briefly from Hurricane’s side to trot towards the weapon rack where her personal armament was carried. There were swords of all colors and sizes lined neatly along the rack, but there was only one weapon that truly interested her. It was a long spear, with a nimbostratus spearhead and a body of pure nimbus skysteel. True to her name, it was her weapon of choice, and the body was curved slightly to improve her grip on the weapon and allow it to cut through the air faster.

Hurricane had already taken his spot adjacent to the centerline and was feeling out the balance of his sword in controlled swings and lunges. Satisfied that he had a basic level of familiarity with his new weapon, he turned his eyes to where Swift was watching him. With a smile, the manila mare fluttered to her spot across from Hurricane and planted the base of her spear in the ground.

“Better watch out, Swift. The new sword feels even better than the old one,” Hurricane quipped, beginning their usual pre-sparring friendly bantering. The blade moved up and down in his jaws as he spoke the words, and he could feel the incredible weightlessness of the solid weapon.

Swift smiled but was otherwise unimpressed. “You said that when you got your first skysteel sword twelve years ago. It didn’t seem to make a difference then, and I don’t think it would make a difference now. You’re still behind, you know.”

Hurricane’s response was an inaudible grumble as he thought back to the scores they kept for their ‘friendly’ competitions. There was only one mare, one pegasus even, that could keep pace with him in combat, and she was standing directly across from him. The last few rounds they sparred she had come out on top, and Swift’s lead on the mental scoreboard was slowly growing on him.

“Not my fault. I’ve been having back problems the past few weeks. I’m not as young as I used to be, you know.”

“And you think that I’ll buy that excuse? You do realize that the average Emperor was forty-four when he ascended to power. You’re only forty!” The mare, who was thirty-nine herself, stuck out her tongue and teased her husband from across the centerline.

“I’m still replacing that damn mattress anyways,” Hurricane muttered before he suddenly blitzed across the centerline towards his wife.

Despite Hurricane’s sudden attack, Swift Spear was nonetheless ready for it. Spinning her spear across her body, she caught the flat of Hurricane’s sword and repelled his advance, spinning under his airborne form to strike at his exposed chest with the end of her spear. Hurricane twisted out of it, using his hoof to slam on the spear and push it back into Swift’s face. The skysteel pole nicked her ear but didn’t cause any harm to the lithe mare.

The two pegasi settled down on opposite sides of the centerline and stared each other down. They were only there a second before Swift lunged at Hurricane, spinning her spear loosely between her forelegs before finally clamping her jaws around the body of the weapon and jabbing it forward towards Hurricane’s midsection. There was no restraint behind the action, and the spear itself was not blunted in any way; if Hurricane failed to react, it would penetrate his unarmored body and most likely kill him. But that was how they usually practiced, with no holds barred, because they both knew the other was skilled enough to take it.

Hurricane spun to the side to avoid the attack and slammed his sword against the spear as it passed. The action shook Swift’s weapon loose from her mouth, and she had to abandon her spear entirely to avoid the next attack from Hurricane’s sword. Jumping and ducking under the swinging blade, she crouched low and propelled herself straight into the black pegasus’ chest, knocking him over and affording herself the opportunity to retrieve her spear from where it lay in the ground.

The mare slid across the turf, gripping her weapon between her forelegs just as Hurricane scrambled up from where he lay on the cushiony cloud. Seeing the stallion come sprinting towards her, Swift jumped onto her rear hooves and thrust her spear forward with all the force she could muster.

Hurricane saw the spear coming at him, but it was too late for him to roll to the side. Instead, he leapt over the speeding point and Swift Spear entirely, quickly pivoting on his hooves to try and tag her with his sword and claim victory. Swift was trying to reel her spear back in, swinging the weapon in a wide arc across her body as she tried to turn and face Hurricane. He knew that now was his best chance, so he dove forward with his sword held high above his head.

Seeing the incoming attack, Swift transitioned her motion into holding the spear horizontally across her body to block it. Throwing her weight into the counter, she propelled her spear upwards to meet Hurricane’s descending sword and hopefully force him to rebound, providing an opportunity for her to attack. All she needed was a solid hit…

There was a ringing smash as steel collided with steel, but it also brought forth an incredible snap and tingle as if a column of marble suddenly was broke in two. The two weapons had met with so much force that Swift’s spear shattered into splintered pieces of steel where Hurricane’s sword met it. Despite that, the sword was still travelling at a high rate of speed, and the stallion had to choke back on his weapon to turn it away from Swift’s neck. The blade missed her body by a hair’s width, and indeed did shave several short hairs from her shoulder as it passed. The skysteel hit the ground with a resounding crack, and the cloudstone underneath the cumulus turf fractured with the impact.

Abandoning his weapon where it lay embedded in the turf, Hurricane rushed over to his wife. “Swift! Swift, are you okay?!” He wrapped his anxious wings around the lithe mare and examined her side.

“Yeah! Yes, Hurricane, I’m fine.” Swift brushed off Hurricane’s hooves with shaking legs and looked at the shaved patch of her coat. “Cut it a little close there, huh?”

Hurricane gave the mare another strong hug and kissed her neck. “I’m sorry, Swift. I didn’t think that the sword would be able to punch through your spear like that. I’m sorry…”

Swift gave her worried husband a rough shove. “Hurricane, I said I’m fine! It’s my fault, really, I tried to block your strike when I should have dodged.” Laughing softly, she shook her head. “At least we know that your sword’s the strongest weapon I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen a lot of weapons in my life.”

Hurricane released a sigh of relief and went to retrieve his sword. Throwing it into the scabbard by his side, he helped Swift Spear back towards the palace grounds. “So… does this mean I won?”

Blue eyes rolled under a brown mane, and Swift flicked Hurricane’s head with her wing.

“Thought so,” was all he said, carrying his smug expression with him.

They were halfway back to the palace when a set of hooves clopped gently on the cloudstone path behind them. Hurricane originally intended to ignore the intrusion, but a familiar, diminutive voice gave him pause in his step.

“Um, sir, I have news from the weather teams.”

The voice belonged to a smallish pegasus stallion with a pale yellow coat and amber mane. He was adorned in Legionnaire armor of an old make, dating back some twenty years to the Red Cloud War. Despite his diminutive size, he was easily thirty-seven years of age, and Hurricane recognized the pegasus immediately.

“Pansy! How are you? The weather patrols been treating you okay?” Hurricane nodded with his head for the stallion to walk with them, to which the uncomfortable pegasus complied.

“Y-yes sir, of course, sir. It’s been pretty good on the southern watch over Amber Field, you know, but—”

“That’s good to hear. I’m glad I appointed you there. We haven’t had any serious problems with the weather for months. Do you like your posting, Pansy?”

Legionnaire Pan Sea nodded his head in affirmation, too tense and shy to correct the Commander Maximus for slurring his name together like he usually did.

“Good, good. Anything for a member of the Old Twenty-Third. Now, what were you saying? Something about the weather?”

Despite the relatively friendly tone Hurricane reserved for communicating with Pan Sea, who was the last surviving member of Hurricane’s own platoon when they were both young Legionnaires in the Red Cloud War, the diminutive pegasus was nevertheless intimidated by his superior. It wasn’t Hurricane personally that frightened Pan Sea, although his title and the authority he carried with him did amplify the effect, but the Legionnaire was genuinely uncomfortable around other equines. He had turned down several promotion opportunities solely to avoid having to accept the burden of commanding other troops, and as such he was the oldest private in the entire Cirran Legion. That he was one of the few soldiers in the Legion who had actually fought in the Red Cloud War (brief as his service may have been) lent him a level of respect amongst the newer recruits who would otherwise have made life miserable for the poor creature.

“Um, yes, sir, I just—”

“And you don’t have to call me ‘sir’, Pansy. You’ve known me long enough that Hurricane or even just Commander will do.” Hurricane had transitioned his attention towards making sure that Swift Spear got up the steps towards the palace alright, to which the mare slapped her feathers against his nose for worrying over her.

“Right, Commander. Anyways, the weather teams from River Rock report that a, um, disturbance has broken through their ranks.”

“Broken through their ranks? It’s weather, not a flight of griffons. It’s not like Grabacr himself is leading a charge against them.” Grabacr, the Cirran god of the weather, was usually portrayed as a tall, white pegasus with wispy limbs spiraling the clouds to his liking. Quick to anger and slow to forgive, the god was often associated with sudden and immediate disaster, and he was one of the few that the Cirrans still made direct offerings to. The reference to one of the more powerful Cirran gods did little to calm Pan Sea, however.

“Um, not really, sir, I mean, Hurricane, I mean, Commander, but they’re requesting reinforcements to try and contain the storm. They sounded like they wanted, er, the Praetorian”

Hurricane rolled his eyes as he crested the top of the staircase. “Reinforcements? I know lightning storms can be dangerous, but that’s why I assigned the best weather teams to that sector. They should be able to handle an outbreak of rogue winds like that. Just how big is this storm, anyways?”

A fierce wind tore at the cloud near Pan Sea’s hooves, and he nervously shuffled his limbs. “About… that big.”

Hurricane took a frustrated breath and turned to address the Legionnaire. “And what exactly do you mean by—?”

The shrill winds stole the astonished words from his breath.

“I appreciate your concern, representative, but the Legion is justified in its actions! Or would you rather that we take our soldiers off of your streets and let loose the hell we’ve contained within downtown?”

Legatus Twister’s golden eyes were fixed squarely on the face of Representative Smart Cookie of the Low Valleys. The orange earth pony sat flustered in his chair, loosely hanging onto his feathered hat with his forehooves on the table in front of him. His light brown mane was clearly exposed over a pair of angry green eyes, and the pleated collar of his brown governmental suit was ruffled slightly, no doubt in response to the tense events that were transpiring under the roof of the Amber Field courthouse.

“I would rather that the Legion cease this needless bullying of our townspeople! Every day, our citizens are harassed and searched by this rampant and power hungry police force in its search for ‘criminals’. You may feel justified that your soldiers are doing the right thing, but to Amber Field, we’ve simply traded disorganized gangsters for an organized company of villains!”

“For once, I would have to agree with Representative Smart Cookie, Legatus,” began the unicorn ambassador, Bright Sheen. “Legionnaire meddling has reached such a point in the Kingdom that last week there was a confrontation between the Diamond Guard and a platoon of pegasi directly outside of the castle!”

Twister shifted her hard gaze from Smart Cookie to Bright Sheen and frowned. “Right, and the inability of your nation to keep your own soldiers in line is what worries me the most. The centurion in charge during that incident responded to harassment from several of your privates who were using their magic to interfere with their patrols. The brawl that resulted would have been avoided if your officers disciplined the enlisted and made sure that they left the Legion alone to perform its duty!”

Bright Sheen set his white hoof on the round table and leered at Twister. “Twelve Diamond Guards were hurt in that brawl. Seven of them won’t be fit to return to service for three months, and another two are in critical condition! How do you explain that? Is it common practice for the Legion to beat hapless opponents into submission?!”

“No, it’s common practice for the Legion to kill hapless opponents and drive their nation into submission. Insubordination such as your soldiers exhibited in that event is usual grounds for hanging in the Legion. That the Legionnaires involved didn’t kill any Diamond Guards, pathetic as they may be, leaves me to commend their actions, not condemn them.”

Smart Cookie tapped his hoof against the table in an attempt to regain control of the situation. “Please, settle down! Legatus, despite how much you commend this sort of unruly behavior, it has got to stop! Has it ever occurred to you how much the pegasi have become universally disliked in the past ten years? The gangs that you are trying to ‘protect’ us from have been offering aid to any earth pony or unicorn suffering from ‘police brutality’. If you recall, they tried this kind of scam fifteen years ago when there was little for them to go on. Now, unlike then, they’re making thousands of bits off of it! The people are scared of the Legion, and they trust the criminals that you try so hard to put down over the organization that is supposed to make them feel safe! Can you explain that?!”

Twister tapped her hooves on the ceremonial headpiece she held before her as she thought. The design of her diplomatic garb was ironic, she thought, as she was the only member of Thunder Gale’s bloodline who had never wielded a sword in her life. Despite that, she wore an ornate cuirass of onyx and gold coated with wide plates of cumulus skysteel, complete with a short red robe that draped over her left shoulder. The look reminded her of what the Emperor used to wear back in Dioda. Perhaps that was the point.

Military philosophy was never her thing, but here the Legatus felt herself drawing on it for her argument. “Cirra has always fought by the doctrine of strike hard and strike fast, and this is why. When we came here twenty years ago, we were weak, and so we eased what military units we had to spare into policing these lands over the more traditional approach of spending a week or a month driving out all the criminal scum we could find and make the cities inhospitable to them. The Blizzard Revolution of 387 AE or the Nimban Riots of 268 AE are perfect examples of how we quashed insurrection and crime within our cities. That we didn’t have the ability, or rather weren’t allowed to besiege these centers of crime initially is the reason why the situation has decayed to what it is now.”

Bright Sheen’s hoof slammed the edge of the table as he stood up in anger. “You rattle off names and places we have never heard of in an attempt to soothe us, but really you only insult our governments and our people! You speak as if raiding a city with fire and steel to drive out crime is preferable to curbing and eradicating its growth over time simply because war is the only thing your accursed race knows! That does not excuse you from maintaining what your part of the Tri-Pony Compact demands that you do; establish order and promote peace! These past few days have proven exactly how much you fail to understand your task!”

Twister had never understood exactly why Empatha works or how a pegasus uses it despite how often her brother had tried to enlighten her on the subject, but she could imagine herself burning away Bright Sheen’s pompously stylized mane and tail with a well-directed application of pegasus magic. But she had a job to do, and she couldn’t let herself get worked up over the unicorn’s superiority complex.

“We have tried our best to maintain peace, but the spiraling of crime rates left us with no choice but to tighten down our patrol regimen and contain the gangs to the point where we could hopefully wipe them out with a single fell blow. Although, this practice is hard to pursue when we have to deal with problems such as a resistive populace and food shortages.” The last words were hissed through her teeth, and Twister’s golden irises threatened to rip Smart Cookie to shreds and use the remains of his coat as a rag to clean her feathers on.

“You speak as if those are both problems caused by the way that the Low Valleys are governed, as if it is my fault and the fault of the Chancellor. Look to yourself, Legatus. The populace responds to how they are treated, and the staggering growth rate of the pegasus population has strained whatever reserves of food that we have for the winter months! Just what do your mares do up there, anyways?!”

Smart Cookie’s appalled face was enough to bring a slight giggle to Twister’s lips. “Make up for the population we lost during the war twenty years ago, mostly. Our stallions are very compassionate.” Enjoying the disgusted looks from her two peers, Twister continued. “We once numbered fifteen million across the entirety of Dioda; maybe one day we’ll surpass that.”

It took a second for Smart Cookie to get his thoughts in check, and even then he still stammered out his response. “Y-you’ll never be able to do so if we run out of food! Half of all the food we produce goes to Cirra alone, half! Last year we cut it dangerously thin with the supplies we had left by the end of winter. I doubt we’ll be able to pull through again, unless Cirra cuts back on its consumption!”

“Pegasi have a faster metabolism than earth ponies or unicorns, so we need more food. Having an extra set of appendages requires an extra intake of calories.” Here, Twister opened her soft, brown wings and fluttered them gently for effect. “We already limit our consumption as best we can, which is as much as the earth ponies or unicorns eat in the summer months. Anything less and our feathers start to fall out.”

“Then maybe you can try growing your own food, damn it!” Bright Sheen shouted. “The Diamond Kingdom supplements its intake of food with plant roots that we grow along the banks of the river, so I see no reason as to why Cirra can’t adopt the practice as well!”

“We have tried, ambassador, but even then it is not enough. We have a few farmers who do the best they can on the silty fields under Cloudsdale, but most of our stallions prefer more honorable lines of work. Not only does the Legion need soldiers, but it needs smiths who can work the skysteel and engineers to expand the city. We simply don’t have the population to support farms on our own. If the Compact did not prohibit us from hunting, then we would not even be having this discussion!”

Smart Cookie and Bright Sheen were both appalled. “How could you even think of doing something like that?! Ponies shouldn’t be eating cows or pigs! It’s just…wrong!” The orange earth pony stuck his tongue out in disgust, while Bright Sheen looked like he was going to vomit.

“What? Surely you’ve heard tales of how Cirra used to get food back in Dioda. We aren’t as skilled of farmers as you earth ponies are, and meat was a readily available source, rich in protein and good for a developing Legionnaire’s muscles.” Seeing that her company was inches away from needing to put the meeting on recess and clearing their stomachs, Twister sighed and took a drink from the glass of water in front of her. “I don’t really see what the problem is. Cows aren’t even that smart.”

The representative of the Low Valleys placed a hoof to his forehead. “They’re still living creatures. But enough! Why are we bickering about this! We’re supposed to be discussing reforms on our policies so that we can find some way to get through the winter without ripping each other to shreds!”

Bright Sheen used his magic to levitate his drink to his lips. Setting it down, he gently touched the tips of his hooves together and leered over them at Twister. “I’m all for peace and compromise, but let me make this one thing clear. The Diamond Kingdom will not, and I repeat, will not tolerate any more of these kinds of confrontations between our two tribes. If another were to break out…”

“Then what, Ambassador, tell me! I would very much like to know what kind of threats I should be reporting back to the Commander when this meeting is over.” Twister saw the slightest shift of Bright Sheen’s eyes, but she knew that she had shown him Cirra’s cards. Regardless of what he thought of his own nation, the threat of pegasus military intervention was now plainly laid on the table.

The unicorn’s throat bobbed as he swallowed nervously. “If we were to have another kind of confrontation between the Legion and the Diamond Guard, then the Kingdom will have no choice but to cease the export of manufactured goods to Cirra. We would also tariff skysteel and rainbow imports at thirty-three percent. You would be economically sanctioned, and Cirra would collapse without us.”

Twister flicked her wings in annoyance and slouched back in her chair, forcing the congregation to wait on her response. She could tell Bright Sheen’s heart was pounding, even if he was doing a remarkably good job of keeping his features controlled. Smart Cookie, on the other hoof, was seconds away from having a panic attack. He felt like the peasant caught in the power struggle between two titans, which at this point wasn’t too far from the truth. He gnawed on the edge of his hat while he waited for the mare’s response, unsure of what she would say.

With a short laugh and a slight curving of her lips, Twister leaned forward and gave Bright Sheen a pleasant smile to accompany her ultimatum. “War is always good for the economy.” Then she returned to her seat and decided to trace the intricate carvings in the ceiling with her eyes while she waited for the unicorn ambassador’s rebuttal.

“Please, everypony just stop!” Smart Cookie burst out, slamming his hoof against the table. The action caused Bright Sheen to nearly jump out of his seat while Twister raised an interested eyebrow in the earth pony’s direction. Collecting his breath, he began to speak slowly and softly. “We have to stop this right now. This was supposed to be a meeting for peace, to rebuild unity amongst our tribes! Instead, we’re threatening each other and moving ever closer to the cliff! Once we’re over the edge, there’s no turning back!”

Twister sighed and set her hooves down on the table in a business-like manner. “Under normal circumstances, I would be compelled to argue that the Representative’s metaphor is irrelevant to any creature with wings, but I agree. Despite how callous or warlike I may seem to you, friends, the last thing I want is for our tribes to get tangled in a bloody conflict, especially in the cold of winter when supplies are already low enough as it is. I am completely interested in developing some sort of compromise that will see us all through these next few months, but I must put the best interests of the pegasi first and foremost. We will scale back our involvement in Amber Field and River Rock if and only if our shipments of food and material continue to arrive in a timely and complete manner. If anything is deemed amiss with a shipment, say, two bushels of wheat are inexplicably missing or half of the lumber we ordered is rotten, we will not hesitate to intervene and complete the shipments ourselves. The pegasi are willing to play along, but like it or not, we are going to get what we need one way or another.”

Bright Sheen and Smart Cookie both nodded, and Twister released a stressed breath of her own. “Good. Now that that’s over with, what else is there for us to discuss?”

Smart Cookie pulled out a scroll from one of his pockets and opened it on the table. “Right. We do need to talk about restructuring the Cirran patrols in Amber Field—”

“And River Rock,” Bright Sheen added.

“Yes, and River Rock as well.” Smart Cookie continued. “We also need to discuss how we’re going to ration out the remaining food between our equines, as well as discussing the economics aspect of the winter shipments…”

A massive gust of wind shook the courthouse to its very foundations. The windows howled with the force of the frigid air trying to break in, and the noise drew the heads of the three diplomats away from the table.

“Blasted noise! What sort of storm is that?” Bright Sheen wondered aloud, turning in his chair to look out the window. Twister, being seated closest to the glass, had to turn completely around to catch a glimpse of the storm outside. When she did, her jaw dropped in alarm.

“By the Gods… It’s as if Grabacr himself came down to curse us.”

The skies were turned a horrible shade of gray, and clouds the size of mountains hurled their snow at the lands below. The winds tore their way through the countryside, ripping the roofs off of several poorly constructed buildings directly across from the courthouse. Hail clattered noisily against the windows, threatening to break the frigid glass under its ferocious assault. In only a few short minutes, nearly a foot of snow had accumulated outside of the courthouse window. Twister felt her feathers shake, and she flattened her wings against her sides for warmth. There was no better thermometer than a pegasus’ wings, and Twister’s told her that the air had dropped nearly twenty degrees in a matter of seconds.

“Sun and Stars…” Bright Sheen muttered under his breath. “I’ve never seen a storm like that.” As if to accentuate his point, a demonic shrieking seemed to fill the valley, stretching far across the now frozen plains that surrounded Amber Field in every direction.

“Then may Mobius cast his mercy over our skies,” Twister prayed.

In the premature night, the only thing that answered her was an onslaught of snow and the howls of ethereal creatures high above the surface of the world.

Chapter 5: Winds of the West

The train to Baltimare was noticeably absent from the Saraneighvo Central Station that morning. With the massive storm brewing on the southern horizon, where the clouds were just beginning to surmount the mountains, Twilight and Rainbow Dash wanted nothing more than to take the knowledge they had and retreat back to the warmth of the Equestrian mainland. Now, it seemed that the cursed snows were determined to trap them in Saraneighvo forever.

Despite the frightening amount of trains that missed their scheduled times as the day wore on, nopony in the station seemed particularly upset or surprised. Sure, there was much grumbling among the commuters, but none seemed to question where the trains were. It was not until Twilight decided to assault an off-duty conductor with questions did she finally get an answer.

“Один поезд в неделю.”

“Pardon me?” was Twilight’s response. She tried to string a Stalliongradi sentence together, though without her books, such was impossible. “Uh… Я не... говорить... Stallion-градский хорошо.”

The conductor, a large pony the color of coal dust with an ashy mane, rolled his eyes. “Is January, Equestrian. Train no run on time but once week. Weekly storms blocks rails. Must clear before engines run.” Swishing his tail, he quickly trotted away from them to find someplace quiet and have a drink.

Exasperated, Twilight growled and stalked back towards Rainbow. The pegasus was occupying an entire station bench by herself, with her powdery blue wings spread the length of the back. She had already fallen asleep in the predawn hours, and her nose twitched as flakes of snow landed on its surface and promptly melted.

Twilight sighed and sat down next to Rainbow, muttering obscenities and curses under her breath that she would never otherwise say within eight hundred miles of Celestia. Luckily, Saraneighvo was exactly 829.6325 miles from Canterlot, and assuming the Princess hadn’t traveled any good distance to the east lately, Twilight was safe.

She was content to sit there for the next five minutes, until Rainbow’s snoring started to rattle her teeth within her skull. Leaning over, Twilight gently prodded her friend’s side until the pegasus began to stir. It took an incredible amount of effort to get Rainbow to become aware of her surroundings, and even then, sleep still preyed on the pegasus’ tired mind.

“Nnngh… what is it, Twilight? Is the train here?” Blue hooves rubbed at magenta irises as Rainbow fought to scrape away her sleep, and she folded her wings against her sides as she began to shiver.

“Unfortunately not, Rainbow. The storm blocked off the line from Stalliongrad. The conductor said it would be another week before we can get to Baltimare.”

Rainbow Dash groaned and sunk her head over the back of the bench in despair. “I thought we were going to get out of this frozen Tartarus-hole and finally get to someplace mildly warm.” Slapping a hoof against her face, Dash pulled on her cheeks and looked towards the gray sky visible through the cracks in the roof. “I was supposed to help Applejack move some old equipment out of her barn or somecrap like that this week. Now I’m going to leave her hanging.”

Although appalled that she would be letting her friends down, Rainbow at least knew that it wasn’t her fault and there was nothing she could do about it. Her mood brightened, and as she came more and more to her senses, she began to pace around the train station. When her wings twitched for use and she couldn’t take it anymore, the pegasus began to fly intricate and tight loops in the ample space the high ceiling of the station provided her. Many ponies who had no better place to be stopped to watch the amateur stunt-flier as she flew laps around the station. Although Stalliongrad’s Tsar was an alicorn and one of his sons was a pegasus, winged ponies were still a rare enough sight in the Domain of Stalliongrad that Rainbow’s performance inspired wonder and awe in her observers.

When she felt that she had finally gotten the exercise her wings had sorely missed the past few days, Rainbow fluttered down onto the tile floor next to Twilight and bowed to her impromptu audience. Then, turning and flicking her ears in one last gesture of appreciation, she led her companion out of the train station and back to the center of Saraneighvo.

The two Equestrians returned to the ramshackle inn that they had stayed the night before and rented their room again. The innkeeper was surprised to see them return so soon, but when Twilight explained that the trains had not come and they were running low on bits, the pony was kind enough to rent them their quarters at a discounted price. Happy that she didn’t have to pawn off one of her books for money, Twilight would have spent the rest of the morning thanking the innkeeper had Rainbow Dash not gently led her away and into their room.

The room was exactly how they had left it when they departed two hours prior. Rainbow’s bed was still unmade and her side of the room was surprisingly cluttered with what little there was to clutter it with, while Twilight’s side was in neat and perfect order, her bed perfectly made and folded at right angles. Even the pillow had been fluffed for optimal head-cushioning without sacrificing its shape.

All that work was undone as Twilight collapsed onto her bed and began to moan. She hated the cold, hated the dirty city of Saraneighvo, hated the Celestia-damned trains for not running on time. Why did she pick January, of all possible months, to go on this expedition?!

Oh, wait. Because she had found out the crypt’s location only four days ago and couldn’t control her enthusiasm. Still, she could have waited for the warmer months of June or July, even though ‘warmer’ was a subjective term. Despite the continuous winter that Stalliongrad and the surrounding wastes suffered through the whole year, the temperature noticeably inclined during the summer months. Sometimes it would inch above freezing, and the snow would melt for a week or two. Just the year prior, the sky cleared for an entire day and the temperature spiked into the low-sixties, offering the Stalliongradis their first experience with warm weather. The blame, of course, fell on weather pollution from the foundries in Cloudsdale.

Rainbow Dash was far less concerned about the cold outside, taking no notice of it other than to wedge a sheet of newsprint in a gap under the window to stop a draft. For her, the extended stay in Saraneighvo meant more boredom and less time to fly. It was not like she could just go down the streets and tour the city. First off, hardly any of the locals knew Equiish, and second, there was nothing to see in the snowy town. Unless she decided to watch the glaciated coast and look for whales breaking through the frigid water, there was nothing for her to do. Well, almost nothing.

“Hey, Twilight. Can we look at Hurricane’s journal thing some more?”

Twilight promptly sat up on her bed, happy to have something to do. “Sure, Rainbow. Let me just get it out.” Her horn lit in a fuchsia aura as she levitated her bag over to a table and began to peruse through the contents. After carefully depositing several books in neat order on the table, she finally located the mighty pegasus’ work and brought it over to herself. Her mattress shook on the bedsprings as Rainbow unceremoniously plopped down next to her.

“Now, where were we…” Twilight began as she started to page through the journal. Her bookmark had fallen out in the bag, and she had to sort past the twenty years prior to the Hearth’s Warming event, and then another sixty or so pages deeper just to get back to where she was at.

“We were just past the big meeting thing,” Rainbow offered. “You know, the one that we did in the play. Hurricane’s account is a lot more dark and tense than the one I acted out with Pinkie and Rarity.”

“That would be because actual politics were at play,” Twilight countered. “You don’t get anything done in negotiations when you try to bludgeon your way through them. Trust me, I sat in on a few of Celestia’s important meetings when I was a little filly, and even though I was bored to tears I still learned a thing or two. Besides, the ‘official’ story that we use was written by Clover the Clever some years after the event itself, and she was an infamous sentimentalist. She loved writing foals’ tales in her spare time, and I think her bloodless and over the top interpretation of this event was written to teach the lessons of friendship to her readers.”

Rainbow’s eyebrows scrunched as she thought. “So, what you’re saying is that every pony, young and old, for hundreds and thousands of years, has been listening to a fairy tale and taking it as fact?”

“Essentially,” Twilight nodded. “Although the story itself is based on actual facts that Clover lived through, the actions of the characters in it are, well, about as real as the griffon Santa Claws.”

Rainbow snorted and released a few short chuckles as she leaned back on the bed. “Gilda told me about that back when we were kids. It’s so ironic that the griffons would have a figure like that.” She coughed once or twice, a raspy, hacking noise as the unbearably dry air cut at her throat. She had to stop sleeping with her mouth open; she lost too much moisture that way.

Clearing her throat again and getting some water from the bar, Rainbow Dash was finally able to kick back with her forelegs crossed behind her neck as Twilight found where they left off. The unicorn ended her spell and released her hold on the book, carefully brushing away a stray piece of dust or ash before laying it out in front of her and beginning to read.

“Alright. Well, I imagine this here would be when the leaders decide to go and find a new land to settle. This account’s surprisingly thick; Hurricane must have gotten input from the other leaders themselves. So, here we are; the Twenty-Fifth of Bare Trees, Four Hundred and Twenty-One After Empire.”

Even high above the earth, the winds tore through the city of Cloudsdale with a fury not seen for thousands of years. The very foundations of the city shook, and quite violently so. Several small and flimsy houses outside of the city’s strong walls caved to the gale, separating into massive blocks of cloudstone that shattered against the ground with a dull thud and a splash of water.

Weather teams had been dispatched to gather as much stratus and cumulus as possible to fortify the city’s foundations, but the storm fought back, killing five and wounding several dozen more. Grabacr would not be defeated so easily, and any of the offending heretics who ventured within range of his wrath would be swatted down like flies and crushed against the stony walls of the mountains. To compound to the difficulties was the dire shortage of food, and even the strongest of stallions in the mighty Legion were beginning to suffer from malnutrition.

In the midst of the gale, Hurricane knelt before a single statue in the very center of Town Square. Cast out of pure stratus skysteel, the figure’s coat was as silvery as it had been in life. The larger-than-life depiction stood five-foot tall on a pedestal of another two feet, and its gaze was fixed far to the east, in the direction of skies long lost, but not yet forgotten. One wing was flared and armed with lethal iron scales; the other hung by its side, broken and twisted. Despite the pain on the soldier’s helmetless face, his body supported the Imperator’s armor as if he was born in it. Finally, clamped tightly between his teeth, a sword of pure silver glinted in the dim light from the east.

Hurricane had sat in front of that statue for several hours, cold and alone, but he didn’t care. His cheeks were wet but his eyes were shrouded under his helmet, so anypony that passed by could not tell if he was crying or if it was snow that had melted on his face. His sword had been laid bare in front of the statue’s hooves, and the Commander had traced sad scratches into the ice around its base. What messages they contained would soon be lost forever as the snow continued to fall and cover them.

Sniffling at either the cold or his tears, or perhaps both, Hurricane turned his weary face towards the head of the soldier standing above him. With a sigh, he bit his lip and shook his head. He didn’t know what to do, and there was nopony to guide him. Perhaps that was why he sought consolation in the statue’s presence; that pony was the only one in life who seemed to have the answers to Hurricane’s questions, and the black stallion sought those answers now.

“I just…” he stopped, choking on a weak sob. “I’m lost, Silver. I thought I’d be able to build a home for Cirra here, and to capitalize on what you gave for us. But what have I done? Twenty years of surviving with the other races in spite of each other, rather than with each other.” His body shuddered, and he lowered his head towards the ground. “Cirra is falling apart again, Silver, and now Grabacr’s leading the charge. How am I supposed to stand up to a God?”

Whatever words the silent statue of Imperator Silver Sword had to offer to his closest companion, they were only audible to Hurricane himself. Even then, the mighty Commander only placed a hoof to his forehead and mumbled in despair.

“I thought I would never have to go through that again. Magnus and Gryphus chased us from our home and sent us fleeing across the sea like so many frightened foals, and I hoped that we could use this time to rebuild and regroup and maybe, just maybe, take our home back one day. I’ll be damned if I have to run again.”

Silver Sword only imparted calm indifference to Hurricane, and the Commander shuffled his hooves in response.

“Right. You’re right. Maybe there is nothing else to do. The storm isn’t going to break, as far as I can tell. The prophets foretold that his descent would be terrible and all-consuming, and that his wrath would spell the end for all of ponykind. I see no reason to argue with them now.”

Following the statue’s gaze to the east, Hurricane shivered and flicked the ice crystals off of his feathers. “Were it so that we could return to our home. The pegasi were not born here; these skies are not the skies our fathers, and their fathers, flew under hundreds of years ago. Stratopolis does not grace the heavens with its presence here; Nimbus does not guard the east, standing as a bastion for the mightiest of races and the judgment its military wields.” He shuddered, and bit his lip as memories of burning houses and scorched fields came back to him. “These lands are not our home, and Zephyrus only lies in burnt wastes far from here. Were it so that we could honor those who died, and lay their corpses to rest for Garuda to guide to the afterlife.” Holding his sword between his hooves, Hurricane shook his head. “But it will never be so, and maybe this is the end of Cirra. An empire that once ruled the world, dispensing fortune and death in equal measure. An empire that challenged the very majesty of the skies until we bent them to our will.

“An empire that fought through so much, but in the end, fell not with the herald of trumpets and the cry of conquest, but with a whimper, as she slowly starved to death.”

Silver Sword’s statue creaked, perhaps with disappointment. Whatever it was, it seemed to snap Hurricane out of his melancholy. Gnashing his teeth together, the black pegasus straightened up and returned his sword to its scabbard. His magenta irises burned with a passionate focus, and he knew what he had to do.

“No. I won’t let Cirra fall. Not again. Not after everything that we went through together just so that it would have a future.” Eyes fixated on the west, Hurricane saluted Silver Sword and began to walk towards the palace. If Cirra could not have a future in the east and could not have a future with the other tribes, then the proud nation of pegasi would travel ever-westward until they found a home to support and sustain them. A home where they could have peace and prosperity, thus far denied to them for over two decades.

And it was a wonderful thought that accompanied him as he rose to the height of Cirran government, prepared to venture out and give his life if he must to make it possible.

The carriage bringing Princess Platinum and her train back to River Rock nearly fell off the cliffs of the valley twice in its journey, the roads were so poor and the snow so thick. They even missed the descending road into the valley, and had to backtrack fifteen miles to find it and enter the city proper.

River Rock was suffocating in snowfall, and the river that gave the city life was completely frozen over. The Diamond Guard had done their best to clear the streets, but even then, some parts of the city were inaccessible with the high snowfall. Buildings of stone listed heavily under the weight of the snow they carried on their roofs, and the blustery city walls had been all but abandoned as the soldiers sought warmth and comfort. Despite the reputation the Guard prided itself on, as it had need to do when trying to compare to the impressive Cirran Legion, its soldiers were more or less nobles who were willing to get their hooves dirty for their Kingdom, so long as they didn’t get too mud stained.

It took twenty frustrating minutes to get from the northern gate of River Rock to the entrance of Castle Burning Hearth, as the cobblestone streets were blanketed in a sheet of solid ice. With the castle situated on an incline from the gates, walking up the ice was nearly impossible. Going down was much easier, as several foals discovered. The young unicorns slid along on their stomachs from the top of the street to the bottom, forgetting about the cold and the gnawing hunger in their chests for a short while.

In stark contrast to the frozen waste of a city outside, the interior of Burning Hearth lived up to its namesake in all its lavishness. Warm sheets of orange and red crackled in every fireplace, and soft music tinkled from the great dining hall, buried deeper in the royal castle around walls of the strongest stones and hallways filled with the most impressive works of art. The smell of greens and freshly-baked bread wafted from the kitchen towards the Princess’ nose, which she greedily inhaled. But before she could dine on her well-deserved meal, she had to get cleaned up first. There was no way she would ever appear at a meal in anything less than absolute perfection of body and mind.

“Clover!” she called into the halls as she diverted off towards her personal quarters. When nopony materialized in the five seconds her patience lasted for, she stomped her hoof on the ground and called again. “Clover! Where are you, dear, I need some hot water for my hooves.”

“Coming, Princess!” was the reply as it echoed down the stone hall, accompanied by galloping hoofsteps that clacked on the solid floor. The unicorn was a pistachio-green mare who wore her curled, dark green mane conservatively around her forehead and horn. Purple eyes averted themselves from the Princess’ form as she lowered the bucket of hot water she carried with her at her master’s hooves. Grabbing a shawl from a nearby hook on the wall, Clover carefully wrapped Platinum to help her maintain her preferred temperature.

“Ah, Clover, there you are,” the Princess purred as she set her forehooves down in the water. “I’ve been dreaming of this ever since I left that wretched courthouse in Amber Field. I’ve oft done the impossible in my many years as representative of the Diamond Kingdom, but that was by far the most difficult challenge I’ve ever come across.”

Clover rolled her eyes at Platinum’s extreme exaggeration of her political usefulness, but she made sure that the action was hidden from the Princess’ sight. Adjusting her rags around her form, a simple four-leaf clover barely revealed itself against her flanks as she grabbed a comb from Platinum’s bed to help stylize her princess’ luxurious purple mane. “Did the other pony tribes see reason as I predicted, your Highness?”

“Absolutely not!” the white unicorn exclaimed with a twinge of horror. “Those other tribes are impossible! I, for one, can no longer bear to be anywhere near those lowly creatures. The unicorns are noble, and majestic! We will no longer consort with the likes of them.” The last word was delivered with an angry stop of hooves, and Clover had to shield herself from the splash of water it produced.

“Really? But the meeting should have worked! If all of you had taken the time to gather together and discuss your problems—”

“Believe me, Clover, I tried many times to humbly advance the interests of the Diamond Kingdom, but each and every time I was interrupted by that foolish earth pony Chancellor, or that horrible Commander Hurricane! They refused to work together, and before I knew it, I was forced to defend not only my honor, but the honor of the entire Kingdom from their heretical slander!” Disgusted, Platinum stomped her hooves and only succeeded in splashing out more water. “How dare they challenge that we don’t raise the sun! Why, we don’t even need the pegasi, not really. The only thing they do is put their bit to the sword and mindlessly hack away at anything that crosses them. The Diamond Guard is more than capable of taking over their job, and they’d be much better at it, too. At least they understand decency and etiquette.”

Clover flicked her ears, but other than that little action she gave no response to Platinum’s hyperbole. Fifteen years of servitude had instilled in the mare of twenty-five the ability to suppress reactions her masters, especially the Princess, would find insulting. Instead, she set about rectifying Platinum’s mane with her favorite comb, and began to make subtle suggestions to guide her train of thought. “I’m sure your father would like to hear all about it. He always enjoys hearing stories about your diplomatic exploits.”

Platinum’s eyes brightened as she stepped out of the water and waited for Clover to dry her hooves. “Oh, yes, you’re right, darling, right as ever. No wonder Star Swirl calls you ‘Clover the Clever’. You know how to say exactly what needs to be said; nothing more, nothing less.”

Clover’s mouth twitched as she set the towel aside. When royalty came as simple as Platinum, it wasn’t hard for any half-intelligent pony to find what she wanted to hear.

The pair of mares walked towards the dining hall, two offset clopping rhythms as Platinum led and Clover followed. It was but a short walk to where the food lay prepared and waiting, but Platinum took the time to admire the myriad portraits and antiquities filling the castle as she passed. What splendor the Unicorn Kings of old had amassed! Adding to that wealth and helping it grow was a rite that every ruler of the Diamond Kingdom was expected to faithfully execute throughout their reign. One day, when Platinum became the first Queen to single-hoofedly rule the entire Kingdom in well over a hundred years, she would do more for that horde than any other ruler before her, and she would make her name legendary. Was it too much to ask for a little recognition?

The table in the Great Hall was absolutely filled with food. Rich loaves of bread, leafy layers of lettuce, and crunchy stalks of celery all tempted Platinum with their sweet aromas. The entire staff of the royal family was eating well, seemingly oblivious to the famine outside. Platinum was no different as she quickly trotted over to take her seat by her father’s side. Her plate was filled with lettuce and rhubarb, cobbled with a side of potato—her favorite! How she was ever going to eat all this food, she had no idea.

“Ahem…”

The cough stopped Platinum from digging into her dish, and she smiled and turned to face her father. King Lapis IV was an impressive unicorn with a flawless sapphire coat and thick fur around his fetlocks that gave way to reveal over two inches of solid hoof on each leg. His mane was a pure, dark blue in his youth, but as age took its toll it had slowly turned to white. Even his eyes were a light shade of steel blue, and they were filled with an alert and observant energy as he looked at his daughter. But there was pain in them, and a glance towards his forehead revealed why.

His horn, once a sleek and powerful thing that all in the Kingdom wished to behold, had become gnarled and blackened. Open blisters and scabs slowly oozed blood, despite the unwavering attention of his servants to keep them clean. Whatever feats of Arcana that horn had been capable of performing long ago were now lost to Lapis forever. “The Scourge of the Kings” the doctors called the sickening disease that deformed a once powerful ruler and afflicted him with such pain. Despite their best efforts, there was nothing they could do to cure it; in fact, they had never been able to cure it in all the disease’s storied history. The Scourge had stricken many of the most powerful of unicorns throughout the centuries, but cases amongst the poor were almost never heard of. It fed on Arcana, thrived on pure power, and left behind only a horn that rotted on its owner’s head when it was finished. Many believed the Scourge to be a curse placed upon the royal family, likely the doing of King Electrum when he looked into the future and saw things that should never had been known to him or the Kingdom until their appropriate time.

“Father!” Platinum began excitedly as she leaned over and embraced the King’s neck. “You look better than ever! The Scourge appears to be receding, by the looks of it.” It was a lie, so painful and blatant that Lapis saw through it. He raised a hoof to his rotting horn, and it came away with small spots of red and black blood on its shiny surface.

“I appreciate your efforts to comfort me, my daughter, but I am well equipped to deal with whatever the harshness of reality throws at my head.” He grunted as his aged spine cracked and popped with his stretching, and he clenched his teeth around a stalk of celery to give his muscles something to release their pain on. “I have lived on this planet for no less than sixty-nine years, and I have ruled for forty-seven of them. Bad news has been a part of my life for as far back as I can recall. I am no stranger to misfortune, so if there is more to be had, please speak it.”

Platinum cringed under her father’s glare, and she quickly occupied her mouth with salad as she prepared to break the news. When she swallowed and realized that Lapis’ stare had not faltered, she coughed nervously into her hooves and tugged on the curls in her tail. “The meeting was… less than productive, father.”

The King’s face failed to twitch in surprise, and whether the action was comforting to Platinum or not, the mare could only guess for herself. Exhaling, Lapis leaned back in his regal chair and tapped one hoof against the wooden table. The corners of his mouth were overcome with a twinge on occasion, but he remained silent.

The lack of a reaction frightened Platinum the most, and she was grateful when Lapis finally began to speak. “I see. That is rather unfortunate. But the shipments of food, they continue as planned?”

“Yes, father, I made sure that the deliveries were confirmed for the next month.”

“And the Cirrans, they devised a stratagem to clear the skies of this infernal blizzard?”

“It was difficult to get them to cooperate, but yes, they—”

“SILENCE!” the King roared, sharply cutting his daughter off. He lowered his aged face towards Platinum, his nostrils flared wide in anger. “I am not yet old enough to be lied to, Platinum. You made no such plans; you betray yourself with your own words. I know Hurricane; if the Cirrans could not clear the skies in the first days of the blizzard, then it is undoubtedly beyond their control. Brute force is their stratagem, and when it failed them, there was nothing, and absolutely nothing, that they could possibly do to fix it.”

Grabbing his plate with his hooves, he held it aloft for Platinum to see. “And you assure me that the shipments of food will come on time, just like you assured me that River Rock has enough food to last the winter. But not half an hour before, I find out from Archmage Star Swirl that the city is starving, and those who were barely scraping by in the weeks before the blizzard have nothing to go on now. The Guard also reports the first hunger-related deaths in the surrounding countryside from the tenants who work the fields. And yet here we are, feasting on food that we could not possibly hope to finish by ourselves!”

Lapis’ anger was not something to be trifled with, and Platinum felt herself cowering into her chair as he leered at her. Setting his forelegs on the table and placing his head between his hooves, the King sighed and chewed on his lip. “Will there be another meeting between the nations, one that perhaps I could attend instead of an incompetent diplomat?”

“We parted on not particularly hospitable terms, father. The other races will not work with us anymore, and neither shall we.”

“Humph. You disappoint me, Platinum. I knew I should have sent Star Swirl in your place.” Platinum could barely make out the drab coat of the archmage on the other side of the King’s regal body, but she could tell he was trying to appear disinterested in the conversation. Lapis leaned forward and cut off her sight, forcing her eyes to travel to his face. “Since you have already masterminded the plans for the Diamond Kingdom’s destruction, perhaps you could engineer its salvation?”

Platinum sucked air through her teeth and tapped on the table nervously. The farms were destroyed for the time being, the food would run out within a month, and she couldn’t trust the other two tribes to help out. Naturally, that left only one possible, logical conclusion.

“We could move somewhere else.” The words were spoken, and as much as Platinum wished she had sent that idea to the pits of Tartarus when everypony’s eyes fixated on her, she had to stand by it now and defend it. “I mean, the blizzard can only reach so far. The lands here are essentially dead for however long it lasts, and we don’t know if it’s going to end. We could move somewhere else without the earth ponies and the pegasi and claim rich and fertile lands to thrive upon!”

Rather than brush off her suggestion as foalish, Lapis actually rested a hoof under his chin and considered it. “That is a very… interesting proposal, Platinum.” Reclining in his seat, Lapis began to nod slowly, then with more vigor. “Very interesting. Actually, I think that could work.”

Platinum smiled and began to dig into her food. Now that that was over with, it was time to finally enjoy her meal—

“And I think you should lead the expedition.”

Partially-chewed lettuce and other foodstuffs flew from Platinum’s mouth faster than any diving pegasus could hope to travel. After sailing the short distance across the table corner to where Clover was sitting beside her, the salad struck the unfortunate mare’s face with such velocity that it caused her to topple out of her seat. Sputtering and wiping the saliva from her chin, Platinum turned her shocked expression towards her father.

“Wha-wha-WHAT?!! Father! Surely, you jest!”

“I never jest, Platinum.” Turning to his side, he whispered a few sentences to Star Swirl, to which the archmage nodded. Returning to Platinum, he wrapped a goblet in his hoof and held it before himself. “Your failure to save the Kingdom diplomatically forces me to have you save it through other means. Since finding new lands was your suggestion, it would only be right for you to fulfill it.”

Platinum grabbed her mane with her hooves and pulled. “But why, father?! Why would you do this to me?!”

Lapis only chuckled and sipped the wine in the goblet. “Because you are no use to the Kingdom in any other way. No matter what tasks I have assigned you to do in the past few years, you have failed every one, and blamed it on others. Perhaps you will learn something to prepare you for sovereignty.”

“But father…”

“If you do not do this, then you will be disowned. Your position and inheritance will be forfeit, and I will find an heir better suited to take the throne when I die.” Holding the empty goblet out in front of him, he flipped it on its head and set it on the table. “And that is final. Clover will accompany you. Now, make ready for your journey.”

The King and his pages all rose from the table and left to retreat deeper within the castle, leaving Platinum, Clover, and Star Swirl behind. The Princess took several more bites of her meal before stomping off to her private quarters. “The nerve… honestly…” she mumbled to herself as she left.

Clover was about to follow her princess, but a rough cough from the end of the table stopped her progress. Turning to see where Star Swirl was gently setting a goblet down on the edge of the table, she trotted over to him at his summons.

“Yes, Star Swirl? What is it?”

Star Swirl smiled and beckoned for her to walk to the windows with him. The archmage was already in his late seventies, and every step was a slow and painful process for the elder unicorn. But despite that, Clover admired his age instead of being appalled by it. How many miles had those withered limbs trotted? What sort of wonders had his eyes seen in his life? To live to such an age, and in such health, too, was something that the mare dreamt of.

The windows overlooked the entire city, and Clover gasped as she looked down on it. Hundreds of snow-covered rooftops were arranged in neat lines within the borders of the city walls, each with its own little plume of smoke rising out of the valley and into the sky. The clouds had barely parted down the middle to reveal the slightest trace of the stars beyond, letting their faint light illuminate the land below. It was an impressive sight, and Clover knew she would remember it for the rest of her life.

Star Swirl pulled his pipe out of his cloak and began to draw on it. As he released fine rings of smoke into the air, he smiled and sadly shook his head. “I suppose that this is our last lesson, Clover the Clever.”

Clover’s ears perked, and she turned a questioning glance to her mentor. “What do you mean, Star Swirl? I’ll only be gone a month.”

The archmage laughed, a wheezing sound as feeble lungs drew weak breaths around the smoke he inhaled. “That may be, Clover, but what happens when you come back? Even if the Diamond Kingdoms find lands elsewhere, you still have to move there. And that means walking hundreds, if not thousands of miles to do so. Frankly, I’m too old to make such a journey.”

“But… but master…” Clover blinked several times to clear the tears building in her eyes. Star Swirl was like her father, raising her from a young age when her mother died and her biological father disappeared into the night. She loved the old stallion deeply and with all her heart, and to hear him say things like that was wrenching the young mare’s soul. Wiping away the tears in her glistening eyes, she turned to face him, pleading. “There’s still so much left to learn…”

Star Swirl smiled softly and wrapped a foreleg around Clover’s neck, pulling the sniffling mare closer to his side. “I know, Clover, I know. But even now, in the prime of your youth, you know much more about magic than I did at your age. There’s much more out there that I can’t possibly teach you, and it’s up to you to find it for yourself. Let the sun and stars guide you, Clover the Clever, and be ever vigilant in your travels.” Stepping back, he planted both of his forehooves on her shoulders and looked into her eyes. “Bring back something to teach me, hm?”

Clover inhaled sharply to calm herself and nodded. The archmage then embraced her again, moving his mouth close to her ear. “No matter what Platinum thinks of you; no matter what you think of your life to this point, know you are more than just a poor servant to royalty. I can sense it in you; the spark of knowledge, the everlasting passion to learn. You are not called Clover the Clever without reason. You’re the smartest, brightest mare that I’ve ever had the honor to teach. And I know that in your heart, you know what’s best. Follow your intuition, and do not disregard the power of friendship. The world may be founded on hate, but it is guided and shaped by love. Where there is love, there is prosperity. Let it be your duty to bring the fire of friendship with you wherever you go.”

“Clover!” Platinum shouted from down the hall. The two unicorns were forced to end their embrace, and Star Swirl nodded for his apprentice to go. The green mare began to trot away, before stopping and turning to her mentor one last time.

“Thank you, Star Swirl. For everything.” Then she disappeared around the corner, her tail swishing one last time before it disappeared from sight.

Star Swirl sighed and wiped a tear from under his baggy eye. Then he drew on his pipe once more, gently blowing out the smoke as he watched the silent city below.

Smart Cookie paced the floor for what must have been the tenth time that week. He was currently walking from wall to wall in Chancellor Puddinghead’s office, stopping every so often to look out the window or at some little trophy that the frivolous stallion kept to decorate his space. As far as the Representative could tell, there was no paperwork on Puddinghead’s desk, nor had their ever been, and that was the way he preferred it. The less direct input that the Chancellor had in the affairs of the Low Valleys, the better.

But that still didn’t mean that the Chancellor was not a necessary part of Smart Cookie’s life, for better or for worse. The stallion was fairly decent at inspiring morale for the usually down-trodden earth ponies, so long as nothing political was involved. The times when he did insist on involving himself in politics, things had a tendency to fall apart, fast. The Puddinghead-Platinum Accords, which the Chancellor had signed three years ago despite the protests of the Board of Representatives, had ceded ten percent of the Low Valley’s lands to the Diamond Kingdom in return for what amounted to little more than regular imports of trinkets and baubles that Puddinghead found to his liking. At least Smart Cookie, as Chairpony of the Board of Representatives, had been able to limit the damage after the fact.

Smart Cookie sighed again and adjusted the feather in his hat. Puddinghead was definitely not like his father, the beloved Chancellor Muffintop who died several years back from pneumonia. Muffintop had actually earned his position, and was a magnificent politician to boot. His participation in the Tri-Pony Compact had played off of Cirra to strengthen the Low Valleys against the economic domination of the Diamond Kingdom and had staved off the eventual annexation that the Kingdom was bound to attempt at some point. It was exceedingly unfortunate, however, that Muffintop let nepotism cloud his judgment, and his dying wish was for Puddinghead to take over as Chancellor once he died. Being the popular politician that he was, Muffintop’s last wish was faithfully executed, and in the chancellorship Puddinghead had stayed for four years.

There was a thump and rumble that seemed to emanate from the chimney, and Smart Cookie quickly straightened his collar and trotted over. Sure enough, soot fell from the brick, along with two brown hooves. The Representative sighed and placed a hoof to his temple. No matter how many times he thought he had seen it all, Puddinghead always found a way to surprise him.

As the brown stallion dropped out of the chimney with a thud, Smart Cookie coughed and waved away the soot and dust. The Chancellor had effectively ruined his formal political garb, and with all the rivers frozen over and firewood running low it would be a long time before the clothes were cleaned and straightened out again. And Puddinghead would expect him to find some way to clean it just so he could ruin it again. It drove Smart Cookie to absolute madness. He was the Chairpony of the Board, for Celestis’ sake! Why was he treated like a lowly secretary?!

Realizing that the Chancellor was staring at him with a goofy smile, awaiting the response that his entrance was sure to generate, Smart Cookie could only cough and put on a bored expression. “Wouldn’t it have been easier to use the door, Chancellor?”

Chancellor Puddinghead stood up from the piles of ash and char he had been sitting on to adorn his face with his trademark brain-dead smile. “Maybe for you, Smart Cookie, but I am a chancellor! I was elected because I can think outside of the box!” Taking a step back into the fireplace, Puddinghead drove his head straight into the lower bounds of the chimney. “Which also means I can think inside the chimney! Can you think inside a chimney?”

Smart Cookie pulled his eyes to the corner of his vision and angled his head. “Uh… I—”

“I didn’t think so,” the Chancellor smugly interrupted. He strode past Smart Cookie with an air of superiority and began to shake the soot out of his mane, taking the time to make sure his hat was in perfect condition.

Smart Cookie sighed and walked towards the window looking out over Mane Street. “So what are we going to do now? It’s not like the meeting got anything important done.”

“Well, those other tribes are just no-good selfish good-for-nothings!” Puddinghead fumed. “I mean, we tried to get stuff done with them in our own town of Amber Field, and what did they do? The commander of the pegasuses and Princess Paladin spent the whole time insulting each other, while I did my best to be reasonable!”

Rolling his eyes, Smart Cookie turned to address the politician. “With all due respect, your chancellorship, I don’t really think that you were doing all that hot yourself in those meetings.”

Puddinghead’s face twisted into an expression of the painfully obvious. “You don’t say, Smart Cookie! It was awfully cold in there! I definitely could have used another coat.”

Smart Cookie sat down in one of the chairs opposite the Chancellor’s desk and placed his hooves under his chin. “I mean that you didn’t make much progress with the others on the topic of the blizzard or the food shortages. Just what exactly do you plan on doing about those, anyway?”

A blank expression dominated Puddinghead’s face, and his head slowly began to list to the side as he thought at a painfully lethargic rate. Just when Smart Cookie was about to check if the Chancellor was still with the living, the brown stallion inhaled sharply and drew an enormous smile to his face.

“Oh my gosh! Hold on to your hooves, Smart Cookie! I am just about to be brilliant!!”

“That’d be a first,” Smart Cookie muttered under his breath as he avoided the Chancellor’s ecstatic features. “Please, do tell what it is that you’ve come up with, your chancellorship.”

“I have decided that the Low Valleys are going to go it alone!” Puddinghead leaned back with a hoof in the air, perhaps half-expecting fanfare and applause for his obviously ingenious idea.

Smart Cookie failed to supply it for him. Instead, the Representative seemed to droop from his stance and emit a low moan. “You mean you aren’t even going to try to repair relations with Cirra or the Diamond Kingdom?”

“Nope!” Despite being slightly put-off by the lack of zeal on Smart Cookie’s part, Puddinghead maintained his usual happiness and flair in his answer.

Smart Cookie growled in frustration, but he remembered to put at least some control into the action to keep it from offending the Chancellor. “But Chancellor, I was banking everything on being able to work with the others! Tartarus, we might still be able to recover some of the damage done in that last meeting if we could just talk again and actually develop some plans for how to deal with the coming months! Who knows how long this blizzard is going to last?”

“Pssh, don’t worry about them, Smart Cookie! We don’t need them anyways! We’re the ones with all the food, remember?”

“Uh, Chancellor? We’ll be out in about a week. We won’t be able to grow food again for at least two months, if not more, depending on the weather. Now, I know that schooling wasn’t really your thing, but I trust you understand enough about arithmetic to know what exactly that means.”

Puddinghead scratched his chin. “Hmm, I see what you mean. Oh well, then we can stop shipping out food to the other tribes. It’s not like they can do anything about it, right?”

The Representative rolled his eyes and pointed out the window to the north, where the distant spires of Cloudsdale were barely visible on the low horizon. “Chancellor, you do realize that to the north we have Cirra, and to the south we have the Diamond Kingdom. Do you really think it’s wise to anger the two nations that actually have a military force?”

“What, don’t we have a military of our own? I thought I had told you to get on that, like, two months back.”

“That may be, but it takes time to train a standing army. If you had told me to do that two years back instead of vetoing every resolution that the Board passed to raise our own military, we might have a force to hold our own against the Diamond Kingdom, even without magic. But even if you did, we couldn’t stand up to the Legion with five hundred-thousand soldiers. Even if we allied with the Kingdom, their Diamond Guard might provide numbers, but the Legion is built on skill. Ten thousand of their soldiers do the work of twenty or thirty thousand Diamond Guard. And right now, we pale in comparison with about fifteen thousand poorly trained soldiers against nearly a million Legionnaires spread across Cirra’s holdings, and in our own cities as well. Tell me, is that something that we want to go up against?”

It took an uncomfortable amount of time for Puddinghead to consider the facts, and Smart Cookie was worried that the Chancellor was going to stand by his original plan and risk getting the Low Valleys wiped out by their rivals. Luckily, the inane earth pony saw reason and managed to come up with some form of a compromise.

“Well then! If we can’t stand against them, then we’ll just have to go someplace else! Somewhere with rich and fertile lands, where we can grow whatever we want! Somewhere where we won’t have to deal with the other tribes pestering us for our food all the time!” Moving to the door, Puddinghead opened the capitol to the snow outside. “And with me as our fearless leader, what could possibly go wrong?”

Several feet of snow avalanched into the building, burying Puddinghead until only his hat remained visible above the drift. Smart Cookie groaned and placed a hoof to his head, squinting as he fought down the headache that he invariably received when dealing with the Chancellor.

“Where should I start?”

The air in the palace was much warmer than the surrounding skies, even without the use of firewood. Hauling timber up to Cloudsdale was a difficult enough process in the summer months, and with most of the trees surrounded by four feet of snow it was impossible to cut them down. With the additional burden of timber supplies from the Diamond Kingdom being cut off by the snowfall, Cirra had to resort to burning Empatha to produce heat for its homes. It was through this technique that Imperator Cyclone had been able to heat Hurricane’s palace, and pairs of guards patrolled the halls with their wings ablaze to warm the air.

Hurricane could feel the frost begin to melt off of his feathers as soon as he shut the door behind him. It was always comforting to return to the palace, even if it was not the one he had ruled within as Emperor so many years ago. Still, that there was some continuity from the Cirran Empire of twenty years past to the surviving remnants of the day always helped ease his thoughts.

Soldiers of all ranks and divisions saluted him as he walked past, and Hurricane briefly acknowledged each one’s presence with a flick of his ears. Two Praetorians opened the doors to the throne room for him, and Hurricane climbed the short flight of steps that led to his seat where he presided over all of Cirra’s holdings. There, the ponies whom he wanted to talk to most were waiting for him; Swift Spear, Twister, Cyclone, and Typhoon.

He paused for a second before speaking, trying to predict their reactions and prepare a defense for his argument. He needed to do this. Cirra had no other choice, and their continued existence hinged upon Hurricane’s plan.

“I’m flying west,” he began. “To find new lands for Cirra. We can’t survive here for much longer, that much is certain. We’ll only die a slow and painful death from hunger and the cold. If we can move someplace warmer… we might stand a chance.”

There was brief silence before anypony spoke. “But why you, Hurricane?” Swift Spear pleaded. “Surely you could send somepony else in your place. Cirra needs you here to guide them through these dark and troublesome times, not soaring through uncharted skies far from home.”

Hurricane shook his head. “Twenty years ago, that may have been. But despite our appearance, Cirra has grown stronger since then. I now have ponies capable of leading in my absence, and perhaps do a better job at it than I. Swift,” he said as he ran a hoof through her mane, “I trust you to handle things for me more than any other pegasus in Cirra. In fact, you already do. I would not be able to get through the week if you didn’t help take care of the more sensitive political matters. Use what you know from your youth in Stratopolis, just like you always do, and you’ll get through this just fine.”

Twister grunted, but the expression of annoyance was insincere. “And what about me, you big oaf? I do more work than the both of you combined, even if I don’t know hilt from blade on a sword. Don’t forget that I helped you draft Cirra’s terms in the Tri-Pony Compact, even if I was only seventeen at the time.”

Hurricane smiled and nuzzled Twister’s neck. “Of course, Twist. You know that I value your presence every day of my life, especially since what happened twenty years ago.”

“Well, no need to go reopening old wounds,” she said softly, with a remarkable change of tone. “What happened then is done, no matter how much it hurts. I don’t oppose you going on this journey in anyway; in fact, if anypony was to do it, it would have to be you. A government holds no legitimacy if the first in command is not the first to try and solve their nation’s problems, even if that means putting your neck out on the line. You, Cane, you’re a regular at it; every time you lead the Legion into battle, every slash of your sword through an opposing commander’s neck, you put the Diamond Kingdom and the Low Valleys to shame. And now, while they’re bickering amongst themselves, you’re going to go out and work for our future.” She sighed, and stared forlornly out the western window. “In a way, I envy you. To travel and adventure has always been my dream, and even if I’ve seen more of the Compact lands than anypony else, there’s always more to see and do.” Giving her brother a hug, Twister leaned against his shoulder and embraced the cold armor on his back for all it was worth. “I remember all those years ago, when the Legion called for you to go fight Gryphus, and how we parted on that rainy day in Zephyrus. And now, though the griffons are far from here and war threatens us no more, here you leave again. Please, please be safe, Hurricane. You’re the only family I have left.”

Hurricane leaned back from Twister and returned his forehooves to the ground. “What about your own family, Twist? Your husband and foals?”

Twister punched Hurricane’s shoulder and shook her head. “You know what I mean, Cane.”

Nodding his head, Hurricane glanced at his hooves. “Yes, I do. Never forget that though they may be gone, Mom and Dad live on through us.”

“I’ve never forgotten, and I never will,” Twister whispered as she stepped away from her brother. Hurricane then angled himself towards Cyclone and Typhoon, and nodded approvingly at their posture and attention.

“It seems like just yesterday that you two were foals. To see you grown up, it warms my heart. I could not have asked for better children.” He glanced over to Swift Spear, who was faintly smiling from his side, before continuing. “It’s a funny, though tragic, thing that the Red Cloud War drove so many families apart, yet it brought your mother and I together. And now, twenty years since then, I see two of the finest pegasi Cirra has to offer, born to lead and inspire their soldiers from the skies to the earth which we return to. You never met your grandfather, Thunder Gale, but I can say that he’d be damn proud of you two. Just like I am now.”

Hurricane stepped closer to Cyclone, glancing at the red stallion’s shoulder plate and the weighty insignia it bore, gold etchings on a background of onyx and skysteel. “While I’m gone, you have full reign over the Legion, Cyclone. But you will answer to your mother, and direct them to best accomplish her orders.” The black pegasus sighed, and his eyes wandered off to late nights that only he knew of, nights that he and a map alone shared. “Power does not come easily, and directing the entire Legion will be a difficult task, but I see the tactician’s eye within you. Perhaps learn to curb your anger a bit, and you may find that it comes naturally.”

Cyclone nodded and draped one wing across his chest while holding the other out and straight. It was highest level of salute, and usually reserved only for the emperor in the days of old. The action swore fealty to the commanding officer, and promised that failure would be amply repaid with the soldier’s wing. Although the salute itself was hardly used since the Exodus, Cyclone felt it to be appropriate with his father trusting him to execute so great a responsibility. He would not fail Hurricane, and he would work to better Cirra in his absence.

Acknowledging the salute, Hurricane then walked towards Typhoon and placed a hoof on her shoulder. “Typhoon, I’m especially proud of you. No other Legionnaire has climbed through the ranks as fast as you did, and you deserve your positioning. Watching you fight and practice is mesmerizing, to say the least.” Typhoon’s ears flicked, but she refrained from interrupting her father. “Although Cyclone may have control over the Legion, I want you to help him. Balance each other out, and make sure that rashness is checked by a level-head, and planning be executed with fervor.”

Typhoon likewise nodded and offered her wing to the Commander as Cyclone had done. Once again acknowledging the motion, Hurricane turned to address his family as a whole. “I will return within one month, letting my wings carry me as fast and as far as they can in that time. If I am not back by then, carry on without me, for though I may have cheated death in the past, it will catch up with me eventually. My only request is that Cirra remains united and strong upon my return. Everything else, handle as necessary.”

Giving one last salute to his family, Hurricane glanced towards the stained glass at the back of the throne room. There, just like throughout much of the palace, was a depiction of Silver Sword, this time in his final stand in Stratopolis. It gave Hurricane strength and inspiration, and the weary pegasus brought a small smile to his lips as he walked away.

The throne watched in silence as he disappeared out the doors, with Swift Spear close behind. For Typhoon, it only signified the beginning of what she knew would be the hardest days of her life. She glanced out the window, where the winds blew ever westward, ready and waiting for the mighty stallion that would conquer them and save his ponies.

And she knew that he would conquer them, and he would save his ponies, for no better reason than that he was Commander Hurricane, last emperor of the Cirran Empire.

Chapter 6: Sky Above, Wind Behind

The sun was barely crested over the dim eastern horizon by the time Hurricane was ready to embark on his journey. His family stood around him on the western wall of Cloudsdale, silent and clad in the best vestments they owned. Even then, there would be no ceremony for the departure of Cirra’s mighty leader, and that was the way the Commander liked it.

There was a light dusting of frost on the cloudstone blocks of the wall, but the wind was quickly and efficiently blowing it away. Hurricane felt the wind pulling on his tail, urging him to leave Cloudsdale behind and begin his journey. But there was still much to do.

Twister walked up to him first. The robe draped over her shoulder fluttered around her body, but a well-placed pin near her flank kept the fabric down. Her onyx cuirass, which Hurricane knew she despised wearing as she was no part of the Legion, was polished with incredible patience and persistence that even some of the top Praetorian lacked. The wreath of gold feathers that she wore around her head pricked Hurricane’s ears as they embraced.

“Fly till your wings can carry you no longer, and then fly some more,” she whispered to him. “The weight of Cirra rests on your shoulders, as it has for so long under your rule, but I know there is not a stronger pony in the world to bear it. Make Cirra proud, make the Gods proud, and make yourself proud. You have more reason to be than most other ponies.”

Hurricane nodded as they separated, and Twister stepped back to allow Imperators Cyclone and Typhoon to approach their father. They each carried a share of Hurricane’s equipment, which they set at his hooves. Bending down to shoulder his gear, the Commander muttered a quick “thanks” and strapped the bags to his flanks. Before he could stand up again, he felt Typhoon’s warm embrace around his neck, even as their respective armors clanked together.

“Thank you, father,” the young mare murmured to Hurricane. Loosening her embrace just enough for Hurricane to raise his head back to full height, she trained her magenta eyes on Hurricane’s own magenta irises. “Thanks for everything you’ve done for Cyclone and I. We may have had tough lives, what with all the training and everything, but I don’t regret it one bit. I’m proud to call you my father, not because you’re the leader of Cirra, but because you’re the greatest stallion in the entire world.” Separating, she held Hurricane’s sword out before him. “Find Cirra a new home.”

Cyclone had nothing to contribute other than a stiff nod and a salute as Hurricane strapped the scabbard to his side. Fire burned in his eyes, the passion of a soldier eager to prove himself, ever-ready to show his father that he was able to lead Cirra if the call to do so fell on his shoulders. He was determined to not only maintain, but better the nation in Hurricane’s absence, and he would start by giving the Commander Maximus a proper sendoff.

Finally, Swift Spear’s hooves brought her to Hurricane’s side. Giving the straps of his saddlebags a quick onceover to make sure they were tight, she wrapped her forelegs around her husband’s neck and brought him close. The two remained locked in embrace as the snow swirled through the air and into their manes, until Swift leaned back to gaze lovingly into Hurricane’s eyes.

“Are you sure you have to do this alone?” The question took on a pleading tone, despite the stability and strength the mare weaved into the sentence. Hurricane only held her tighter, wrapping his black wings around her blond body.

“I can fly faster and farther than anypony else. Time is of the essence, and you’re needed more in Cloudsdale. I would love to bring you along; nothing breaks my heart more than leaving you behind. But Cyclone and Typhoon are still young, too young to take over a nation at a time like this.” His eyes wandered to the east, and a cool chill ran down his spine. “Believe me, I know what that feels like. That’s why Cirra needs you. Besides, I’m just one pony. I’ll raise a lot less attention in the wilds by myself, and I’ll be back soon enough.”

Despite the hurt that she felt in her heart, Swift knew in her mind that what Hurricane spoke was the truth. “Okay, Hurricane. I believe in you. Just please be safe. Don’t put your neck on the line when there’s no need to.”

Hurricane kissed Swift’s bare forehead and nuzzled her mane. “I’ll be safe, don’t worry. I love you, Swift.”

“I love you too, Hurricane.”

Reluctantly ending their embrace, Hurricane tightened down the saddlebags fixated to his armor and flexed his wings. He carried with him little more than a canteen for carrying water and several hunting knives along with his sword. Being a pegasus, he did not need a map to navigate, and other than a few loaves of bread he brought no food with him. Eating meat was something he had no qualms about, unlike the unicorns or earth ponies, and he envisioned resorting to the hunt for most of his meals. With nothing else other than his own resolve to accompany him, Hurricane saluted his family one last time, trotted towards the edge of the walls around the city, and dove.

The wind whistled past his ears as he fell, and Hurricane could feel the air shrieking through his mane, despite how much the helmet covered the short, steel-blue hairs. Snow and gales buffeted his body from every angle, threatening to put the pegasus into a tailspin, but still Hurricane kept his wings tucked against his sides. Only when the pressure in his ears told him he was little more than three hundred feet above the jagged highlands below did he open his wings, feeling the air tear through his feathers as he slowed his descent and converted his momentum into a westward slingshot.

There was a good tailwind, a byproduct Hurricane could count on with the perpetual storm raging over the Compact lands. Tilting the tips of his wings in opposite directions, he spiraled once, twice, three times as he ascended back up to a cruising altitude. In the frigid air, his feathers formed tiny contrails of ice crystals as he glided, the patterns wrapping around each other like ribbons from his wings. Hurricane smiled as he looked back over his shoulder at them. No matter how old he would live to be, the art of flight and love for the sky that was such an inextricable part of the pegasus soul would always be calling to him, not satisfied until he threw his emotions to the wind and embraced his natural instinct; fly high, fly far, fly fast.

At ten thousand feet above the surface of the earth, the world spread out beneath Hurricane like a map of grand proportions and infinite detail. To the north, the blue sea stretched on towards the pole, its shores choked and clogged with glaciers and icebergs. The sheer amount of snow and ice that the storm had produced in not even a week was already sliding down the mountains by the ton, pushing massive glaciers out in all directions that gouged the land before them.

To the south, the holdings of the Low Valleys and the city of Amber Field were barely visible under the snow that clogged the land. Ramshackle farmhouses sent forth little plumes of smoke, almost like cries of distress for help against the blizzard that continually assaulted them. Even farther behind Amber Field, nestled amongst several rocky spires sharp cliffs, was Castle Burning Hearth and River Rock. Hurricane took the time to twist his wing towards the structure, cursing the princess he knew resided within.

Behind him, Cloudsdale was quickly receding back into the eastern horizon. The massive spires of cloudstone were becoming engulfed in the blizzard, the snow and clouds obscuring the city more and more as Hurricane flew. First the low-lying residences melded into the gray, then the walls, followed by the three story houses within. The last thing to disappear was the mighty palace, standing tall and defiant against Grabacr and demanding that the God come and finish Cirra himself if he wanted to extinguish the fire of the pegasus race.

With a low sigh, Hurricane lowered his helmet farther over his brow to cut the wind from his eyes and stroked his wings with renewed vigor. Far before him, the frosted plains glittered in the early sunlight, leading Hurricane on through low fog and snow towards a ridge of distant mountains on the far horizon. Unlike the mountains around Cloudsdale, however, these rocky projections bore no snow on their tips. It was all the evidence Hurricane needed to see that the storm did not stretch on forever.

Relaxing his pace and feeling the wind slice around his bladed wings, Hurricane set his sights on those distant mountains. The spires were at least a three day’s flight away, and the last thing the Commander needed was to burn through his energy before he even arrived. Food would be hard enough to come by, and he didn’t want to tire himself out and strip his ability to hunt effectively.

Smiling, Hurricane found his rhythm and located the altitude with the best tailwind to help him on his journey. Then, humming to himself the tunes of an empire long lost, the pegasus locked in his course and began to make headway towards the mountains, where the salvation of his ponies lay.

The glittering snow nearly blinded Clover as she opened the doors to Castle Burning Hearth. The sun had found a small opening in the sky, which would probably last for barely a minute before the storm swallowed it up again. Still, the sheen produced from all the ice and snow in River Rock and focused onto the mare’s face was almost enough to set her mane ablaze.

Dozens of pounds of equipment and gear were fixed to Clover’s sides in her saddlebags or hung from canvas loops, the tools clattering against each other and her flanks. Much of it was useless clutter, or in other words, Princess Platinum’s personal baggage. Expensive dresses, makeups and perfumes, and other fashion items dominated a large portion of the limited space Clover had on her back for hauling. At least she had dissuaded the Princess from bringing other, heavier items, such as the solid oak and velvet couch she loved to lounge in.

Platinum, on the other hoof, bore only a heavy coat over her royal garments to block the wind and a light burlap sack for carrying food in. Two canteens hung around her neck, one considerably larger and more decorative than the other. The Princess had insisted that she be the one to watch the food, claiming that ‘somepony responsible’ should perform that duty. Clover, however, knew that if that were the case, she would have been the one carrying the rations, not Platinum.

The wind nearly pushed Clover back into the castle as she tried to exit, and only the weight afforded her by the equipment she bore on her back anchored her to the stone floor. As soon as there was a lull in the gale, she and Platinum strode out of the doorway and onto the main thoroughfare, where they were greeted by a loud blast of trumpet fanfare.

Platinum had gone all out on her departure ceremonies. A division of Diamond Guards flanked the streets through which she and Clover walked, their diamond halberds firmly planted in the snow and ice with thin, purple tassels fluttering off of the tips of their weapons. Banners and flags of the Kingdom had been hung from every street corner, celebrating the heroism of the Princess who humbly put aside her royal vestments to venture out into the wild and find the unicorns a new home, one in which they would be able to prosper without the meddling of the other two lowly tribes. But despite the expenditures and pomposity of the affair, crowd turnout was minimal. Most of the nobles preferred to watch from their windows, sheltered with the safety and warmth of their houses. As for the poorer unicorns, they simply didn’t care, and Platinum was happy that they were absent anyways.

Even with the apparent power that the city put on display for Platinum’s departure, it was still all too clear that the blizzard was taking its toll on the Diamond Kingdom. Several of the poor that did actually show up to the procession shivered under the winds, their expressions and features haggard from starvation and disease. The nobles on display were more lethargic than usual, and they moved as if they had every intention of conserving whatever calories they could. Even among the members of the Diamond Guard, many of the smaller soldiers looked absolutely miserable under their armor, their eyes bloodshot from a lack of sleep likely brought on by the crippling famine.

There was a great rumbling from the southern gate as the sentries began to raise the impressive wooden structure for Platinum and Clover to exit through. As they neared the looming tower, the Diamond Guard began to break off to the sides and assemble in their regimental formations, saluting their princess as she passed. Clover, who had been trotting to keep up with Platinum as a result of the burden on her back, almost ran into the white mare as she slowed down before the exit from the city. The Princess knew that once she left, the gates would ultimately shut behind her, barring her return into River Rock until she provided proof that she had found new lands for the unicorns to settle in. So, taking one last, deep breath of River Rock air, the Princess and her companion set their hooves outside of the city walls and began to follow the snow-laden valley to the south.

Platinum stopped and stamped her hooves against the snow twice before shrugging her shoulders and staring at the high valley walls. Releasing a frosty breath, she shook her purple locks and mumbled a string of shaky words. “Well, Clover, I guess this is it. So, which way should we go?”

Clover pulled a rough map out of her saddlebag and held it before her with her magic. Gently undoing the seal, two separate bands of light-green aura stretched the parchment apart. “This valley continues south for several miles before opening up into the Sapphire Lake. From there, we could probably climb through the highlands and make our way westward. There’s uncharted territory beyond the strait, which I imagine is frozen over by this point. If we’re going to start looking for new lands to settle, well, that’d be the place to start.”

Brushing some snow off of her hooves, Platinum put a weak smile to her lips and began a slow canter along the banks of the frozen river. “Good. Well, let’s get to it, then. The sooner we find this new land of ours, the sooner I can get back to River Rock. I miss the castle already.”

As the Princess led the way, Clover grunted under the weight of the equipment she bore on her back and set off after her. If she could just make it to nightfall, she might be able to ‘lose’ some of Platinum’s spare luggage. Losing the Princess, however, was something that she wouldn’t be able to do, despite how much she wished she could. It would have been a long journey under normal circumstances, but having to accompany Platinum would make it longer, both physically and emotionally. Even with that, she sympathized with the mare’s desire to return to the castle, although for different reasons. There was much more knowledge in the library that Star Swirl owned than what she would find in the frozen wastes, not to mention what was within the confines of the stallion’s mind itself. A frosty gust of wind forced its way under her hood, and Clover had to yank it back down with her magic.

Celestis, how she wished she had a book to read.

Smart Cookie groaned as his hooves struggled to gain traction on the snowy expanse to the west of Amber Field. The packs on his back weighted his every step, and the frost and ice covering the hills was not kind to his burden. Twice he had slipped and fallen to the bottom of the hill, forced to start over again and hope that he might be able to get to the top.

Amber Field was still only two miles behind him when he finally crested the hill and paused to catch his breath. Puddinghead stared at him, a bored expression dominating his brown features. “Jeez, Smart Cookie, took you long enough to get up here. I thought I was going to freeze to death in the meantime!”

The Representative groaned and set his gear on the ground next to Puddinghead. “You know, if you helped out a little, your chancellorship, it would be easier for the both of us to get to where we needs be going. We’d already be at least five miles out by now if I wasn’t the only one carrying the equipment!”

Puddinghead scoffed and fiddled with his hat. “Now why would I ever do that, Smart Cookie? I am a Chancellor, so I shouldn’t have to do any work! That’s what servants are for, right?”

The orange stallion ground his teeth as he unloaded more of his burden onto the hilltop. “Chancellor, you’re not a royal! The unicorns have servants; here, you’re an elected representative of the Low Valleys!” Smart Cookie used the term ‘elected’ lightly, knowing full well that no such election occurred when Puddinghead came to power. In fact, elections were due to be held at the summer of the coming year, and the Chancellor was likely to be voted out of office faster than Smart Cookie could drop his hat. Speaking of hats, the Representative planned on throwing his into the ring when those elections came around.

“So? I deserve to be! The Low Valleys love me enough, anyways.”

That was blatantly inaccurate, as Smart Cookie knew all too well. Even the departure ceremonies that they had concluded not two hours ago had shown that to everypony except the Chancellor. All that planning thrown to the wind, and what a waste of a good night’s sleep it had been!

The ceremony had opened quietly enough, with a small rally outside the capitol where Smart Cookie made a few quick speeches. The Representative knew his way with words, and he had managed to pitch optimism and morale into the populace of Amber Field by praising the resiliency of the earth pony spirit and suggesting that the Low Valleys held more cards in dealing with the other races than one would think. There was something he had never seen on their faces in a long time; hope and optimism. The Low Valleys would be okay. The earth ponies would survive. Smart Cookie thought he had even felt the wind stop howling as he spoke.

Then came Puddinghead. Roughly dressed and obviously on a sugar high from some stash of maple syrup he had found, the Chancellor promptly made a fool of himself, of the entire earth pony government, and of the Low Valleys in general. His speech of garbled and meaningless words dragged on for hours—Smart Cookie couldn’t remember the last time somepony had managed to string ‘like’ together fourteen times in the same sentence—and all the work Smart Cookie had put into inspiring the population was dashed to pieces.

When that abominable display of leadership was finally over with, Puddinghead tried to turn the rally into a massive party, with himself as the central character. It took much urging from Smart Cookie and the Board to get the Chancellor to calm down and get organized for the departure. Then, quietly and behind the scenes, Smart Cookie guided Puddinghead out of Amber Field before he could cause more trouble. Much to his chagrin, however, he found himself stuck with the inane Chancellor and burdened with his equipment. A silent and bloodless coup, that’s what it was. The rest of the Board had tried to get him and Puddinghead out of the way so that they could campaign against them while they were gone and unable to defend themselves!

So when Puddinghead suggested that the Low Valleys absolutely loved him and that he deserved to have Smart Cookie as a servant, the Representative had to sit on his hooves to stop himself from ripping open his own ribcage and gouging out his eyes in response. Instead, he shouted into the wind and collapsed onto his back, flailing his limbs in frustration.

Puddinghead, completely oblivious, failed to notice anything wrong about the Representative’s actions. Trotting over to retrieve the map from one of Smart Cookie’s saddlebags, the Chancellor held the furled piece of parchment before him as if he were observing a new species of creature. After twisting and rotating the item in his hooves several times to ascertain how it worked, he quickly unfurled the paper and held it up to his face.

Lines. Nothing but lines. He couldn’t even see where he was going, either! Earth pony cartographers really needed to step up their game if Puddinghead was going to continue to trust them. Really, how could nopony think of how one was going to see if they held the map in front of their face?

Holding the map against the ground, Puddinghead punched three holes through the parchment, tearing off the excess paper on the other side and tossing it to the wind. Then, taking two clothespins from another satchel, he affixed the map to the brim of his hat. The first attempt was only marginally successful; he had attached it sideways, and could only see out of one of the holes he created. The second attempt was much better. Now he could see where he was going and talk, all while keeping the map to his face! Puddinghead giggled at his own brilliance. He needed more ponies like himself to help him out.

The Representative had vented enough of his frustration to clear his head, having soaked his coat with the frigid snow he floundered about in. Rising to his hooves, he took several slow and deliberate breaths to calm himself. In through the nose, hold for five seconds, out through the mouth, hold for another five seconds. Everything was going to be okay. He would get through this, one way or another. He turned back towards the Chancellor, ready to tackle the next hill.

Puddinghead was smiling at him through the remains of the map. “Well, come on, silly hillbilly, we got a nation to save!”

Smart Cookie put his hooves to his head and screamed.

The stony walls of the valley were slowly descending as the frozen river began to open up to a frozen lake. As the cliffs lowered, the trees grew in height, until soon Clover and Platinum found themselves in the middle of a forest of evergreens. The snow hung perilously from their wide boughs, and every so often a large collection of ice would tumble to the ground in a nearly silent fwhoosh. The soft twitter of cardinals and other winter birds in the branches made the walk a pleasant and refreshing experience for Clover.

“This is taking forever! My hooves are killing me! How long have we been walking for?”

Well, almost pleasant. Clover delicately bit her lip as she pushed aside a thicket of brambles to reveal the distant spires of Castle Burning Hearth, barely visible beyond several winding valley walls. “Only about an hour, your Highness.”

The Princess huffed and began walking with her head down. “Ugh! I never imagined finding a new land would be so hard! But it will all be worth it. Don’t you agree?”

Clover rolled her eyes as she started to follow. “I actually think that the three tribes could have tried harder to—”

“Stop!!” Platinum wailed, pulling her hoof towards her chest as she drew back in alarm.

“What’s wrong?!” Clover shouted, galloping towards the Princess’ side. She scanned ahead, looking for something that could cause the white mare such distress, but she saw nothing. Surely it couldn’t be something insignificant like…

…a tiny stream, barely more than three feet wide. Clover glanced at her princess, then back at the stream, before settling on Platinum again. “Um, Princess? That’s just a stream.” Pointing to the stepping stones that bridged one side to the other, she brushed her rags around her flanks and stepped on the first of the rocks. “We can cross easily, see?”

Platinum turned her nose up at the suggestion. “I refuse to get my gown wet. I have no intention of arriving at my new land like a bedraggled earth pony, or worse yet,” she shuddered, “a rough-and-tumble pegasus! I, for one, will not stoop down to their level.” Glancing over her shoulder, a sly smile crept onto her lips. “On the other hand, I have no trouble watching you stoop down. Come on, chop chop! We don’t want to be late!”

Clover groaned and set her gear down on the opposite side of the stream before crossing back over to retrieve Platinum. Squatting down, the green mare allowed the Princess to mount her back, carefully lifting her and her expensive robe off of the ground. Straining to hold steady, Clover began to cross the stream.

“And do watch the gown, darling. It’s worth more than all the books in your library.”

Reaching the opposite bank, Clover bent down to let Platinum hop off of her back. “It’s actually Star Swirl’s library, you know.”

Platinum simply huffed and began walking onwards again, not bothering to wait while Clover collected their things. “Honestly, what does it matter? It’s not like all those spell tomes would be of use to me, anyways. I prefer more classical works from the likes of Coltuthus, or perhaps even Neighto. All the works of the classic philosophers, not complicated magic studies.”

Clover grumbled under her breath as she reassembled her burden. She was surprised the Princess could even read at all.

Several more miles of walking through the forest brought them to the edge of Sapphire Lake. True to its name, the waters sparkled in a deep and perfect blue, seemingly undisturbed by the blizzard that had frozen over its main tributary. Clover paused to test the air, pulling her hood down and letting the breeze glide past her horn. The winds had certainly slowed down the farther they travelled from River Rock and the other pony tribes. Could that mean something?

Without further evidence to test her hypothesis, the pistachio mare had no way of telling. Instead, she and Platinum began to navigate the banks of the lake to find a suitable camping spot. Darkness was beginning to fall on them, and even though it was still midafternoon the sky had blackened almost to a twilight-like state. The birds were beginning to return to their roosts, and the lake was growing quiet with the stillness that preceded night. Clover breathed deeply, allowing the serenity to loosen her muscles. Even the Princess had stopped her whining and seemed to be enjoying herself.

The two mares found a suitable spot to set up camp on top of a broad, flat stone set a short distance back from the shores of the lake. Being in a better mood, Platinum was willing to help gather tinder and kindling for a fire while Clover began to set up the tent. Gently humming an improvised tune to herself, Clover leisurely erected the shelter, her light-green Arcana helping to pull the cords taut and stretch the firm canvas between the poles. It was actually a relaxing job when she didn’t have to worry about Platinum standing over her back and commanding her around.

The Princess returned shortly afterward with a large bundle of twigs and sticks she held in her light-blue Arcana. Setting the bundle down in a natural divot in the rock that would serve as their fire pit, the daughter of Lapis then proceeded to peruse through the contents of her luggage until she found her bedspread. Setting the spread within the tent, Platinum claimed her space and went to sit on a log outside, near where Clover was beginning to start the fire.

“I do say, Clover darling, this is turning out to be a fine night after all.” Platinum chirped as Clover managed to force the twigs to accept the sparks she provided them. Within a few minutes, the mareservant had created a crackling fire to warm their hooves by.

As darkness took hold of the land, the sky also opened up, revealing innumerous constellations that stretched on towards the infinite. Laying on her bedspread, which she had placed next to the fire, Clover traced several with her hoof.

“Gemini,” she mumbled to herself, recalling the names of the starry patterns. “Cancer, Taurus, Aries, Leo, Orion.”

Platinum glanced over from where she was sitting, one eyebrow raised. “Did Star Swirl teach you those?”

Clover laughed softly and nodded. “Oh yes, the constellations were some of my first lessons. He loved the stars in the night sky and wanted everypony he could teach to share that love with him. I mean, his name is Star Swirl, for Celestis’ sake.” She smiled softly, looking closer at some of the intricate designs. “Although I believe currently, the better phrase would be ‘for Lunis’ sake.’”

Even Platinum quietly chuckled. “Right, right. Doesn’t old Unicornian mythology say that the stars are the roads to the Summer Lands? Where all unicorns go when they die?”

“Yes, and a similar belief is held by the earth ponies,” Clover added. “They believe that the more good that you do on Earth, the more connections between stars you form. Do enough good, and you’ll have an unbroken path to the afterlife. Do bad or evil, and you have to hitchhike your way there, essentially. Or you could just end up in Tartarus.”

“What about the pegasi?” Platinum questioned, suppressing an involuntary shudder at the name of her most hated rivals. “What do they believe in?”

Clover scratched her head as she tried to remember the lessons Star Swirl had given her a few years back. “Yeah, they believe in something else entirely. I remember, Star Swirl had me devote an entire month to studying various bits and pieces of their culture, their mythology. They’ve been separated from us and the earth ponies for who knows how many years, and it shows in their beliefs. For example, they believe each star to be a soldier that has died in battle, or an ancestor remembered with honor. Their greatest officers and emperors are the brightest stars in the sky, lighting the night to protect their homeland from surprise attacks.” Studying a spiraling galaxy high above, Clover brushed her mane with a hoof. “They even have different gods than us.”

Platinum huffed and leaned back on her makeshift seat. “Oh believe me, I know that. Religious and cultural tensions were some of the biggest sources of conflict between the pegasi and the other tribes when they first arrived. Why, you must have been only five or six at the time, and I was nine.”

“I can only imagine, but it’s calmed down a lot since then—or, at least, enough so that it isn’t a major cause of conflict. Technically, they believe in the same gods we do—the heralds of day and night, who we know as Celestis and Lunis, they call Celeste and Lūn—but they have a lot more. There are gods for almost everything: Mobius, the god of mercy, Garuda, keeper of the Great Skies, Grabacr,” her eyes shifted towards the cloud mass to the north, “the god of storms. I think they have something like thirteen or fourteen major gods, and then a whole pantheon of lesser entities.”

Platinum whistled. “However do they keep track of them all? I’m sure it gets incredibly complicated.”

Clover sat up and stretched her back. “It would seem so, but I guess it just isn’t to them. From what I gather, each pegasus devotes themselves to a specific god of their choosing from the pantheon. I know that Commander Hurricane, for example, is a follower of Mobius.” She let out a happy sigh as she worked the tired muscles of her limbs. “Still, one’s chosen god is their own business in pegasus culture. To each their own, I suppose is the best way to put it.”

The white mare nodded and let out a lengthy yawn. “Whew! That’s all very interesting, Clover dear, but I’m afraid I shall be needing my beauty sleep. Wake me in the morning, and maybe we’ll have another pleasant day for hiking.”

Clover nodded and wished her princess a good night, but she stayed up longer to look at the sky. She must have laid there for two hours before she finally felt the need to relocate within the tent and the warmth it provided. Carefully gathering up her bedroll, the pistachio mare began to trot over towards the canvas structure but stopped before entering.

Something in the distance caught her sight. It was difficult to make out across the fog rolling in over the lake, but she thought it was a light. Waiting several seconds longer, she was able to catch a glimpse of it through a lull in the fog. There definitely was a light coming from the opposite shore of the lake, and it looked like it was coming from a campfire. A rather large campfire, too, which she could see several small figures darting across.

Oh well. They were probably just other hikers or explorers, or perhaps traders returning with exotic goods from the southern shores. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to investigate…

Clover stopped herself as she let out a loud yawn. It was getting late, and she shouldn’t bother with that sort of thing when she was this tired. There was always tomorrow for investigation. Tonight, though, she needed to get as much sleep as she could for the next day’s journey.

Gently opening the flap, the green mare made her way into the tent, settling into her warm bedroll. Drawing the cover shut with her magic, she let out a quiet yawn and made herself comfortable, leaving the fire burning outside to light the night until it burnt itself out.

Hurricane began a slow descent towards the forest below when the sun was little more than an hour from retreating behind the western mountains. Holding his wings to the sides, the black pegasus used the tailwind to coast for the better part of a mile until he landed in the middle of a clearing surrounded by tall pines on all sides. Taking a brief trot as he landed, the Commander arched his wings over his back and worked on loosening the muscles for the next day’s flight. The last thing he wanted to do was forget his cool-down and have to try to fly with cramped wings.

There was little to do except gather some firewood and eat before retiring to the safety of a nearby tree to spend the night. The wind blew softly through the trees as the pegasus scoured the immediate area around his camp for dangers. When he found none, he set about bringing sticks and branches back towards a circle of rocks he made to hold his fire.

Amassing a sizeable portion of wood, Hurricane dipped his wingtip into the center of the pile and ignited it with a burst of Empatha. The heat began to instantly melt the snow around the campsite, and Hurricane had to clear a place to sit with his wings. With the fire crackling behind him, the pegasus stood up and grabbed his hunting knife, fluttering into the trees to stalk prey.

Pegasi are well adapted for hunting, and Hurricane was exemplary at it. Silent wings carried him from treetop to treetop much like an owl, and his eyes were similarly just as sharp. Even in the dim twilight, the pegasus could see tiny animals scurrying around in the snow and undergrowth. Several large rats dug at the roots of trees while scrawny squirrels ventured out of their holes for one last nut before retiring to sleep. Many white-coated rabbits, surprisingly fat for this time of year, scurried from bush to bush, hoping to stay out of sight.

It was the rabbits that interested Hurricane most, and he followed a trio of the creatures from above, careful to cushion his hooves as he jumped from branch to branch. When the rabbits finally stopped under a large berry bush, the hunter found a limb to inch out from until he was directly over their heads.

Using his wings to stabilize himself, the pegasus rotated until he was hanging from the branch with his legs, his neck craned downwards and his knife pointed directly at the skull of the fattest rodent. Twisting his wings in preparation for the roll he would have to perform as he fell, Hurricane silently released his grip on the tree branch.

His knife sailing straight and true, Hurricane drove the blade into the rabbit’s brain, killing it instantly. The other rodents were so startled by his sudden appearance that they flinched before attempting to flee. Hurricane was thus able to twist one wing and decapitate another rabbit with his wingblade before it could escape. The last of the three rodents disappeared into the undergrowth to his left.

Smiling, Hurricane picked up the two kills and trotted back to his camp, the orange glow of his fire lighting the way through the trees. Settling down in front of his fire pit, Hurricane placed a bowl full of snow over the fire to get some fresh water while he worked on skinning his two kills. The rabbits were cleaned with expert precision, with not a tendon of meat going to waste. Hurricane had cleaned kills hundreds of times back in Zephyrus, and the motions were as familiar to him as strapping blades to his wings.

Placing the two rabbits on spits, Hurricane quickly seasoned them with some salt and charred the meat to his liking. The aroma made his mouth water with anticipation, and he nibbled on some of the bread he brought with him to placate it. When the rabbits were finally done, Hurricane took the spits away from the fire and bit into the meat. It was moist and tender, with just the right amount of seasoning. The Commander laughed aloud as he swallowed the first bite. It had been a long time since he had meat. The mountains around Cloudsdale offered poor hunting, and he simply didn’t have the time to go any farther when he was Cirra’s ruler. That, and the Compact stipulated that the Cirrans would refrain from hunting on the lands of the other tribes, who considered the consumption of meat to be one of the greatest sins an earth pony or unicorn could commit.

Finishing off his meal with a splash of water, Hurricane filled his canteen and spread his wings by the fire to capture its heat. His feathers separated slightly, allowing the warm air to become trapped within their bristles. After half an hour of staring into the fire and collecting heat, Hurricane stood up, kicked snow over the pit to extinguish it, and flew towards the top of the largest pine in the area to get some shut eye. With his wings and the warmth they contained held tightly against his sides, sleep quickly found the weary pegasus commander and took him for her own.

Unfortunately, she did not have him long. The snap of a twig quickly alerted the pegasus, trained to wake at the slightest sound from months of sentry duty during the Red Cloud War. Careful not to reveal his position, he loosened the latch on his sword and leaned out precariously from the crook of the branch he was resting in.

There was a small light wandering around his clearing, waving back and forth from the mouth of the pony who carried it. That it was a pony, Hurricane had no doubt in his mind. Whether it was a pegasus, unicorn, or earth pony was another matter entirely. If the intruder wasn’t alone, Hurricane had to know what kind of company he would be going up against.

Sliding out of his makeshift nest, Hurricane began to hop from branch to branch as he descended towards the ground. The pony had found his fire pit, letting out a little ‘oh’ as he did so. The lantern then swiveled from tree to tree, searching for any sign of the resident. That the glow of the lantern was fixated at the tops of the trees instead of at the bottoms gave Hurricane a clue that the intruder knew whom he was looking for.

Despite that, the pony was not very aware of his surroundings. Hurricane set his hooves down on the opposite end of the clearing from the intruder, then slowly began to stalk him. The light the lantern shed from its sides revealed a set of armor along the pony’s flanks and back, as well as a sword and a large axe affixed to his flanks. A small glimmer of light that curved around his sides revealed the presence of bladed wings. Knowing that he was dealing with a fellow pegasus, Hurricane adjusted his approach accordingly.

The Commander was barely more than two tail lengths from the pegasus when he leapt. The intruder heard hooves leave the ground, but was too slow to avoid the tackle of the larger stallion. The two figures rolled across the snow as Hurricane struggled to pin down his opponent. Despite the size advantage he had, he found it difficult to hold onto the squirming pegasus, and he had to knock back wings aimed for his face or neck several times. When he finally grappled one of his opponent’s wings into the crook of his arm and had the other roughly pinned with a hoof, Hurricane was able to grab the nearby lantern and reveal the identity of the pony he subdued.

A short, amber mane atop a terrified yellow face greeted him, and Hurricane quickly loosed the pressure he had been exerting on the stallion’s neck. “Pansy?! By the Gods, what are you doing here?” Scrambling off of the private’s armor-clad figure, Hurricane helped Pan Sea to his hooves and brushed the snow from his shoulders.

“I-I didn’t mean to s-sneak up on you or a-anything, sir,” the diminutive pegasus stammered, averting his gaze from Hurricane’s face.

Releasing a sigh, Hurricane sat down on the snow and gestured for Pan Sea to sit next to him. “It’s alright, Pansy. Just tell me what you were doing out here in the first place. Why did you follow me all the way from Cloudsdale?”

Pan Sea shuffled his hooves nervously as he sat in the snow. “Well, I was on patrol around Cloudsdale’s western border, Commander, when I saw you dive towards the ground. I thought you had a death wish or something, the way you were plummeting. But then you turned that momentum into an impressive launch towards the west, speeding off like you were on a mission.” Again, Pan Sea bit on his lips in anxiety and shifted his position on his haunches to something more comfortable. “I’ve seen a lot of the countryside in my time on the weather patrol, so I know a lot of what’s out there. I’ve never been far to the west however, and, well, when I saw that was where you were going… my colt days got the better of me.”

Hurricane chuckled softly and shook his head. “So I assume you wanted to be an explorer when you were younger?” When Pan Sea nodded, Hurricane briefly smiled before continuing. “Hmm. I don’t blame you. Altus was a small town from what I saw, even in the hour I spent there before… well, you know. So, you came all this way just to do a little exploring, eh?”

“Um, y-yes, Hurricane, sir. I mean, that was my intention originally, but then I realized I hadn’t cleared it with my superior officer, and then I realized that if I came back I would have been tried for desertion. So… really, I kind of didn’t really have any other sort of choice but to follow you. Sorry.”

“No, Pansy, it’s quite alright. But while I am technically doing what you would consider exploring out here, most of it is going to be from the air. I’m trying to find new lands and skies for Cirra to relocate to, since the Compact lands have gone to shit in the past week. Grabacr’s determined to wipe us out if we stay, and we’ve already survived one scrape with extinction. I need to minimize our second encounter if we want to live.” Sighing, Hurricane shook his head. “And that’s why I’m out here, Pansy. If you want, I could write you a note to present to Imperator Primus Swift Spear that would pardon you from any accusations of desertion, and you could be on your way home.”

Pan Sea seemed relieved, and nodded his head. “Oh, that’d be much appreciated, Commander. I wasn’t prepared to be flying through the wilderness anyways. I mean, I just have my Legionnaire’s equipment, plus this axe.” Raising his wing, Pan Sea revealed a skysteel battle axe of incredible quality, even if the stratus head had seen some use.

Hurricane raised his eyebrow and inspected the weapon more closely. “This… this is some incredible craftsmanship, Pansy. Where did you get this?” Minutely detailed Cirran carvings decorated the surface, including the letters SPQC. Senātus Populusque Cirrus. The official seal of Cirra and the Legion.

Taking out the axe, Pan Sea set it on the ground for Hurricane to look over. “Oh, this? Why, I found it at another campsite not too far from here.”

Chapter 7: Dreaded Shadows

“You what?!”

Hurricane’s alarm was enough to topple Pan Sea in fear, and with good reason. For the usually calm Commander to display emotion when making a tactical decision was startling enough. For that emotion to be anger and alarm would give ponies who knew Hurricane well a heart attack. Pan Sea thought he felt his heart constrict tighter than a cloudstone matrix as the black stallion’s eyes darted between the treetops with obvious anxiety.

“W-what is it?” Pan Sea whimpered. “D-did I do something w-wrong?”

Hurricane picked up the axe again to check that he had seen it right. Yes, the symbols SPQC were still there, and yes, the axe head was worn from use. There were sharp nicks in the stratus blade and smaller scrapes along the length of the handle. Firewood would not damage the weapon in anyway. Diamond and gold would simply shatter under its force. The only thing that could deform stratus skysteel was harder stratus. Coincidentally, Legionnaire armor was made out of nimbostratus. That did not bode well for two soldiers of the Cirran Legion isolated in the middle of nowhere.

Gently placing the axe on the snowy ground, Hurricane flexed his wings and checked that his weapons were ready. “Pansy, I need to know where you found this. Why did you even take it in the first place?!”

Pan Sea gulped and shuffled nervously from hoof to hoof. “Well, um, sir, like I said, I was looking for you after you left Cloudsdale. I had tracked you to this general area, but I couldn’t see where you touched down, so I had no choice but to search the land on hoof. I came across a campsite that I first thought was yours, but it looked abandoned. Like, several days abandoned. I found that axe there, and, well, I took it. I didn’t know that was bad! Why is that bad? What does it mean?!”

Hurricane placed a hoof on the jittery pegasus to quell his shaking. “Pansy, calm down, you didn’t know better. Look, I’ll tell you why that’s bad, but then we’re packing up here. You’re coming with me, like it or not. Okay?”

The yellow pegasus emphatically nodded his head.

“Good. Short version, we’re dealing with deserters. Long version, about six months ago, there was a riot in the earth pony province of Coal Hagen. The locals, several thousand strong, threw out the garrisons of Legionnaires stationed in the region and declared themselves independent of the Low Valleys and the Tri-Pony compact. Now, not only does Cirra get food from Coal Hagen, the entirety of our coal and onyx for making Praetorian armors comes directly from the mines the province manages. So, when Chancellor Puddinghead requested that Cirra put down the insurrection and reclaim Coal Hagen, we were already two steps ahead of him.”

Hurricane had begun sprinting around the camp and gathering equipment while he talked, and he paused by the remains of the fire pit to try and bury the charcoal under heapings of snow. “Legate Streak Wing was in charge of the division I sent in. I’m sure you’ve run into the Legate a few times around Cloudsdale. He’s a survivor of the Red Cloud War, just a year or two older than me. He was on the eastern front around Stratopolis before it collapsed due to a call I made to pull back their reserves. It would have collapsed anyways with the sheer force the griffons were throwing at us, and I needed those troops for the defense of the city itself. He hates me for that, though, but he never showed it until Coal Hagen.

“Twenty-four thousand battle-hardened veterans were sent in under his command to take the province—no matter the cost. Streak Wing despises the earth ponies as much as he does me, and he saw the opportunity to spite two birds with one stone, as it were. So he led his regiment into the district capital and decimated the makeshift militia Coal Hagen had managed to muster to its defense, but it didn’t stop there. No, that was only the beginning of his slaughter. Every earth pony was killed, every stallion, mare, and foal, and every building was burnt to the ground. Then, when the Legion found out about his actions and attempted to have him tried and hung, he disappeared into the wilderness with his most loyal soldiers and has been harassing our scout parties ever since.”

Pan Sea’s chest was heaving as he fought back panic. “What about the other soldiers? C-couldn’t this be o-one of their w-weapons?”

“No. The other soldiers were all court martialed and dishonorably discharged from the Legion for their part in the massacre. They wouldn’t be out here, because they don’t have anything to gain from it. Also,” Hurricane tapped the axe with a hoof, “this is Streak Wing’s axe. Battle axes are not standard issue in the Legion. They’re unwieldy and heavy, so pegasus military doctrine on speed doesn’t apply if you’re carrying one. Streak Wing was the only Legionnaire to carry an axe into combat.” Looking at the SPQC, Hurricane grunted in annoyance and pushed the axe back to Pan Sea. “What a bucking irony that those four letters are engraved on this axe. No soldier who fights for the Senate and the ponies of Cirra slaughters innocents to spite his homeland.”

The wind picked up again, whistling through the trees with a disturbing rush of air. Branches creaked and limbs moaned, but Hurricane paused and glanced towards their tops. His ears were perked and swiveled from tree to tree, while one hoof was held in the air before his chest. The wind stopped, and so did the noise, and Hurricane quickly strapped the gear down to his sides.

“We have to go,” he muttered under his breath. Once all the bags were firmly attached to his flanks he tossed the axe back to Pan Sea and began to gallop for the momentum to launch himself skyward.

“What? What did you hear? Are they coming?” Pan Sea whirled in a frenzied circle, searching the clearing for any signs of movement. Finding none, he quickly fumbled with the axe before fastening it to his flank and sprinting after Hurricane. “H-hey! Wait up! D-don’t leave me here, Commander!!”

The gale had increased with altitude, buffeting Pan Sea’s face and neck with sharp crystals of snow and ice. Severe crosswinds ripped along his wings, shearing several feathers from the limbs and stripping altitude with each successive blast. Flying in a storm was bad enough, but attempting to do so while wearing a relic of iron armor from twenty years past made it nigh impossible for the diminutive pegasus. With the dark skies of night, Hurricane’s black coat was dreadfully hard to locate.

“Commander!” Pan Sea wailed into the night, searching for any sign of his superior. “Commander, where are you!!”

There was a tap at the yellow stallion’s shoulder, and Pan Sea shrieked in fear, his wings momentarily locking against his sides and stealing several dozen feet of sky from him. Before he could fall farther, strong hooves grappled his sides and unceremoniously flung him skyward again. Pan Sea stabilized his flight to see Hurricane gliding next to him, a hoof to his lips.

“Shh,” he hushed, glancing over his shoulder. “We’re being followed.”

They were difficult to spot against the cloudy skies in the dead of night, but Pan Sea knew he sure as hell saw something. Gray masses of clouds spiraled and twisted among each other with the winds, but he thought several times he saw other figures flowing with them, hopping from cloud to cloud to cover their advance. Was that a glint of light he just saw against skysteel?

Hurricane had already put fifty feet between him and Pan Sea, and the small pegasus had to struggle to keep up. The unnatural weight of the axe strapped to his side put Pan Sea off-balance several times, but within a few seconds he was closing on Hurricane’s tail hairs. Now, if he could just keep that pace for the rest of their flight…

Something whizzed by Pan Sea’s left ear, the thin, dark shape spinning end over end as it fell into the shadows below. The sudden appearance of the throwing knife halted Pan Sea in flight, his mouth hanging open while his wings fluttered to keep him aloft. “Um… Commander…?”

Hurricane flipped onto his back just in time to see a gray figure tackle Pan Sea out of the air. Only a few stray feathers lost on the wind and a dismayed shout remained as the pair of pegasi fell towards the ground.

“Shit.”

The Commander’s single utterance was all he had time to say before a chilling war cry descended upon him. Throwing his bladed wings to the sky, Hurricane heard them ring against the slash of a sword. Sparks from the steel fell around his face, and the pegasus flipped to drive his hind legs directly into the face of the astonished assailant. Hoof met bone with a resounding crack, and the helmet of Hurricane’s attacker flew off his head from the force. The unconscious pegasus tumbled out of the sky, and Hurricane caught its helmet. Nimbostratus skysteel glared back at him, the brow decorated with strips of cumulus. A centurion’s helmet, although the Cirran Blue plume had been frayed and repainted red. Tossing the armor out of his hooves, Hurricane descended to find Pan Sea.

Screeches and shouts guided him towards his beleaguered companion, and the Commander broke through a low clearing of clouds almost immediately on top of Pan Sea. The Legionnaire had somehow wormed his way out of his attacker’s grip and was busy trying to dodge ferocious strikes from bladed limbs, lending a weak hoof punch or two towards the rogue’s exposed face and neck. Pan Sea was not a particularly strong fighter, and the bandit shook off his attacks like the frost that accumulated on his chin. But what the skittish soldier lacked in strength, he more than made up for in speed and agility. The frustrated rogue found himself unable to land a single hit on Pan Sea aside from the initial tackle that took him out of the sky.

Shouting, Hurricane rammed his shoulder into the spine of the deserter, eliciting a satisfying groan of skysteel as his armor bent and twisted his opponent’s into his back. The gray pegasus shouted in agony, and Hurricane managed to grab his bladed wing against his side and twist. There was a sickening snap of bone and sinew, and the deserter immediately went limp; Hurricane figured he must have snapped the wing at the base, forcing the pegasus’ body to go into shock. Releasing the twisted limb, Hurricane let the body fall to the ground and flew towards Pan Sea.

“Sir! I just… thank you… I’m—”

“Shut it!” Hurricane shouted as he slapped Pan Sea. “Tighten your sword and fly through the trees! We’re outnumbered and exposed; it’s time to change the game!” When Pan Sea hesitated, the leading feathers of Hurricane’s wings crackled to life in fire. “That isn’t a damned suggestion, Pansy! Follow your orders!” Not looking to see if Pan Sea was behind him, Hurricane dove beneath the canopy as hostile shouting and whistling began to pick up around the shadowed forest.

Tree branches whipped past his head and wings as he pushed himself ever faster through their tangled mess. Leaves followed his hooves in a gusty whirlwind, drawn towards the center of his flight as the air he displaced returned with renewed vigor. The shouting was growing distant behind him, but he dared not slow down. He could only hope that Pan Sea was following him close behind, for the yellow stallion’s own sake. If he allowed himself to be caught, he was good as dead.

“Hurricane!!”

The cry of dismay hit the Commander like a nimbus hammer to his face. He quickly glanced over his shoulder to see two bandits wrestling Pan Sea to the ground, with each pegasus gripping one of his wings. A third was approaching with his sword drawn, his eyes burning and his wings trailing real fire. Hurricane twisted his wings backwards, trying to dump the speed he had amassed and return for Pan Sea.

A ferocious shout made itself audible to Hurricane a split-second before a body crushed the air out of his lungs and crumpled his wings. Several hundred pounds of skysteel and pegasus slammed into Hurricane, immediately reversing his momentum and launching the Commander backwards nearly thirty yards. Hurricane’s body whipped through tree limbs that splintered upon impact, and his face dragged for several additional yards in the dirt and snow as he slid from the impact. When he came to a rest, his face was pouring blood from scratches and from his nose, and his frayed wings were held to his sides in pain. Finding it impossible to breathe, he was unable to stand up to the troop of pegasi descending on him.

“Hurricane, Commander, it has been quite a long time.” The voice came from beyond the edge of Hurricane’s starry vision, and his neck lacked the strength to turn and locate it. He was beginning to recover his breath, but he remained still, trying to hide the rapid rising and falling of his chest. He would need that surprise for later.

Four white hooves entered Hurricane’s vision, the fur around the fetlocks matted and mud stained. Those limbs rose up into powerful legs supporting an off-white coat that covered the pegasus’ frame. Powerful brown eyes glared at Hurricane from under a black and red mane, but that wasn’t the rogue’s most distinctive feature. The primaries of his wings were a deep crimson in coloration, contrasting sharply with the white secondaries and bladed wing arms attached to powerful shoulders. The pony wore a heavy set of nimbostratus armor, with the decorative cumulus plates repainted a vibrant red. Intricate red war paint decorated the rest of his armor and his face, leaving the pegasus an intimidating countenance.

“Streak Wing,” Hurricane spat. “How dare you attack your Commander.” He tried to stand up, but the former Legate roughly shoved him back down into the ground. Hurricane’s grunt covered up a grimace of pleasure. Streak Wing wasn’t afraid of him. Excellent.

“You were never my Commander,” Streak Wing hissed. “You were once my Emperor, but even then you still lost your authority in my eyes. You’re a damned coward who hides behind stratagem to have his way. I knew the moment you came to power after Haysar’s death that it was the end of four hundred years of military doctrine. You spurned the traditions of the Empire with your rule. Hell, you finally killed it when you struck the title of ‘emperor’ from our command structure!”

Hurricane coughed, leaning onto one of his shoulders. He could barely see Pan Sea sitting across the small clearing, a bandit holding onto each wing. The Legionnaire was terrified, and his lips trembled as he watched Hurricane lie defeated before Streak Wing. Hurricane wished he could communicate with him, but to do so would draw Streak Wing’s ire towards the soldier.

“You wouldn’t know the kinds of choices I had to make… the kinds of choices I still have to make. Legionnaires think in terms of engagements, centurions in objectives, Legates in theaters of war. I had to manage an entire empire, Streak Wing. That not only includes its armies, but the ponies that live under its rule. I had to think of them first, Legate. You should understand. You swore an oath to Haysar, the Senate, and the Legion that you would place the lives of the innocent above your own. I understand what you went through—”

Streak Wing interrupted Hurricane’s words by stomping on his jaw. “No, Hurricane, you understand nothing! You were done after Feathertop, when Haysar made you Emperor for whatever Gods-damned reason! You didn’t fight in the Heartland, where day after day we retreated and fled like terrified foals! Where every town you stopped in, you knew, you knew, that those ponies wouldn’t survive the week, because the griffons would be upon them in days! You never were forced to cast your final stand in your hometown, trying to stand up to thousands of griffons with only a few hundred soldiers!!” Streak Wing was screaming, his hooves tearing up the ground in front of him as he thundered down on Hurricane. “You never stood in your own home, trying to shelter your single mother and three sisters with a company of griffons ripping apart the door! The very walls!! And then to hear that no reinforcements, absolutely nothing, would be coming to save your family because the ponies of Stratopolis were more important…!”

The white pegasus panted, his wings hanging loosely by his sides and beginning to form a coat of ice from his sadness. After screaming at the top of his lungs, his next murmured words carried even more weight than the sentences preceding it. “They forced me to watch my family die, Hurricane. The griffons held me down and ripped out their throats right before my very eyes. I can still hear my mother’s screams in my nightmares, feel my sisters’ blood pour onto my face in the rain. And it’s because we didn’t have the reinforcements needed to secure the town for evacuation. Because you kept them from us. You killed my family, Hurricane. And for that, I intend to make your death every bit as painful as my family’s, and then twice over.”

Hurricane spat out the dirt and snow in his teeth, grinding his jaw back and forth to relieve the pain from the blow. “Streak Wing, it’s been twenty years. Two decades! I lost my family too, but did I blame it on somepony else?” He shook his head what little he could on the ground. “Twenty years is a long time to hold a grudge. Do you know what that can do to a pony?”

Streak Wing pulled a dagger out of its scabbard and held it to Hurricane’s face. “A grudge?! A damn grudge?! This is more than a bucking grudge, Hurricane, this is vengeance, this is payback for the family you stole from me!” Taking a vial of clear liquid, he coated the blade with the solution, shaking off the excess drops. As two other pegasi grabbed Hurricane’s shoulders and pulled him into a sitting position, Streak Wing sat in front of the Commander and showed him his blade.

“You know what this is? Galm’s elixir, I believe the apothecaries call it. Named after the Lord of Disease and Sickness. Really, it’s just a fancy name for poison. A terrible, agonizing, horrendous poison, but a poison nonetheless. Colorless, odorless, tasteless, and slow to act. The perfect weapon for the sadistic assassin. You want to know what they say it feels like to die from this?” Streak Wing chuckled, resting his knife on the crown of Hurricane’s helmet. “Survivors who’ve encountered only a drop or two of it can survive. They say it feels like you’re burning apart on the inside. Your organs go into shock, one by one by one. Your skin falls apart and begins to bleed. Your feathers fall off of your wings in minutes. Soon enough you’re drowning in your own blood and vomit. Then, if you’ve had too much, your lungs begin to dissolve.” Giggling now, Streak Wing placed the tip of the blade on Hurricane’s chest. “They say if you cut the corpses up afterwards, their insides are indistinguishable from meat stew. What an excruciating, painful, terrible way to go, especially for the soulless leader of a once-proud Empire.”

The blade whistled through the air as Streak Wing reared skywards, and Hurricane grunted in pain as he felt the dagger sink into his chest. Streak Wing left it there, smiling as he walked over to where Pan Sea was being held. Retrieving his axe from the yellow Legionnaire’s side, Streak caressed it like a newborn before sitting down opposite Hurricane. Watching the Commander try to pace his breathing and slow his heart from delivering the poison to his body, the white pegasus laughed mercilessly and rested the pole of his axe on the ground. “Why try to delay it, Commander? I want to see you writhe in agony when the poison kicks in. Hear you pleading for me to end your life, to spare you from the horrible death the Elixir bestowed upon you. And I will laugh, and right as you choke on the remains of your lungs, I’ll drive my axe through your skull.” Baring his teeth in an unnatural smile, Streak Wing leaned closer. “I’m an honorable soldier, Hurricane. If you have any last words, I’ll make sure that your family hears them. I would not wish them additional suffering for the justice I bring down on you today.”

Hurricane coughed, finding it difficult to move with the dagger lodged in his chest. His wings were tingling, but he couldn’t tell if it was from the poison that was beginning to work its way through his body or the piece of skysteel embedded in his ribcage. Whatever it was, he had to trust that he could still use them. It was his only opportunity…

“I don’t have any last words,” Hurricane spat, leering back at Streak Wing’s face. “And you deserve no such honor!”

Before the deserters could react, Hurricane smashed his wings together and shook off the ponies holding them down. Streak Wing flinched, and the Commander made him pay for the motion with a shoulder to the chin. Blood flew from the former Legate’s nose, and Hurricane ripped his sword from its scabbard, the ethereal skysteel aimed directly for Streak Wing’s throat.

Metal rang on metal, and Streak Wing rebounded one of his namesake limbs off of Hurricane’s sword, deflecting the weapon entirely. Twisting out of the block, Streak Wing aimed a hoof at Hurricane’s wounded chest. The black pegasus hopped over it, the dagger lodged just under his breastplate hindering him in no way. Spinning on his front hooves, Hurricane delivered a powerful buck to Streak Wing’s neck, kicking him back several feet. The air whistled as the sword was again brought to bear on the Legate, and the pegasus managed to catch the blade on the handle of his axe. Maneuvering the heavy weapon put him off balance, and Hurricane was in for the next strike before he could react. The sword glanced off of Streak’s bladed wing, cleaving six or seven skysteel scales from the weapon, as well as trimming several red and white feathers.

Streak Wing tried to counter, but again he was too slow. Hurricane twisted under a clumsy axe swing, tripping the Legate with his hind leg as he passed. The white stallion stumbled to the ground, and Hurricane drove his sword deep into the traitor’s flank. It was not a kill wound, but it was crippling nonetheless, and the charges in Hurricane’s sword made it much more painful. Fire, ice, thunder and lightning tore across the Legate’s side, forcing him to cry out in pain. Streak Wing tried to stand and retaliate, but his wounded leg refused to obey him. Rolling away from another stab of Hurricane’s sword, Streak Wing managed to flutter to safety from across the clearing.

Hurricane attempted to pursue him, but the pain in his chest came back to hit him again, along with a sensation he didn’t recognize. He was sweating profusely, rivulets of salty water pouring off of his neck and sides, and his muscles burned and writhed in agony beneath his crawling skin. Black spots decorated the edge of his vision, disappearing only to reappear seconds later. The poison was beginning to cut him apart, and soon enough it would attack his organs.

The rest of the deserters had formed around Streak Wing, their weapons bared and their faces bloody. Opposite them, Pan Sea limped over to where Hurricane stood, his wingblades coated in blood and his sword clamped in his teeth. The two sides glared at each other, two Legionnaires against ten traitors.

“Damn you, Hurricane,” Streak Wing spat as he looked at his wound. “Damn you and your sword of storms to the gates of hell! May Garuda spite whatever it is that you have in place of a soul to the underworld! You will die alone, in agony and alone!” Gesturing for his cohorts to step back, Streak Wing lit his coat on fire with a burst of Empatha, cauterizing the wound against his side. Although it stopped the bleeding, it could not repair the damaged muscle underneath, and the Legate was too weak to fly. Instead, he stumbled off of the battlefield, his fellow rogues supporting him as he left.

Hurricane’s breathing was growing increasingly ragged as he watched them go, and he began to stumble about the clearing. Pan Sea tried to support him, but the private was hardly better off than the Commander himself; blood poured from wounds along his neck and face, and one wing was held awkwardly to the side. He tried to offer soothing sentiments and advice, but Hurricane’s ears had long since stopped working. The only thing he heard was the rush of blood against his eardrums, carrying its lethal payload to his brain. Gods, his insides were burning.

Wait. Burning. Hurricane’s increasingly disordered mind recollected the events of not even a minute past, when Streak Wing had used his Empatha to cauterize his wound. Could he…?

It was worth a shot, but first, Hurricane needed something flammable. His eyes scanned the clearing, seeing through what little field of view he had left. Alcohol, lantern oil, anything! They were bandits, for Mobius’ sake!

There. Hurricane nearly collapsed as he tried to run towards it. Nestled against the side of a tree was a large bottle of whiskey. Releasing a guttural sound in place of a cry of joy, Hurricane fumbled with the glass container to see that it really was whiskey. Indeed it was, and a very high proof rating at that. That was good. Hurricane needed as much straight alcohol as he could get.

He almost swallowed the cork as he dumped the contents of the bottle down his throat. He had lost feeling in his wings, and his eyesight was on the brink of total darkness as well. Emptying the bottle in one quick chug, Hurricane tossed it to the side, almost hitting Pan Sea in the process. The yellow stallion trotted up to Hurricane, worry and confusion plastered across his face.

“S-sir? What are you doing? Are you sure now is a good time to drink? I-I mean, if you really want to, that’s okay with me, I guess, but—”

“Shuzuhp, Panshee,” Hurricane slurred, his deteriorating condition making it difficult to speak. He gave the alcohol several seconds to soak into his bloodstream, as long as he could possibly spare. This would either work and save his life or it would backfire tragically and only kill him faster. Whatever would happen, it was his only shot.

Hurricane squinted his now-blind eyes and gritted his teeth, focusing his energy on mobilizing his incredible Empatha reserves. He could feel the magic moving within his bloodstream, competing for space with the alcohol and poison he consumed. When he felt he was ready and his breathing was beginning to grow strained, Hurricane shouted in rage and sparked the Empatha within him.

His first sensation was one of incredible warmth. Every extremity in his body, from nose to wingtips to hooves, suddenly felt like it had been resting near a skyforge for far too long. But still Hurricane concentrated, forcing more Empatha into the fire he had sparked within his own bloodstream.

The second sensation was much more pleasant than the first. The burning, writhing agony from the poison slowly began to melt away, as did the fire in his gut from the alcohol. His mind began to clear and his vision began to recover. The adrenaline that had been pouring through his veins was suddenly vaporized, bringing Hurricane from a state of alarm to near calm in seconds. Then, as quickly as it began, the fire stopped, and Hurricane collapsed onto the ground.

“Commander!” Pan Sea shouted, stumbling to Hurricane’s side. The black pegasus was lying face down in the snow, his wings spread carelessly to either side. But his ears twitched and his shoulders moved. He was alive.

It took several minutes for the side effects of the toxin to fully clear from Hurricane’s body, but when they did, he stood up on shaky hooves. Panting, the Commander’s bloodshot eyes darted across the clearing from tree to tree. He ran a hoof across his face, his neck, his wings, checking that he was in one piece. When he found that everything was intact, he smiled. Then he laughed. Then, he stumbled to Pan Sea and gave the private a warm hug.

“Alive!” Hurricane whispered to himself. “I’m alive! I can’t believe that worked!” His chuckles continued as he separated, and he fluttered several feet off of the ground. A kink in his wing arm and pain in his chest forced him back to the ground in pain, and Hurricane quickly bent down and pulled the dagger out of his chest. A quick application of Empatha was all that was necessary to staunch the bleeding.

“How?” was all Pan Sea muttered as he walked closer to Hurricane, still unable to believe that he had survived. “That was Galm’s Elixir. It’s more dangerous than anything the unicorn alchemists have ever produced. You shouldn’t have been able to survive it!”

Hurricane laughed again and swished his tail. “No, I shouldn’t have. But I cheated.” Smirking, he found his sword where it had lay on the snow. “Streak Wing’s quick application of fire Empatha to cauterize his wounds gave me an idea. You know how a pegasus can light themselves on fire and not be hurt? Well, I figured it had something to do with the interactions between the pegasus body and their Empatha. So I started a fire within myself to burn away the poison. I was worried that only our coats keep us safe from our own fire and that I would roast myself from within, but luckily, that wasn’t the case.”

The Commander looked at his sword for several seconds before gently putting it back into its scabbard. Sword of Storms. He liked that name. He’d have to make sure he thanked Streak Wing for it before he split his neck. Panting, Hurricane took several more steps before collapsing on his side from exhaustion. “I… I think I’ll be taking a nap now. That was damned tiring. Whew.”

Pan Sea trotted over and sat down by Hurricane’s side. “Sounds like a good idea, sir. What about Streak Wing? He got away.”

The answer came simply enough as Hurricane felt the long awaited embrace of sleep fall upon him. “Streak Wing? That’s easy. We find him. Then we kill him.”

Daylight came soon enough, shedding its feeble rays through the gray skies and finally providing the first real light Clover and Platinum’s campsite had seen since the fire burnt out. The dull shadows scurried back to their sources against the dim sun rising in the east, and the first of the winter birds began to sing their lonely melodies. The music reached Clover’s ears from afar, and she looked up from the rocks she had been examining. She had already covered several million years in the fossil records they provided, and it seemed like a good point to take a break. Shuffling to her hooves, she began a quick trot along the lakeside to stretch out her muscles.

Star Swirl had taught his apprentice long ago about the benefits of physical exercise to her magic, and Clover took those lessons very seriously. A fat and unfit unicorn found it harder to channel the mana needed to pull off feats of Arcana than a healthy and lean one, and Clover was certainly healthy and lean. The physical exercise widened the blood vessels leading to her brain and her horn, making it easier to collect and utilize mana for her spells. She hummed happily to herself as she trotted along, her bushy green mane flopping with her gait and the slight breeze. She needed to encourage Platinum to take up a similar regimen to prevent the decay of her own Arcana like so many of the nobles in River Rock. The Princess was gifted with a large amount of mana and had the ability to focus it better than most unicorns, but channeling it was what hindered her arcane ability. It would be a shame to let that gift go to waste.

By the time the sun was halfway up in the sky, Clover figured she must have trotted ten miles back and forth along the shore. Stopping for breath, the light-green mare sat down on the pebbly beach and stared across the sapphire waters towards the distant shore. The night before, she had seen lights there. Now, she only caught short glimpses of a burnt pyre settled in a large clearing. Low-lying fog obscured the ground, so Clover couldn’t see how many tents were erected, if any at all. Even if the ponies who had camped there the night before were gone, the scholar in her demanded that she find a way across the river and learn all she could about their customs and behaviors.

Standing up, the mare looked for a way across the lake. It was about a quarter mile between the two shores at the bottleneck, and with the water temperature likely just above freezing, it would be much too cold to swim across. The surprising lack of ice on the lake’s surface meant that walking there was impossible, and Clover knew with absolute certainty that walking around the shores of the lake to get to the other side was impossible. Sapphire Lake was a hundred miles in perimeter, too far to walk around. No, she needed a way directly across the surface of the lake.

It took Clover’s observant eyes only two seconds to find a solution. The lake was host to a large island directly between the two shores, covering most of the distance needed to get across. The problem was the deep and fast channels of water that surged past it on either side. Trying to swim through them meant certain death, and there weren’t any bridges to cross with. Or were there?

A large, dead oak lay near the shore of the river, its trunk about sixty feet in length. Easily long enough to cross the rapids, but its structural integrity was another question. Trotting over to the log, Clover tested the wood with her horn and her hoof. The bark was soggy and rotted, but the wood within was strong and supportive—to a point. Although Clover had few doubts that it would be able to support the weight of a pony going across, she had no way of telling if any of the core wood was rotted out. Plus, it looked exceedingly heavy. Clover had used her Arcana to move three hundred and fifty pounds of solid iron from the floor to the roof of a storehouse during one of Star Swirl’s strength tests, but the log was probably much heavier. To move it, she would need Platinum’s help. And Platinum’s help could not be earned, it had to be bought.

Trotting back to the camp, Clover carefully bypassed the tent where Princess Platinum’s obnoxious snoring was actually causing the canvas flap to flutter. It was already half past nine—so much for an early start on the day’s hike—but Clover had no intention of waking the Princess just yet. Sneaking around the tent, the mare found the baggage which contained Platinum’s ‘personal luggage’. Rummaging through the contents to make sure anything of practical value was removed, Clover snorted as she nosed open a box of expensive pastries. Why, the nerve! Platinum was so worried about her own hunger and comfort that she stole those away from River Rock, where they could easily counter a few days’ worth of hunger for a poor family of four. Clover grunted in annoyance and slid the pastries into one of her own bags. Since the Princess had brought them along, she might as well spare them from what she was about to do next.

Holding the luggage in front of her with her magic, Clover happily cantered towards the closest point along the shore to the campsite on the other side. Factoring into account wind speed, direction, distance, and air pressure with some observant estimates, the mare cocked the luggage behind her head, aligning her horn in a precise angle. Firmly planting her rear hooves in the ground, Clover reared and flung Platinum’s spare robes and perfumes across the lake as hard as she could.

The saddlebags tumbled through the air end over end before impacting the opposite shore with a dull thud. Clover smiled as she noted where they landed. Okay, so she was a little bit off on the air pressure and wind speed, but her angle of release gave the bags enough hang time to clear the lake in no problem. They just landed a little bit closer to the water and a little bit farther to the right than she had intended. No matter, she would take within a twenty-five foot radius any day if it furthered her goals.

Now that Platinum had lost something of value that could only be recovered by helping Clover out, the green mare returned to camp and began to prepare the morning meal, singing to herself as she did so. She was badly off-key—most unicorn composers would have thought she was singing in a different key signature—but she didn’t care. There was learning to be done, and that made the day, by default, a very excellent day.

Platinum finally emerged from the tent as the smell of breakfast reached her. She immediately jammed her hooves into her ears as she heard Clover’s singing in all its majesty for the first time, her tail held tightly between her knees as she cringed in agony. Turning around from the kettle she was manning and taking notice of the Princess, Clover abruptly cut off the high note that was at least seven flats too many and ran a hoof through her mane, her green cheeks taking on a rosy color. Quickly filling a bowl with some celery and broccoli stew, she levitated it over to the still yawning Princess and shuffled her hooves across the sand and pebbles.

“Uh… hi, Princess. I trust your night’s sleep was… adequate?”

Platinum nodded, taking a small sip of her stew and pretending that she hadn’t borne witness to Clover’s mutilation of popular operas. “Oh, it was passable, darling. The bedrolls are obviously not quite as comfortable as what I’m used to back in the castle, but it could be worse. I could have to spend my nights sleeping in the mud like the earth ponies. Still, that’s one lesson to consider as you grow older. No matter how bad things might seem, they’ll never be as bad as they could be in the Low Valleys. Hmm.” She sipped again from her bowl, savoring the flavor as it soaked her tongue. The weather was warmer at least, probably pushing forty degrees, and that would make for good hiking. Platinum already had the schedule planned out. Hike for thirty minutes, rest for an hour and clean her mane; hike for another hour, rest for a half hour to clean her tail. Walk for fifteen minutes, then pause for an hour long lunch before continuing onward again, alternating half hours of walking with half hours of rest. Maybe by the end of the day she would be able to see her new home in the distance. But first she would have to get ready for the day’s journey, and that meant clothes.

“Clover, dear, could you fetch me my morning dress? I need to change out of this formal robe into something different. I’m afraid it’s going to get ruined if I continue on in it for much longer.” The mareservant nodded and walked off behind the tent, her hooves taking on almost too-perfect of a rhythm as she passed Platinum. The Princess raised an eyebrow at it, but disregarded the action completely. Who knew what caused servants to act the way they did? It wasn’t for Platinum to ponder.

“Uh… Princess?” Clover’s voice bounced timidly around the tent, reaching Platinum’s perked ears. The Princess had just finished chugging the rest of her stew in a decidedly unladylike manner, feeling safe that nopony was looking at her. She quickly slammed the empty bowl back down on the rock in front of her when she heard Clover’s voice, glancing nervously over her shoulder to make sure that her actions were unseen.

“What is it?!” She asked, perhaps several decibels louder than acceptable social tone. There was a pause from behind the tent as if Clover was trying to figure out the reasoning behind the increase in volume, but her answer continued without much hindrance.

“Your baggage is… gone, your Highness.”

Platinum spluttered, rising to her hooves and whirling around the tent faster than she had ever moved in her life. “Gone?! What do you mean it’s gone?! It can’t be gone!! All my fine dresses and gowns were in those bags!!” She collapsed onto the beaches in dismay, her forelegs outstretched to the heavens above, asking the sun why such a thing would happen to her.

“Wait, Princess! I think I see them!” Pointing with her hoof, Clover gestured across the lake to the distant shore. Platinum followed her foreleg, then pulled on her mane when she saw where Clover was pointing.

“There?! How on Earth did it get over there?!” Platinum wailed, placing a hoof to her forehead in dismay. She began to pace back and forth, leaving Clover to stare at her in uncomfortable silence.

“What are we going to do, your Highness?” the green mare finally chirped up. Platinum barely stopped her pacing as she considered Clover’s question, the white fur of her gown quickly taking on a browner coloration as more dirt and grime affixed itself to the hem.

“Well we can’t just leave it there,” she muttered, mostly to herself. “Those dresses cost thousands of bits; thousands! And they’re my favorites, too! Why, we need to find a way to cross. But how? It’s not like we have a boat or anything.”

Clover took a deep breath, trying to slow her heart. “Well, when I was trotting the shores this morning, I found an island that we could use as a stepping stone to cross. There was a rotten tree trunk nearby that was long enough to get from one shore to the other. We could move that in place to cross easily!”

Platinum’s eyebrows perked, and she let out a sigh of relief. “Oh, that’s wonderful news Clover. Well, get on it, will you? I’ll just hang back here and watch the camp.” Locating a leafy branch, the Princess pulled it towards herself and set about using it to sweep away as much of the sand on a nearby rock as she could, with the obvious intention of sitting on it to watch Clover try to cross the river.

The light-green mare coughed into her hoof and rolled her shoulders. “I… uh, I can’t move it on my own, your Highness. It’s much too heavy. I’d need your help to get across.”

“Oh heavens, no, Clover, you must be out of your mind. I am a Princess; I don’t need to do such rough and manual labor.”

“It’s either you help me, or we leave your baggage over there. I can’t get it by myself.”

Platinum bit her lip. She really didn’t want to do work… but on the other hoof, she really liked those dresses. It was a tough decision for the pampered Princess, and she spent several minutes thinking about it before finally making her choice.

Soon enough, Platinum found herself straining alongside Clover to lift the log out of the sand and mud. A light-green aura pulled on three quarters of the log, while a withering blue aura strained on the remaining quarter. Both ponies were covered in sweat, and they had only managed to move the tree trunk several feet closer to the water.

“Time!” Platinum shouted, collapsing onto the rotting wood but immediately shifting her trajectory to lie on the sand instead. “I can’t do this, Clover! It’s too heavy! Can’t you help out more?”

Clover sat down next to Platinum, sweat dripping from her mane and horn. “I’m sorry, Princess, but I’m already struggling to lift most of the weight on my own. I need you to carry more if we’re going to move this thing.”

“But I can’t! It’s no use! Those dresses are lost to us forever!” Platinum flopped on her back, already resigned to defeat, but Clover wasn’t ready to give up yet.

Leaning down closer to the Princess, Clover pointed towards the island. “That’s how far we have to go, Princess. We’re close, we’ve moved the log quite a bit, but we just need to get it over this channel and we’ll be golden. I know you’re strong enough to do it, your Highness. I may be gifted in the art of Arcana, but so are you! I’ve seen you do incredible things with your magic. You have a lot of mana—easily as much as your father! Don’t you want to prove to the King that you’re not just another noble, you’re a royal capable of protecting the Kingdom?”

Something triggered with the Princess. Platinum groaned and stretched her aching limbs skyward, but there was a determined resolve in her eyes. Scrambling to her hooves, she set her crown on the beach and shook the sand out of her mane. “Very well, Clover. Let’s see if we can move this.” Her horn sparkled to life, her blue Arcana greedily seizing more than half of the log and ripping one end out of the sand and mud with a sucking, popping noise. “Put your back into it, darling! Show me what you can do!”

Clover was stunned, but that wasn’t to say that she was disappointed. Jumping to her hooves, she bent down and grabbed hold of her share of the log with her Arcana and tugged on it. Together, the two unicorns were able to free the tree branch from the sand and haul it across the channel, bridging the island and the shore.

“We did it!” the young mare happily shouted, bouncing on her hooves and letting her tail and mane flop around her. Platinum smiled as well and levitated her crown back onto her head from the sand. Then she hopped onto the log and began to cross, her hooves taking tentative but steady steps across its rotting surface.

“Come on, Clover, we’ve got dresses to save!”

Nodding, the light-green mare bounded after Platinum on the log, carefully trotting across. When both unicorns were situated on the island, Clover led the way through the small thicket of trees, trudging around large piles of snow and other hazards. When they came to the other side of the island, they were greeted by a series of rocky stepping stones that crossed the swirling rapids to the opposite shore. They were easy enough to cross with some well-timed jumps, and soon the two unicorns were walking towards where Platinum’s baggage lay in a shallow crater near the water.

“Oh, Celestis, there you are!” the Princess cooed as she rushed over to her bags. She quickly opened them up, beginning to manually inspect that all of her dresses were intact and dry. The procedure would take several minutes, as Platinum had to turn each one about several times to make sure that they were all clean and presentable. That gave Clover enough time to scour the campsite for clues of the ponies who stayed there the night before.

The camp was nestled within a rather large clearing of trees that was very easily a full acre. A strong wall of pines and oak shadowed the forest beyond, and their trunks were fenced with an impenetrable mesh of bushes and brambles. Some winter berries hung from the bushes in relative abundance, their skins bright red and black. Clover would have to remember to pick some before she left.

The clearing itself was floored by a sand and silt composition not unlike the campsite that the unicorns had stayed at the night before. The sand was covered in drag marks leading to the water, hinting towards the presence of canoes or other forms of water transportation. Most surprising, however, was the splash of dried blood that decorated the ground in front of the remains of the pyre.

That drew Clover’s attention to the signs of habitation that littered the area. A massive pile of burnt wood easily standing five feet tall was ringed by a series of large rocks with the tops all angled inwards. Several logs made up the benches surrounding the pyre; the tree stumps they were cut from accounted for a few more. Outside the ring of seats was a wide space for tents and bedrolls, occupying a decent stretch of hardened soil and stone. Clover gleefully noted that several of the tents were still erect. Perhaps she could interview the ponies when they returned and learn more about their ways of life. She rarely got the chance to interact with other ponies outside of the castle. She only had time off once a week, and even then she was not allowed outside of the city walls.

Platinum had finished sorting through her bags and was looking about with a puzzled expression on her face, one hoof supporting her chin. “Clover, darling, have you seen a… package, lying about? I know for sure that there was one within the saddlebag carrying all the dresses.”

Clover had to suppress the twitching that came to the corners of her mouth as she turned back to her Princess. “Sorry, your Highness, I haven’t seen anything of the sort. All I see around here are tents and plates and…” Her words trailed off as she noticed for the first time a pile of charred white sticks. She carefully skulked closer, curiosity and apprehension fighting for control within her. With a hoof, she brushed aside a loose covering of dirt and sand that coated the sticks. Barely managing to stifle a squeal, Clover stumbled backwards in fear.

A large pile of bones greeted her, obviously the remains of rodents and other small creatures. The white skeletons had been burnt and charred from a fire, and several were cracked open for the marrow within. No trace of flesh or muscle hung from their surfaces. Whatever the creatures were, they had been skinned, cooked, and eaten.

“Clover, darling, what is it?” Platinum called from the shore. “Did you find anything? Like my… erm, parcel?”

Clover shook her head, trying to catch her breath. “No, Princess. But I did find… bones.” She gulped once, and looked about the clearing with a new sensation of dread. Suddenly, waiting for whoever resided in this camp to return didn’t seem like such a good idea.

There was a low whistle from somewhere in the woods to her left. At first, Clover thought it was a bird, but there was something off about it, like there was too much air behind the noise. A shorter whistle answered it from the right, the pitch climbing sharply towards the end before being cut off. Then there was silence. Cruel and merciless silence. Even the twittering of the cardinals in the treetops had fallen silent.

Platinum heard the whistling as well, and was clutching the bag against her chest. Her knees shook and her tail swished back and forth, but her horn was fully enveloped in a strong aura of blue Arcana. Clover was likewise readied, her legs spread out and her head lowered as she tried to create an intimidating appearance. Beneath that mask and the green Arcana she projected, the young mare was searching her mind for every offensive spell she could think of. Unfortunately, her brain refused to think properly, and the mounting silence was only bringing her closer and closer to hyperventilation.

“Princess…?” Clover began warily, trying to backpedal to her master without taking her eyes off of the bushes. The leaves were twitching, and dark shadows scurried between each other, disappearing from sight just before the mare could attempt to analyze them. She thought she heard a twig snap to her right.

“Clover, I think it’s best we be going,” Platinum began warily. Before Clover could even nod, the undergrowth exploded with charging ponies of all colors and sizes.

Clover screamed, letting loose every spell she could think of from her horn. Strikes of green Arcana scattered among the charging ponies, missing most but causing several to cry out in pain. The academic part of her mind observed that she was releasing pure mana with her Arcana rather than using it to weave spells, a simple yet brutish way for a unicorn to fight. Even then, it was the best she could do.

“Run!” Clover shouted, turning tail and kicking up dust to the attacking ponies. Platinum had surprisingly dispatched two assailants of her own, flinging another skywards with her Arcana. She breathlessly nodded to Clover and began to sprint back along the shoreline towards the stepping stones leading towards the island.

Clover could feel the ponies breathing down her neck as she ran, their shod hooves thudding thunderously on the sand behind her. Casting a few blinding flares behind her as she ran, Clover launched herself forward over what her ears discerned to be a frustrated dive towards her hooves and was soon caught up with her Princess.

Platinum’s breathing was heavy and her gait was strained underneath the flowing gown that billowed out from behind her as she ran. The rocks were only several more yards out in front of them. If they could just cross back to the opposite shore, they would be able to take down the log bridge and prevent their pursuers from following them.

“Princess, the rocks!” Clover shouted as she pulled alongside Platinum. Spinning on her hind legs, Star Swirl’s apprentice cast a few more offensive attacks at the ponies following her before completing the rotation and changing her angle for the stepping stones. They were almost there, so close…

A pair of bolas flew out of the woods, entwining around Clover’s legs with frightening force and speed, bringing the mare to the ground. She snorted as her chin hit the sand and snow, causing her to inhale loose grains of sand, before she painfully flopped onto her side and slid several feet farther. Her four hooves were painfully and tightly tied together, and she desperately flailed her limbs to try and shake off the weights binding them to each other.

Platinum barely had time to react before a similar fate ensnared her as well, the bolas wrapping around three of her legs and then once around her shoulders, fixing her limbs against her sides and her neck. It was much more uncomfortable than the position Clover was tied in, and the Princess wailed and struggled with her free leg and her teeth to try and free herself.

Seeing the pursuing ponies rapidly gaining ground on them, Clover turned her horn towards her bindings and tried to summon a rendition of the letter opener spell Star Swirl had taught her, except with much more power. But when the spell failed to start, Clover realized something she hadn’t before from the adrenaline and shock of being suddenly trapped; intense, escalating pain, seemingly paralyzing her entire body. Her horn flared erratically, producing painful sparks of Arcana that streamed onto her face and into her eyes and rendering the appendage useless. Finding the strength to move her legs, Clover was able to observe the bolas that bound her. They were connected with a thick cord of rope and sinew from some large animal, but the weights mortified her the most. Heavy black rocks sparked with contact from her skin, and she could see them absorbing streams of Arcana from her horn and body. Star Swirl had taught her what void crystals looked like and how they behaved long ago, but she had never actually encountered them before. The experience was something she’d never forget, so long as her brain would stop hurting long enough to form a coherent thought. Her head felt like a regiment of pegasi were romping within, banging on her skull and ears with their terrible skysteel weapons. It made her want to throw up.

As her captors closed around her, Clover began to bring the other significant aspect of void crystals to the top of her mind. They only affected unicorns, but neither the Low Valleys nor Cirra used them; the earth ponies simply couldn’t with how intertwined their society was with the Diamond Kingdom’s, and the superstitious pegasi condemned them as tools of the damned and sorcerers of black magic. There was only one nation that used void crystals, as much of a nation as they were.

Sure enough, the sun glinted off the coats of the earth ponies that gathered around Clover and Platinum. Both mares had stopped their struggling from the pain of the void crystals and were only able to look on helplessly as they became surrounded. Heavy iron weapons were planted in the sand and snow around their necks, and the ponies began to grunt to each other in the tongue of the Crystal Barbarians. Clover tried to make out what they were saying, for their language was not much different from Equiish, but the brutality with which they spat the phrases to each other made words impossible to discern. Glancing towards each other, both unicorns widened their eyes in fear. Everypony knew that the Crystal warlords had vowed to kill every unicorn they captured until the Diamond Kingdom finally collapsed. Clover had little doubt that her fate would be different.

The guttural shouting stopped all at once with a harsh word from somewhere behind Clover’s head. She tried to jerk her neck back to see where it came from, but all she succeeded in doing was sending brilliant flashes of red and purple to the backs of her eyes. She could feel her heart pounding as the Arcana in her blood reacted with the void crystals around her legs. Void poisoning was swiftly becoming a realer and realer threat for both unicorns as the crystals fed on the Arcana in their bodies. Clover squinted her eyes and began to moan through gritted teeth as she felt the energy literally leaving her through her hooves. Just when she thought she couldn’t take it anymore, the bolas were unwrapped from her legs and the cursed crystals were returned to whomever they belonged to.

“Unicorns,” said a low voice over Clover’s head, the single word filled with poison and hate. Rough hooves searched her body, checking her vitals and stripping away the bags she wore on her flanks. The foreign hoof lingered on her cutie mark for several seconds before it withdrew, accompanied by a short snorting sound. “They came to our camp? Did they steal anything, or alert others?”

One of the barbarians, a large stallion with a warhammer as long as Clover was tall, slammed the weapon into the ground with a thunderous force and pounded one hoof across his chest in customary Crystal Pony salute. “No, sir. We found ‘em sneakin’ about the pyre when we came back from th’ hunt. Chased ‘em down here, ‘fore you got ‘em. Best we’s could tell, they’s th’ ponies responsible for th’ fire across th’ lake lass night. Twas a small fire, right, boss? You’s the one who scouted it. Methinks they’s the only two horns here.”

The lead pony grunted and roughly placed his dirty hoof on Clover’s flank again. “Good. Round up their stuff from across the lake. I see exactly who we’re dealing with here. Isn’t that right, Princess Platinum?”

Two of the Crystal Ponies pulled Platinum off of the ground, each holding a foreleg in their grasp. The white mare was still panting from the effects of the void crystals, but the growl of her response was no less menacing because of it. The warlord only laughed, a powerful bass vibration that Clover could feel trembling through her body.

“So I thought. You’re a long ways from home, aren’t you, Platty? Whatever are you doing out in the wilderness?” His laugh again shook the ground around Clover, and she felt herself suppress a frightened whimper in response. “Did you anger your father? Did you shame your pathetic Kingdom, you and your Celestis-damned valley, where the unicorns do nothing but sit back on their bucking flanks and act like they already rule the world?! Bah!” He spat at the ground, missing Clover’s muzzle by mere inches. “I really hope one day that the world tears you pathetic unicorns a new one, Princess. How much I wish for it to be the Crystal Ponies under my command, but Cirra is too strong. So I guess I’ll just have to settle for doing what I can with the daughter of the unicorn king. And who knows, maybe one day it’ll be Cirra who finally does you spineless whelps in.”

“Cirra would never do that,” Clover moaned from beneath the warlord’s hoof. “They’re our sworn protectors… we signed a compact…”

The stallion above snorted and rolled Clover onto her back so she could look into his face. A large head of white and gray fur under a similarly light-gray mane bared down on her, blue eyes threatening to wipe her off the face of the Earth with a single blink. Those eyes burned with a passionate fire, the fire of incredible hardship and loss but also of victory and plunder. Those eyes had seen life, and they did not like what they saw. Clover felt herself trembling under the hexagonal irises that burned through her coat, their unnatural polygonal shapes putting fear into her heart. Those eyes brightened with a dark anger when the warlord began to speak.

“I do not recognize you, young mare. Perhaps you are one of Platinum’s servant girls.” Clover opened her mouth to answer, but the warlord slapped it shut with a hoof, leaving a painful red welt on her cheek. “Never talk when I am talking, horn, unless I give you permission to speak. Now, you must be a servant girl if you’re so naïve about how the world works. Tell me, why does Cirra protect the other tribes?”

Clover coughed, her nose twitching as she tried to blow away the dust decorating her muzzle. “Because… because of the Compact?”

The warlord’s face lightened, and he loosened some of the pressure on Clover’s shoulders. “Yes, because of the Compact. Little more than words on paper. A promise kept by Hurricane that Cirra would respect the rights of the other tribes so long as he lives. So long as he lives, pony. Hurricane is an honorable soldier, a worthy adversary; why, I would do just about anything to have the honor of one-on-one combat with him. But the rest of Cirra? The rest of the Legion? They may be loyal to his word, but no farther. The pegasus soul can be likened to a hawk, because in reality, that is all that they are. Majestic, graceful warriors of the sky, but they prey on the weak. They are driven by a desire for power, and they will stop at nothing to augment it in some way. That is how they founded their empire on that land across the ocean. They may be your allies today, but one day they will conquer you and enslave you, just like they did to their neighbors.”

Clover’s brow furrowed and she gritted her teeth against the slap she was sure to receive for speaking out. “But Hurricane isn’t the only strong leader! His wife and his children would see to it that the terms of the Compact remain in place even after he dies! Cirra would never turn on us!”

“You confuse power with honor, young mare. Politics are lost on you. I may be what you call a barbarian back in the Kingdom, but I am a strong leader, one of the strongest in the world. The warlords clamor over each other to ally themselves with me; I have an army of a hundred thousand, which I have been building for the past few years. While the majority of them may be tied down fighting the Unionists in the north and east, I still have a formidable force for taking River Rock. I am as strong as they come. Tell me, does that make me honorable? Do I obey laws and treaties?”

The chief warlord shook his head. “No, it does not. Honor is something personal. It knows no codes other than the ones its owner establishes on it.” He leaned closer, hissing into Clover’s face. “The Kingdom will fall, it is only a matter of time. And Cirra will break you; that too is only a matter of time. I tested the limits of the Diamond Kingdom twelve years ago, when warlord Heavy Trot led his fiery campaign across hundreds of miles of your territory. You were on the brink of collapse until Cirra routed my armies. Do you think you can stand up to their might?” He spat again and increased the pressure on Clover’s flank. “Your Princess knows it will happen. She and Hurricane hate each other, and hate brings only conflict and death. The skirmishes between the Legion and the Diamond Guard over food are only the beginning.”

Straightening his back, the earth pony watched as several of his warriors returned with most of Clover and Platinum’s provisions. Seeing them return, Platinum finally found the strength to speak up again.

“And just what do you plan on doing to us? Kill us? I may be sheltered, Halite, but I know that you’re not like the other warlords. You don’t kill what you can use.”

Halite seemed surprised that Platinum knew his name. “You’re more informed than I thought, Princess. I didn’t know that the Kingdom kept tabs on the warlords roaming about the countryside. But you’re right, I don’t kill what I can use.” Gesturing to some of his warriors, Halite stepped back from Clover. “Put rings on their horns and tie them up. We’re taking them back to Onyx Ridge. They’ll be worth something for sure, the Princess especially.”

Clover tried to put her thoughts in order before the Crystal Ponies could put a void ring on her horn and bring back the pain again. Halite, Halite, Halite. She knew that name from somewhere. Surely it was something that Star Swirl taught her. Or was it something she looked up on her own? The archmage wasn’t particularly fond of teaching Clover about the Crystal warlords that terrorized the countryside, but he might have said something about him. Halite the something, Halite…

Then realization dawned on her face as the barbarians slipped the ring on her horn. The warlord she was looking at was known as Halite Hornreaver. The warlord that destroyed an entire regiment of Diamond Guard with just a hoofful of scattered warriors. He had sent two thousand severed horns back to King Lapis after the battle, the stumps still bleeding. Halite was known for being calm on the outside, but he despised unicorns more than any other warlord. They said it was better to die than to suffer by his hooves.

As the barbarians began to load up and placed Clover and Platinum in a prisoner cart, the young mare looked on at the powerful warlord and knew true fear for the first time in her life.

Typhoon ground a stick of charcoal into nothingness with her hoof. The burnt wood offered little resistance, collapsing under the solid force of her hoof onto the scrap piece of parchment below. She was bored, and immeasurably so. Sitting in an office was never something she liked doing. She preferred to be out on the field, commanding the troops with her cool voice and iron resolve, not sitting down and writing paperwork. It was a burden that she wished she could give to a secretary and have them do, but these were papers on deployments and requisitions. Cyclone said that he wanted them done by the end of the week, and seeing as how he was her older brother and her superior, she had no choice but to comply. She was better at the micromanagement stuff anyways, not moving grand armies across the fields and skies. Get her one on one with a suitable adversary, and she’d cut him down in no time.

The mare cursed when she realized that her entire hoof had been recolored black from the charcoal she had destroyed, and she brushed the crumbs and ash off of the table. Walking to the window, Typhoon opened the glass and planted her hoof in the snow outside, using it as a substitute for a bucket of water. Wiping her hoof on the curtains, Typhoon trotted back to her chair and collapsed, sulking.

Her office was, as a general rule, barren, established with only the furnishings needed for it to be considered an office along with a few other sentimental decorations. A door, four walls, a floor and a ceiling, and a desk and three chairs were all that Typhoon needed, as the office only saw sparse use whenever the Imperator was back in Cloudsdale. Other than that, a portrait of herself hung next to portraits of Roamulus and her father against one wall, and a worn suit of armor in the corner completed the room’s decorations. The armor was special to her; it was the first skysteel she had ever worn, and it was the armor she had been wearing when she got her first kill. The other armors she had worn as she advanced through the ranks she had discarded or recycled into other skysteel components rather than hang onto them. She only needed her Imperator’s armor and her Legionnaire’s armor, and one day, she might carry the armor of a Commander across her shoulders.

But dreams were dreams and paperwork was all too real, and Typhoon pulled another stick of charcoal out of her supply box before bashing her head against the table. Mobius, how she hated paperwork! Folding her forelegs across her lap, the mare sent a quick prayer to the Great Skies for some of Mobius’ mercy, making sure to attach a footnote for her father’s safety in his travels. Hurricane had left little more than two days ago, but it already felt like a lifetime.

Things were changing in Cirra with her father gone, brief as it had been so far, and Typhoon wasn’t sure whether she liked the direction they were going in or not. On the one hoof, some of the red tape controlling the Legion’s actions had been lifted by Cyclone (with Swift Spear’s consent, of course), allowing Typhoon to bypass some of the usual procedures she had to run through the archaic Senate if she wanted to delegate a specific division of the Legion to quelling riots as they arose, or if she wanted to place an extra garrison in an earth pony settlement to protect Cirra’s food reserves. It certainly made her job easier and made the Legion more efficient.

On the other hoof, however, relations with the other nations were deteriorating, fast. The Board of Representatives in the Low Valleys had refused to accept Cirran delegates inside their borders and demanded that the pegasi close the field HQs in their towns. The Diamond Kingdoms had taken it one step farther, formally denouncing Cirra and demanding that all active duty Legionnaires be removed from their postings within Kingdom lands. Trade embargos were threatened, and Typhoon knew that Twister hadn’t slept in days with the political nightmare she was dealing with. The Imperator’s ears flicked as a draft forced its way through the windows to pull on her fur. Humph. Political shitstorm might be a more accurate term to describe it.

There was a knock on her door, and Typhoon almost squealed that she had something else to distract her from her paperwork. Straightening her helmet on her desk so that the brim was pointed towards the door and brushing a few loose scraps of charcoal from her coat, the mare coughed loud enough for whoever was at the door to hear. “Come in.”

The door opened to reveal Cyclone, fully armored and carrying his helmet in his foreleg. The sight drew a small smile to Typhoon lips even before she asked what he was dressed for. Whatever it was, it meant she could expect to be armored as well, and that meant no more paperwork.

“We’re going to the holding cell,” Cyclone began, his voice as level and steady as ever. “That earth pony we picked up a while back, Brown Oats? He’s ready to talk, and I want to hear what he knows.”

Typhoon picked up her helmet and began to strap on her armor. “You don’t say? It’s about time. We would have been able to get through this sooner if you hadn’t burnt him half to death when you tackled that Jewel guy in Blue Coat territory. Are you sure you don’t need counseling or something?”

The joke sailed over Cyclone’s head, and his eyes narrowed as fast as sparks burst from his wings. “I’m sure, sister. It doesn’t matter now, the medics were able to get him patched up, and he says he wants to talk.”

“Yeah, I kind of figured he would. A Cirran dungeon isn’t exactly the friendliest thing to the terrestrials.” She tightened the straps to her wingblades, then pulled a piece of parchment out from a drawer. “I just need to write a note to Twister. She said she wanted to know when we were going to interrogate the prisoner. I’ll just—”

“No time,” Cyclone interrupted, tapping his hoof on the cloudstone floor. “Brown Oats said he had something important to share with us, and I want to know what it is.”

Typhoon raised an eyebrow, the charcoal still held between her teeth. “It’ll only be—”

“Important,” Cyclone repeated. The way he enunciated ‘important’ caused Typhoon to nod and slide the papers away. She trotted out into the hallway after Cyclone, turning and locking the door behind her. Cyclone interrogated so many prisoners on a weekly basis that he usually didn’t care one way or another what they had to say, so long as they said it. That he was getting worked up about a single illiterate earth pony in the dungeon caused Typhoon to reevaluate her interactions with Jewel so far. Just how big of a conspiracy was she stepping into?

It was a short flight across the courtyard outside of the palace towards the heavily guarded dungeon entrance, but even in that time Typhoon was able to see how much the blizzard was degrading Cirra’s power. Massive snow drifts covered much of the cloudstone courtyard, with most of the walkways not even cleared. Thousands of hoofprints meandered in meaningless lines across the snow and ice, and small piles of refuse were hidden in dark corners under the snow. The servants were beginning to lose their resolve to do their duties, and the Legion was becoming too undisciplined to keep them in line. Most of the Legionnaires stayed at the barracks anyways, hoping to find some warmth from the oppressive winds and snows outside. Military rationing had extended how long the food supplies would last, but the effects of hunger were starting to gnaw on the face of the proud Legion. Hunting parties had been organized to bring back meat to supplement Cirra’s remaining grain, but the orderly structure of those endeavors was swiftly falling apart. Individuals had begun to go out on their own for food; many of them didn’t return. The desertion rate was high, but the execution rate was higher. Desertion and stealing food were grounds for hanging, and no other crimes were growing as fast as those.

Snapping to attention at the two approaching Imperators, the four Legionnaires guarding the dungeon entrance opened the massive iron doors and stepped aside for Cyclone and Typhoon to enter. Picking up a lantern from the wall, Cyclone lit it with his wing and began to descend down the staircase, Typhoon in tow. As soon as her tail was past the threshold, the iron doors slammed shut behind her with a massive boom. The mare glanced over her shoulders, her breath leaving her mouth in frosty clouds. She hated interrogating prisoners.

Typhoon felt her hooves sag into the flooring as she stepped off of the stairs. The dungeon floors were loosely packed cloudstone, strong enough for a pegasus to rest heavy items on but too weak to support the weight of an earth pony or a unicorn. The failsafe ensured that no escaped prisoners could ever make their way to the palace and attempt to assassinate the Commander Maximus. The cells themselves had stratus skysteel plates that covered the floors which a prisoner could stand on, but as soon as they left their cells they would plunge to their deaths from thousands of feet in the air. The simple system had insured that in the twenty years since its construction, not a single terrestrial prisoner had escaped from Cirra’s grasp.

The two Praetorians walked past several prisoners, some shouting in defiance, others broken beyond hope. The former had been held for only a few days; the latter had spent at least a week in their cells. Cyclone’s interrogation tactics were brutal, and even the strongest of ponies caved when their horns were snapped in two or their limbs were shattered one by one. Buckets of waterlogged blood sat in the corners of each cell. At some point the wooden pails had contained water for drinking, but the prisoners put in as much blood as the water they took out. Typhoon shuddered as she felt her hoof slip on the edge of the walkways. Deep troughs had been carved into the floor from the cells, leading down the hall and to some back room that she had never visited. Crimson vitality trickled down the channels, its flow sluggish but hardly abating.

She flattened her ears against her head as wailing and shrieks of pain came from the more active interrogation rooms that they passed. Shadows moved along the walls as Praetorians beat information out of the more stubborn prisoners, the impacts of hoof against bone resounding off the brick. Typhoon could hear teeth being knocked out and blood spraying the walls, the sounds of bones breaking like twigs. Needless violence was never something that she saw point to, and she tried to follow Mobius’ doctrine in combat of ending an opponent’s suffering as quickly as possible. Cyclone, however, never seemed to have those qualms, and he walked past the torture as if he didn’t notice it. He had never shared his religious views with Typhoon, deeming them unimportant, but the mare had a strong feeling that he was not a follower of Mobius like her or her parents.

The winding halls took the two soldiers to the back of the dungeon where the larger cells were. Typhoon had been very clear with Cyclone that she wanted to question—not interrogate, question—Brown Oats in a nicer, more out of the way cell than the others. The earth pony had proved agreeable enough when she first pinned him, and she didn’t want him to regress during his stay in Cloudsdale. She would take any bonus she could to quickly get the information out of him, and not having to resort to breaking him first would save plenty of time. She was just glad that Cyclone had respected her wishes instead of ignoring them like he often seemed to do.

The doors to the cell opened with a key which Cyclone produced, and the two pegasi slowly trotted into the room. The cell had a higher ceiling and wider floor than the others in the dungeon, replete with wide stratus tiling and a chair and table. A thin bed of straw lay in the corner of the skysteel floor, with a bucket of water standing next to it. A filthy latrine sat at the opposite end of the room, and Typhoon shied away from the smell. Instead, she approached the table while Cyclone roused the brown figure lying in the bed.

The earth pony shambled to the table, guided by Cyclone’s gruff hoof. Half of Brown Oat’s coat was still in the process of growing back from the burns Cyclone had given him, and much of his neck and face was covered in white bandages. The chair screeched out from under the table, and Brown Oats flopped down into it, his hooves banging against the table as he sat.

“Brown Oats; it’s been awhile since we last talked,” Typhoon greeted, extending her hoof. “I trust that your stay in Cloudsdale has been… satisfactory?”

Brown Oats regarded the hoof held before him for a moment with a suspicious eye before visibly relaxing and shaking it. “Ya could say that, ‘suppose. Got me all fixed up after yer friend there burnt ‘alf mah coat off.” His eyes turned to glare at the stoic face of Cyclone before returning to Typhoon. “Don’t care too much fer th’ cramped livin’ space, though. Haven’t been able tah hear much ‘bout what’s been goin’ on outside, other than what th’ guards mutters from time tah time. It’s true, what they says? There’s a mighty blizzard goin’ on outside that’s got most a’ th’ tribes on edge?”

Typhoon nodded her head. “Yes, there is a blizzard going on outside. The Low Valleys haven’t been able to grow any of their winter crops, and food is starting to run out. All the tribes are in danger of starving to death.”

Cyclone raised an eyebrow toward Typhoon, worried that she might be giving out too much information. “Look here, mister… Brown Oats, was it? Anyways, what my colleague says is of little importance. We’re much more interested in this gang you were a part of. So far, they’ve tried to assassinate Commander Hurricane and the other tribal leaders at an important meeting held just a few days past. They’re threatening to destabilize the entire region, and at a time like this, it’s up to us, the Legion, to make sure that doesn’t happen. So, we need to know everything you know about the gang. What are their operations? Where are they headquartered? Who is their leader?”

Brown Oats tensed at Cyclone’s questions and flexed his forelegs, tapping his hooves against the edge of the table. “So, th’ Blue Coats gotcha runnin’ scared, eh? Now, mister red coat, Ah don’t like ya very much. Hard questions from th’ one who burnt mah coat off. Why should Ah say anything to you?”

Cyclone leaned closer, sparks beginning to fly off of his wings. “Do you have family, Brown Oats? Smugglers like yourself often do; that’s the reason you turn to smuggling in the first place. Let’s say that you refuse to cooperate here, today. Let’s say that I leave here without anything important to go on. Then, let’s say that I go to Amber Field myself to get some answers, and I happen to find a family that has a striking resemblance to a prisoner who refused to give me information. Now, we could suppose that they talked and gave me something of information, but what if they refuse? What if they’re just as stubborn as the pony who smuggles food for them from the granaries? What, Mr. Oats, do you suppose would happen next?”

The earth pony was starting to tremble, and Typhoon held out a wing to gesture for Cyclone to stop. Pulling her chair closer, she gently set both hooves on the table. “Mr. Oats, I apologize for Imperator Cyclone’s behavior, but I can’t apologize for the truth to his words. Stopping the Blue Coats is very important to us, and we are willing to go to any lengths to do so. If you won’t answer our questions, we’ll have to find answers on our own. Others might have to suffer for us to find those answers. Now, I can promise you that you will be given immunity from your crimes if you cooperate with us. We can even offer you protection from the rest of your gang. But you have to work with us, or we’re all going to be in unpleasant situations.”

Brown Oats’ shoulders had stopped shaking, but he still glanced at his legs uneasily. Taking several deep breaths, he was able to look at Typhoon from the corners of his eyes. “Fine. Fine, fine, Ah’ll help. Ah don’t wantcha ta hurt mah family. They’s innocent in all this, Ah swear. Ah’m th’ only one o’ them that’s involved in th’ smugglin’ bidness.” Scratching his mane, the smuggler slightly leaned back in his chair and placed a hoof to his forehead.

“Ya knows that Ah’m a member o’ th’ Blue Coats. ‘Twas only outta necessity, mind you, but Ah’m a member no less. Now, we’s got bases in mucha th’ Low Valleys, but our main hideout’s in Amber Field. Our leader conducts most a’ his operations from there. Good hideout, under th’ sewers ‘n catacombs. Can’t tell ya the way in, though.”

“And why is that?” Cyclone questioned, his leer beginning to sharpen. “We need to know everything—everything, Brown Oats. Every shred of information you withhold from us makes our job that much harder.”

Brown Oats shook his head apologetically. “Ah’m sorry, mister Imperator, but Ah jess can’t. Jewel told us that if we ever said anythin’ about th’ hideout, we’d drop dead on th’ spot. He done worked some o’ his fancy unicorn magic into mah head when he showed me th’ hideout. Ya may be lookin’ for information, but Ah’m lookin’ to hang onto mah life.”

Cyclone was about to press for more answers, but Typhoon again stayed him with a hoof. “We understand, Mr. Oats. Perhaps you could tell us the general area? I’m sure that you would be able to slip past the net of the spell that way. It would take far too much Arcana to weave a spell that broad. So, let’s go about it this way. Can you give us the names of the landmarks within a block of the entrance?”

Brown Oats thought for a moment, then nodded. “Okay, Ah suppose we could try that. Have ya heard of Tear’s Wares? Half Mane’s elixirs is near it as well. There was an old church…” The earth pony winced, and slammed his hooves against his temples. “Rrraugh!! Ack, Ah… mah head…”

Cyclone and Typhoon both jumped out of their seats and approached Brown Oats from opposite sides. The earth pony was moaning and slamming his hooves against the table in pain. Typhoon’s eyes widened in alarm, and she searched the prisoner’s body for anyway to help. “By the Gods… Cyclone! We have to do something!”

The fiery pegasus was already ahead of Typhoon. Drawing his sword from its scabbard, he held it aloft, letting the blade catch the lantern light before putting it in motion. It descended with lightning speed…

“Cyclone! Stop!!”

…and slammed onto Brown Oat’s nose, flat first. The force of the impact sent the earth pony flying out of his chair and back into the wall with a resounding thud. Blood flew from his crushed nose, but his face was still intact. The body slumped against the wall, unconscious but breathing.

Flicking the droplets of blood from his sword, Cyclone returned it to its scabbard and trotted over to Brown Oats. “Don’t worry, Typhoon, he’s still alive.” Standing up, he addressed the pair of guards that had appeared at the door. “Take him back to the infirmary, and keep an eye on him. Some unicorn messed with his mind a while back, and we’re not sure how stable he is. Keep him alive as best you can; we may need him for later.”

The two Legionnaires nodded and draped Brown Oat’s unconscious figure across their backs. Typhoon watched them go before trying to wipe the thin spray of blood off of her armor. “Good thinking, Cy. Even if I thought you were going to kill him for a second.”

Cyclone grunted, shifting the weight of his armor across his back. “Never kill what you can use, no matter what you have to do to use it. Now come on, we got information. We need to be heading for Amber Field and dropping Jewel and his Blue Coats operation. Gather your things, then meet me back in the throne room. I have to give mom a debriefing.”

Typhoon flicked her ears in acknowledgement, and Cyclone disappeared through the doorway. The mare lingered a little longer to clean her coat of the blood, then trotted out after him. She couldn’t believe she was wrong about the breadth of Jewel’s spell. Her assumption had almost gotten an informant killed, and that would not have looked good on her record.

But her record was the least of her concerns. Whoever Jewel really was, he was a unicorn of intense power. Taking him down was going to prove much more dangerous than she originally thought.

Chapter 8: The Long March

Life in Stalliongrad has a reputation for being mundane, monotonous, a never-ending cycle of ennui, where years might just as easily be days, and weeks a millennium. Life in nearby Saraneighvo was even more mundane, even more monotonous, and even more cyclical than the capital to the south, from the mashed potatoes and potato stew Twilight had eaten every day for the past week to the vodka that seemed to be the only thing the inn had to drink. Much to her horror, the Equestrian found herself taking a liking to the strong drink she despised only a few days ago. If she kept it up, she might turn out like Berry Punch. Twilight shuddered, trying to force the drink away with a lazy hoof. She didn’t want to end up like Berry Punch. Nopony wanted to end up like Berry Punch.

The grind of the days had nearly worn Twilight out with the continual boredom they had bestowed upon her. She would wake in the morning, get something to eat, then trot around the block without her winter gear to see if the cold could snap her to attentiveness. After that, she tried to talk with the innkeeper, who was friendly enough to foreigners. He at least understood Equiish, and Twilight had learned a few Stalliongradi words in return. She knew that the pony’s name was Тихое Прибежище, or ‘Safe Haven’ in Equiish. He also had taught her common greetings and phrases, including one sentence that she had only learned just the night prior: ‘Не стреляйте, я тайну знаю.’ Twilight had begged to know what the words meant, but Safe Haven only responded with a smile, saying that he would tell her another time, if she happened to stay longer. The lavender mare had left the bar fuming, knowing that there was information whose meaning she was not yet privy to, but at least it would give her something to talk about later. As much as she hated Saraneighvo, she loved talking with the cocoa unicorn. She would have to make sure that she wrote down the inn’s address before she left so she could send letters to him.

The door opened with a jingle of bells, and Twilight set her empty plate aside, expecting Rainbow Dash to return. The pegasus had flown off earlier in the day out of sheer boredom, and Twilight couldn’t say that she didn’t blame her. The only thing Rainbow had to do in the inn was look through Hurricane’s journal, but that activity had been on hold while Twilight went back and annotated much of the text on a separate sheet of paper. She hadn’t been taking notes as they read to quicken the story for Rainbow, and the information was starting to leave her brain. Now that she was caught up, Twilight was ready to tackle another section of the text with her friend. She looked up, one hoof reaching for her saddlebag as she turned.

The figures that entered the inn were decidedly not Rainbow Dash. The trio of Stalliongradi ponies, a pegasus, unicorn, and earth pony, paused in the doorway, their eyes darting between the tables. Twilight felt the pegasus’ eyes rest on her for a brief moment before a scowl overtook his face. He turned and whispered to the unicorn accompanying him, and Twilight saw his gaze flit across her features in return. The ponies whispered harshly among themselves, and Twilight was beginning to feel more and more uncomfortable. Maybe she should just go…

“Дверь закроете, может? Ночная тьма не следует за сумерками. Она приходит только перед рассветом.”

Whatever their apprehensions were, Safe Haven’s quick words to the newcomers seemed to be enough to dispel them, and the three ponies nodded in acknowledgment before gently closing the door and finding a seat. They didn’t leave their heavy coats by the door, instead choosing to huddle underneath them where they sat. Their backs were turned towards the entryway, leaving them all facing in Twilight’s direction. The unicorn mare gulped on her vodka before slipping from her table and sidling over to the bar where Safe Haven stood polishing glasses.

“Privet, Twilight. What can I do for you?” The innkeeper’s voice was lively and steady, and the sound of it brought a smile to the mare’s lips. Glancing at the ponies sitting at the table, he took three mugs out from behind the bar and began to fill them with liquor; two whiskeys, one bourbon, no vodka.

“Who’re they?” Twilight whispered, flicking one ear backwards to where the three were conversing in hushed undertones. “And why do I get the feeling they’re looking to put a knife in my back or something?”

“Who, them?” Safe Haven waved away the question. “They’re just some regulars that have been out of town for the past week. You were sitting at their favorite table. No big deal.” Setting the tankards on a tray, Safe Haven whistled to the table. One of the ponies, the pegasus who had entered first, stood up and trotted over to the bar. His artificial coat gently brushed against Twilight’s natural lavender one, and the mare glanced out of the corner of her eye to get a closer look at him.

The pegasus was taller than most, and his light-orange wings were coiled against his impressive structure. His mane bordered a gray-white coloration, and dark umber eyes ignored Twilight completely. Numerous scars covered his chest and shoulders, and the feathers along his wing were disheveled and in desperate need of a preening. His wing shifted, and Twilight suppressed a gasp as a feather touched her neck.

“Ах, Альянс, как идут дела?” Safe Haven questioned. The pegasus flitted his eyes towards Twilight’s, and seeing the blank confusion on her face, he relaxed his shoulders enough to lean across the bar.

“Лучше, чем на прошлой неделе. Еще больше присоединилось с тех пор как занесло железную дорогу. К тому времени как ночь ответит, город будет готов помочь.”

Safe Haven nodded, nudging the tray towards the pegasus with his nose. “Ты принес счет?”

The pegasus grunted and pulled out a few paper banknotes, passing them along to Safe Haven. The innkeeper readily accepted them, turning to slip them into the cashbox behind the counter while the orange pegasus returned to his table with the drinks. Twilight thought it odd that a pony would conduct business with banknotes rather than the security offered by bits. She also thought it odd how Safe Haven pulled one of the notes out of the stack and slipped it into the pocket of his apron, but she wasn’t going to ask. Things in Stalliongrad had a tendency to become complicated, fast, and Twilight wanted no part of that.

Still, she couldn’t shake the feeling that there was a target painted on her back even as the three ponies at the table behind her seemed too involved with their own conversations to bother. She slid the half-full tankard of vodka between her hooves as she thought, listening to the satisfying grind of aluminum against wood. She was getting tired; probably because of the drink. Her body simply wasn’t used to the strength of the vodka.

“Banknotes? What’s that all about?” Twilight wondered aloud to Safe Haven. The unicorn shook his head and began running a cloth across his bar to clean up the liquor that had splashed out of Twilight’s tankard. “Sorry.”

“It’s quite alright, Twilight,” Haven countered. “It’s something to do, at least. As for the banknotes, well, sometimes it’s easier to do business with IOUs. In case you haven’t noticed, Saraneighvo probably has barely enough gold to melt down and make a pocket watch. Bartering’s the order of the day around here. Why, the bits that you paid me when you stopped by the first time probably more than doubled the wealth of the town.”

“Huh. I guess that makes sense,” Twilight relented, balancing the tankard between her hooves. She was too tired to lift it with her magic, and instead she physically brought it to her face like a pegasus or earth pony. Celestia, how she hated loving the drink.

The door jingled open again, and in staggered Rainbow Dash, her winter coat hanging loosely across her shoulders and an empty bottle of whiskey clutched between her teeth. After nearly toppling the hat stand and coatrack, the prismatic pegasus stumbled over to Twilight and hoisted herself onto the bench next to her friend. Draping a foreleg across the unicorn’s shoulder, Dash smiled around the drooping bottle in her teeth.

“‘Ey, ‘Ilight! I ‘aven’t ‘een you all ‘ay!” Spitting out the bottle, Rainbow let it clatter to the floor where it spilled a few drops of whiskey into the wood. “What have you been up to, lately? Same old, same old?”

Twilight stiffened under Rainbow’s embrace, glancing toward where Safe Haven watched, amusement spreading across his face. “Erm… Rainbow? Are you feeling alright?”

“What? Of course I feel alright! Why, I feel absolutely fine! Perfect! Twenty percent better than ever!”

Twilight lifted Rainbow’s foreleg off of her back and guided it toward the bar, where it stayed. “Rainbow, I hope you didn’t go out and spend the entire day drinking. I really, honestly hope that wasn’t what you did.”

“Especially since you could have done the same thing here,” Safe Haven added. Twilight glared at him, and the unicorn responded with a satisfied smirk.

“Yeah? Well, you know, it was some good drink.” Rainbow placed a hoof to her chest before releasing a loud belch that silenced the inn. The three ponies at the table glanced at Rainbow, animosity growing on their faces. Twilight laughed nervously and levitated the bottle Rainbow dropped off of the floor. She set it on the bar, where Safe Haven cautiously approached to garner a look.

“Rainbow,” Twilight began, her voice taking on a motherly tone, “where did you get this at? You’ve had me worried sick for the past two hours, waiting for you to come back.”

“Hey, I didn’t do nothing wrong, Twi,” Rainbow protested, shoving off lightly from Twilight. “The ponies who gave me that whiskey were very nice. They just wanted to make sure that we were comfortable where we were rooming at.” Leaning forward, Rainbow stretched her wings into the air behind her, inadvertently brushing the coat of the pony nearest her. The stallion glared, and Twilight nudged Rainbow’s wings back to her body.

Safe Haven grasped the bottle with his Arcana and rotated it to get a closer look at the label. When he did, his face visibly paled beneath his brown coat. Nearly dropping the bottle, Safe Haven turned towards the drunken pegasus. “Miss… Rainbow Dash, was it? Did you happen to tell the ponies who gave you this whiskey where exactly you were staying?”

The door answered for her. The bell nearly shattered under the force of the wood slamming open, and the tiny brass chime fell to the ground. A solid hoof in a horseshoe of steel crushed it into the floorboards, eliciting a pitiful cry of metal on metal. The inn had fallen silent, and the three ponies at the table visibly tensed, even though they didn’t see who opened the door.

A company of five Stalliongrad ponies walked into the bar, all wearing heavy black jackets. The sleeves extended down the foreleg to just above the ankle, and actual fur lined the collars and the thick padding underneath the fabric. The ponies all wore the jackets open, and Twilight could see an alarming gallery of weapons against their chests. Swords, daggers, and even an axe or two glinted in the light from the fireplace. Muscles rippled underneath their jackets, and several pairs of wings fluttered off the snow that had accumulated on them. There were no unicorns or earth ponies in the company.

The lead stallion, a pegasus with a sickle strapped to his chest, stepped forward with a frightening smile on his face. His lean limbs moved with purpose and precision, and he took his time strolling into the open of the inn. His coat was wheat brown, with a mane full of spikey gray hair. Angry green eyes flickered in their sockets, and the pegasus’ predatory tongue ran over a row of jagged teeth. His wings were scarred, and several badly frayed feathers stood almost perpendicular to his body. It was obvious to Twilight that the pegasus’ wings had seen much use in their lifetime, and probably had not been preened once within the past two years.

Safe Haven pretended not to notice the arrival of the five Black Cloaks, the brutish police force that ran most of the Domain of Stalliongrad, but Twilight could see the sheen of sweat that quickly formed around the base of his horn. Instead, the brown unicorn set about polishing several glasses on his counter, working each one over several times until it had the perfect level of sheen.

The Black Cloak with the sickle and officer insignia on his shoulder flashed Twilight one of his toothy smiles before sidling up to the bar. Tapping his shod hoof against the counter, the wheat pegasus waited for Safe Haven to turn around. Haven took his time doing so, stealing one or two quick breaths before approaching.

“Подполковник, я не ожидал увидеть вас так поздно ночью. Есть что-то, с чем я могу помочь?”

The pegasus officer grinned and flicked one of his wings, nearly touching Twilight’s face. “Ну, может и есть. Я ищу троих предателей, что по слухам орудуют в моем городе. Болтают, они пытаются смешать Сараево с дерьмом и вышвырнуть отсюда Черные Плащи. Так вот, если это действительно так, я хочу чтобы любой житель, который хоть что-то знает, пришел и рассказал мне об этом лично. Чем быстрее мы схватим этих подонков, тем лучше.”

Twilight perked her ears, trying to decipher the words while Rainbow quietly hiccupped beside her. She could only understand bits and pieces—‘Saraneighvo’ was mentioned, along with ‘Black Cloaks’, ‘information’, and a lot of curses. She thought she heard the word ‘traitors’, but she wasn’t sure.

Safe Haven nodded, pushing a mug of ale towards the pegasus. “Само собой, губернатор. Как только я что-нибудь узнаю—”

“Заткнись,” the Black Cloak interrupted. “Я тут хочу внести предельную ясность, что если кто-то предоставляет им хату, убежище или еще какую блядскую нору, того будут судить и казнят как военного преступника. Вот теперь, есть ли что-нибудь, что ты хочешь мне рассказать, Прибежище?”

Twilight couldn’t understand what the two were saying, but she heard Safe Haven’s name twice, combined with several other swears, and ‘war criminal’. She could tell that Haven was becoming increasingly distraught, despite how much he tried to cover it by polishing an errant glass. Try as she might, though, she was unable to bring herself to ask what was going on. Even Rainbow Dash in her stupor had enough sense to hold her tongue.

“Ты думал, что проследив за прибывшими из Еквестрии, выйдешь на нас, Серп?” the pegasus at the table chided. Amusement quickly filling his face, the Black Cloak who Twilight inferred was named Serp with what she gathered from the orange stallion’s words left the bar and began to walk towards the table.

“Естественно. Мятежная сволота вроде вас всегда ищет внешней помощи в своих пиздаватых планах. Я смотрю, сдесь две носительницы Элементов Гармонии. Не надо далеко идти, чтоб понять как остальные четверо гадят в остальных Царских городах.”

Serp reached for his sickle, and the other Black Cloaks responded by drawing their own respective weapons. “Комендант будет ох как рад увидеть ваши мятежные морды выстроены перед ним на коленях. Особенно твою, я притащу тебя к нему скованным, сломленным и с обрезками крыльев. Я аж сейчас слышу его похвалы.”

Twilight was able to pick up on the gist of the message; the grain-coated pegasus was threatening the orange one and was demanding that he surrender. She leaned closer to Safe Hazen, her hooves fumbling with each other in alarm. “What is he saying? What’s going on?”

Safe Haven released a tense breath and narrowed his eyes on the back of the Black Coat’s head. “Twilight, I want you and Rainbow Dash to gather your belongings and get out of here as quickly as you possibly can. Then leave Saraneighvo. Don’t stop until you get to Stalliongrad, and don’t talk with any Black Cloaks until after you get to the castle.” His hooves moved beneath the counter, and Twilight heard the flicking of latches, like the kind that would be used on a weapons case.

“What? Why? What do you mean?” Twilight pleaded. The Black Cloaks were closing in on the three ponies sitting at the table, but they didn’t seem to care. Twilight thought she saw a smile flicker to the orange pegasus’ face just before the lead enforcer reached out to touch him. “What exactly is—?”

There was a blinding flash of light, coupled by wails and screams of pain that poured out from the center of the inn. Twilight found herself face down on the floor, hunched over Rainbow Dash’s shaking body as the world exploded around her. When she stood up, the light had receded, leaving a faint ring of burnt mana lying around the now overturned table where the trio of ponies had been sitting at. Twilight realized that the unicorn must have placed a proximity spell around the table that casted a brilliant light whenever it was breached. She then ducked in fear as Safe Haven jumped the bar, sword held aloft in a grip of Arcana, and drove it into the back of the nearest Black Cloak.

The inn had exploded into a chaotic brawl as the three ponies plus Safe Haven swung weapons at the four remaining Black Cloaks scattered throughout the room. Terrified, Twilight nearly hurled Rainbow Dash into their room with her magic before sprinting in after her and slamming the door shut. She then stood with her back to the door, panting.

“What the hay?! Rainbow shouted, backpedaling towards her bead. “I didn’t know that coltfriend of yours was a freaking psycho! He just attacked the police!”

“I’m sure he had a very good reason!” Twilight protested, throwing her books into her saddlebags and tossing her winter gear over her coat. “I knew something was up with those ponies the moment I laid eyes on them! That was Governor Serp, the pony in charge of Saraneighvo and its garrison of Black Cloaks! They’re some of the cruelest ponies in all of Equestria!” Pausing, she turned to scowl at Rainbow Dash. "And he's not my coltfriend!"

Rainbow Dash had gathered enough of her wits about her to help with the packing. She shoveled food, clothes, anything she owned into a bag and threw it across her back, making sure to adjust her winter gear first. “Whatever you say. And just what are you talking about?! Those were the ponies I was talking with earlier!”

“And they used you to find their way back here! I’m not sure what exactly is going on, but the Black Cloaks were looking for somepony, and they figured we had something to do with it! Now, we’re probably wanted criminals!” Twilight hopped nervously from hoof to hoof on the verge of hyperventilation. “Oh, how am I ever going to become an Archmage if I have a criminal record?! This is bad, bad, bad!” Pounding on the door caused her to shriek, and Rainbow scurried next to her.

“Then teleport us the buck out of here, Twi! Something tells me we aren’t going to get a fair trial if we open that door!”

Twilight vigorously nodded, her breathing growing increasingly ragged and stressed. “Alright! I’m getting us out of here—anywhere but here!”

The door exploded open with a gust of wind to reveal Marshal Serp standing there, blood dripping from the point of his sickle, just as Twilight and Rainbow Dash teleported away. Twilight was still screaming when the two of them fell fifteen feet to the ground below on a hilltop just outside of Saraneighvo.

“Twilight! Twilight, chill out!” Rainbow Dash shouted as Twilight’s body visibly shook from her panic. “Twi, we’re outside of the city. We’re safe.”

Taking several deep and strained breaths, Twilight sat up and glanced at Saraneighvo. Fires were beginning to light in the block around the inn, and she could see figures leaving their buildings and meeting in bloody clashes up and down Mane Street. Sirens began to go off as the smoke poured out of the town, and dozens of pegasi flew off of rooftops around the city to meet in aerial combat. The city of Saraneighvo was in full-fledged revolt.

The two Equestrians looked on at the increasingly chaotic battlefield before sliding down the side of the hill towards the rail lines below. The steel tracks stretched onwards into the night to the south, two thin trails of reflected light under the howling of the winter storm. Rainbow and Twilight looked over the tracks for a long time before Dash made the first move.

“Well, we ain’t gonna get anywhere by just standing here. C’mon, let’s get back to Stalliongrad.”

Twilight remained in shock for seconds longer as Rainbow Dash began to follow the tracks to the south. The fires were multiplying in Saraneighvo along with the smoke, and she very much doubted that any trains would be coming from the town anytime soon.

So, shifting the weight of her saddlebags over her flanks, Twilight began a brisk trot after Rainbow into the Stalliongrad night. And here she thought she’d just be spending a week in Saraneighvo reading about Hurricane’s life.

The windswept cliffs of the steep valley shivered under the cold and snow they bore on their brows. The gray rocks raced downwards in jagged lines, loose boulders sitting where they lay nestled against rogue trees that clung to the sides of the cliffs. A raging river of white rapids defied the tense chill trying to freeze it solid, spurning away the frosts and devouring the snow along its banks. Somehow its tributaries had not been frozen over, and the sky and valley continued their duel with splashing and howling.

The valley plateaued into a narrow mountain pass about fifteen feet wide that weaved between the jagged spires rising up on either side of the river. Some of the mountains stood thousands of feet tall, their gray sides trying to shrug off the ice that clung to them. The little pass threaded around these monoliths, taking the time every once in a while to find a break in the stone curtain and reveal the massive plains to the west.

Smart Cookie paused by one of these such breaks, taking the time to rest his hooves by dangling them off the edge where he sat. The sun had sliced open a swath of sky behind him, and its shimmering rays fell into the glittering river below or danced off of the icy field ahead. It was a majestic sight, and he smiled as the wind tickled his cheeks and the light stubble that was teasing its way through the fur around his jawline. Even if he was in the middle of nowhere without the beloved razor he used to keep his face prim and proper, the views like the one he was enjoying right now made the journey bearable.

Of course, he still had to contend with the mind-numbing Chancellor, day after day. Adjusting the hat to sit more comfortably on his brow, the Representative turned to where Puddinghead was marching in circles. A groove at least several inches deep had been worn into the path which had seen centuries of use, the gravel and dirt on its face ground and compressed into a smooth trail. Smart Cookie knew that they were following what was in the old days a Crystal Pony marching path, long since abandoned. He never knew why the Crystal warlords had stopped following the path; as far as he could remember, the last time the trail had been worn by the barbarians was not even two years past, and they had pillaged several villages in the Low Valleys before Cirra could respond. The last warlord to use it had even routed a regiment of Cirran fliers that tried to pursue them into the pass. Why would they abandon it when it was such a defensible position?

“Smart Cookie! Come on, Representative! We’ve got to get a move on!”

The orange stallion groaned and clambered to his hooves, shouldering the packs he had to carry. Puddinghead was staring at him impatiently through the remains of the map. After the first few days, Smart Cookie had just accepted it and moved on. He didn’t really need the map anyway. Just keep going west, ever westward until there was no more snow. Then he’d stake a claim for the land and head back home. Of course, he’d need a map to do that… Oh well, he’d cross that bridge when he came to it.

“Yes yes, this is definitely the right direction!” Puddinghead proclaimed as his hooves completed their circuit for the fiftieth time.

Smart Cookie paused by the edge of the circle, dulled indifference filling his face. “Chancellor, you do realize that you’re going in circles?”

Puddinghead stopped dead in his tracks, confusion overtaking his features. “But that’s impossible! Are you saying that I’m reading the map wrong?!”

The Representative could barely conceal his exasperation. “Absolutely not, your chancellorship.” Smart Cookie had to spit into the snow to clear the sarcasm dripping from his tongue. “It’s only that there are holes in the map, and—”

“Well of course there are!” Puddinghead interrupted. “How else am I going to see where I’m going?” His careless steps took him dangerously close to the edge of the cliff, sending snow falling into the ravine below.

“I… uh…” Smart Cookie mumbled as he watched Puddinghead draw nearer to the edge. Would it really be a crime to let his idiotic leader fall to his death? A better question was whether or not doing so would disqualify him from running in the elections that summer.

Unfortunately, the Chancellor spun around right at the edge of the cliff. “Or talk? I need to be able to talk! I mean, how would we survive if I just suddenly shut up?”

“Heaven forbid that should happen, your chancellorship,” Smart Cookie began. “It’s just that, uh, the map is also upside down.”

Puddinghead scowled at Smart Cookie. “I got a newsflash for you, Smart Cookie. The world is round. There is no up or down.” Satisfied, the Chancellor turned his nose skyward and trotted away from Smart Cookie… in the direction they just came from.

Smart Cookie huffed and rolled his eyes. Would it really be too hard to carry on by himself? Unfortunately, Puddinghead was carrying all the food with him, and it didn’t look like they were going to find any in the ravine. Sighing, he rolled his shoulders and called after the Chancellor. “You’re right! It’s such a relief to me that you’re in charge of the map…”

Puddinghead, still under the impression that he deserved a servant as Chancellor, hastily backpedalled as Smart Cookie reopened the topic. “Relief?! You don’t need relief! If anypony around here needs, relief, it’s me! I’m a Chancellor! I’m a big shot! You’re just my… my…”

“Representative, secretary, foalsitter…”

“Exactly!” Puddinghead shouted, oblivious to the implications of Smart Cookie’s last example. Sucking the map into his maw, the Chancellor chewed on it for a second before spitting it onto Smart Cookie’s face. The Representative cringed under the wet piece of parchment and quickly slapped it off of his muzzle. “You take the map, while I enjoy some relief!”

Smart Cookie grumbled as he held the map against the ground and tried to repair the damage done to it. Puddinghead had ripped out the sections containing Cirra and the Diamond Kingdom but had at least left the depiction of the lands to the west of Amber Field mostly intact. Now that he had the map, Smart Cookie was sure he could optimize their progress through the mountain passes. In no time at all, they’d find a homeland, and he could get back just in time to start his campaigning for the chancellorship!

Puddinghead, meanwhile, had wandered to the edge of the cliff. The snow bank he strode over quivered as his hooves advanced closer and closer to the ravine. Chunks of snow and ice fell nearly two hundred feet down to the river below, bouncing noiselessly off of the valley walls as they descended.

There was a dull crunch and snap as the ice cracked, and the bank Puddinghead was standing on plummeted off of the overhang to the bottom of the ravine. The Chancellor let out a startled yelp before falling with the snow and ice, frantically flapping his forelegs like a bird. The wind tore through his coat as he dropped, stealing his hat away from him.

Smart Cookie looked up just in time to see Puddinghead’s hat flutter off of the edge of the ravine. Cautiously approaching the edge, the Representative gulped and looked over. He may have wished Puddinghead harm to amuse himself before, but now…

Now he saw the Chancellor clinging onto a branch about fifty feet from the rushing waters below. It was difficult to see Puddinghead’s brown form against the gray cliffs, but he was there all right, his legs flailing as he struggled to grab hold of the frozen bark. His hat glided down on the currents after him, somehow alighting on the very end of the tree just out of the Chancellor’s reach.

“By the sun…” Smart Cookie muttered under his breath. He turned and began to rifle through one of his saddlebags for some rope. “You doing alright, Chancellor?!”

“Just dandy!!” came the stranded pony’s reply. “I’m very relieved right now! Yup, enjoying lots of relief!” There was an audible snap, and Smart Cookie perked his ears. The Chancellor’s words came again, although not as confident as before. “Yeah, lots of relief down here. Say, you wouldn’t mind hauling me back up again?”

Smart Cookie pulled out a section of rope and tied one end to a pickaxe he was using as a makeshift stake. Setting his gear down around him, the Representative wedged the pickaxe into the rock as hard as he could and tossed the rope off of the edge. The coil fell down, down, down, approaching the Chancellor at an ever-quickening rate…

…only to stop about twenty feet short. Smart Cookie groaned in frustration and held his hat across his chest to think. He didn’t have any more rope to get to Puddinghead, and the Chancellor was stuck on his branch without a means to get closer to the dangling line. That left only two options. Either leave the Chancellor, or go down himself and try to save him.

“Smart Cookie!” Puddinghead wailed from the tree limb. “I can’t reach the rope!”

“I know, Chancellor!” Smart Cookie retorted. “Just hang on a second, I’ll see what I can do.”

“A second!” The sound of laughter reached Smart Cookie, only hastening his withdrawal from the ledge. “I can hang on for more than a second, Smart Cookie! I mean, if I don’t, I’ll surely die! Ha ha ha ha!”

The Representative cursed Puddinghead’s inability to take anything seriously. Even on the brink of falling to his death, the Chancellor was still as lighthearted as ever. How Puddinghead was considered a sane pony, Smart Cookie would never know.

His stomach growled as he looked through his saddlebags, and the Representative tried to appease it with a few stalks of hay he pulled out of his bedroll. If only Puddinghead didn’t have all the food! It was to the brown pony’s luck that he did, though. If Smart Cookie was in possession of the food, he probably would have left as soon as the rope fell short.

Even with the hay to munch on, the growling continued. Smart Cookie grumbled as he tried to ignore the noise before realizing that he didn’t have to ignore the pain. His stomach felt absolutely fine. A little on the light side, but not famished. Gulping, he glanced towards the shadows of the mountain wall to his left.

A pair of green eyes glared at him from the darkness. They blinked once, then were joined by another pair. The growling began to rise in pitch and volume as more sets of eyes appeared out of the dark, and Smart Cookie stumbled backwards. Whatever those eyes belonged to, he had a feeling it wasn’t friendly.

“Jeez, Smart Cookie! What’s taking you so long up there?” Puddinghead questioned. “It’s not like I’ve got all day! Oh, wait, I do. Carry on then!”

The sound of the Chancellor’s voice only seemed to entice the creatures farther. The growling abruptly stopped, and Smart Cookie could see one begin to leave the shadows from which it appeared. With one loud snort, the creature emerged from the mountainside and began to advance on Smart Cookie.

The monster was at least six feet tall, standing on two spindly legs covered in gray fur. Its torso was massive and muscular, and its arms made up more than half of its size and heft. Jagged teeth were bared from under bloodied lips, and its eyes glinted with malice and hatred. The beast’s ears followed Smart Cookie’s breaths and its nose tentatively sniffed the air. A stubby tail shook from underneath its patchwork garments of cloth and leather. All across its body, the monstrosity was adorned with gems and jewels of all kinds.

Smart Cookie gasped as he tripped over the bags lying near the edge of the cliff and nearly fell off. With a distinctively canine growl, the beast advanced at a faster pace, the claws on its paws gouging out huge chunks of earth. It stopped just short of the Representative, its nose twitching as it sniffed and its tongue running over its teeth. It leaned in closer until Smart Cookie could feel its breath rolling across his neck, the hot and sticky air clinging to his coat.

“Um… I d-don’t suppose we could talk this over, could we?” the pony pleaded. The beast’s sniffing halted and it drew back to regard the creature it had pinned. After deciding that it did not understand the meaning of the pony’s words, the monstrous canine only roared into Smart Cookie’s face, blowing his hat off the edge of the cliff.

The Representative gulped and bit his lip. “Yeah… I kind of figured as much.” Before the beast could respond, the earth pony drew his legs against his chest and bucked off the beast with all the force he could muster. It was no small amount, and the monster was launched several feet into the air before slamming into the mountainside, twenty feet above the path below. Smart Cookie considered himself lucky he was an earth pony and had access to their Endura. The strength the magic gave him was the only reason he could move a beast of that size. The other two races would have had to fight their way out with more indirect tactics.

He also considered how unlucky he was to be an earth pony without access to a pair of wings or teleportation magic to escape from the howling pack rushing him from out of the shadows. Scrambling to his hooves, Smart Cookie searched for a way out. He was cornered on the edge of the ravine, and there was nowhere to go except down. Except down…

“Sweet Celestis, have mercy on my troubled soul!” Smart Cookie shouted as he flung himself off of the ravine. Immediately he regretted the action. The wind ripped across his face faster than he had ever experienced in his life, and he finally understood why he was afraid of heights. Screaming, he flailed his limbs on the way down, but to no avail. His speed increased at an alarming weight, and he could feel his organs shifting within his chest.

“OhCelestisohLunispleasehelpmeIdon’twanttodiepleasepleasepleasepl—”

The icy sting of the river suddenly forced its way down Smart Cookie’s throat, cutting off his words along with his access to air. He struggled, spasms wracking his abdomen and limbs as he fought his way to the surface. The world around him lightened, and Smart Cookie knew he had broken the surface as the wind returned to buffet his face. Coughing the water from his lungs, the Representative struggled to find a rock to grab onto. Pulling himself onto the shore, Smart Cookie kissed the gravelly sands. Alive and safe! He smiled to the skies as he choked out the last of the water in his lungs. Celestis and Lunis were looking out for him after all.

“OOOOHHHH DEAR HEAVENS!! RUN FOR YOUR LIFE, SMART COOKIE!! RUN LIKE HOW YOU DID WHEN YOU FOUND THAT RAT IN YOUR OFFICE LAST MONTH!!”

Smart Cookie quickly shuffled back against the valley wall as Puddinghead sprinted by him at top speed, leaving a cloud of dirt and snow in his wake. Shaking the water off of his face, Smart Cookie glanced to where the Chancellor had come from just in time to see a pack of fifteen more of the canine monstrosities pursuing him. His ears drooped. “Son of a…”

The Representative didn’t give himself time to finish the sentence, instead choosing to turn tail and flee after Puddinghead. The Chancellor had impressive speed and agility, weaving around boulders and other obstacles in his way until Smart Cookie could only see his ever-shrinking tail outdistancing him along the river. A glance over his shoulder revealed that the dog-like creatures were closing on him, their mouths oozing in anticipation of their next meal. Panting, the orange stallion redoubled his resolve and struggled to put more distance between himself and the canines.

“Puddinghead!!!” he wailed, kicking up dirt as his hooves scrambled across a particularly slippery patch of stone and sand. Figures that this would happen to him! He would have preferred it if karma had waited a day or two to pay him back for considering abandoning Puddinghead. It’s not like he actually did leave, anyway! Well, if the Gods weren’t going to cut him some slack, then he’d have to devise his own escape. He just needed somewhere to lose the dogs…

There. A break in the river valley, opening up to the plains outside. He could flee through there and possibly outrun the dogs pursuing him. They were clumsy and ill-suited to running, best he could tell. Besides, he was running in their home turf. Sooner or later they would find some shortcut to catch him. In the open, though, they wouldn’t have that advantage.

His breath paining his throat, Smart Cookie poured the last of his energy into getting through the gap. Leaping over a large stone in his way, the Representative stumbled out of the valley. Wide expanses of land greeted him on either side, along with a gentle breeze and the warmth of the sun, complete with fifty charging Crystal Ponies.

Smart Cookie tried to skid to a stop, but his hooves only collapsed under him and he tumbled headlong into their charge. His muzzle slammed against the ground, bringing stars to his eyes and causing him to harshly bite down on his tongue. He spat blood onto the ground and squeezed his eyes shut, expecting any second to be ripped limb from limb by the barbarians’ cruel iron weapons. So much for becoming Chancellor of the Low Valleys.

The sound of hooves thundered all around him, and Smart Cookie peeked from under his hooves at the ponies rushing around him. Not over him like he anticipated, but around him. Rolling onto his back, he watched as the ponies stopped the gap he had previously burst through.

Unreal howling filled the air as the Crystal Ponies ripped apart the pack of dog-creatures that had pursued Smart Cookie. Their lines were solid, resolute, disciplined, and unlike any Crystal barbarians he had seen before. Their armor was uniform, coated in diamond and void crystals over a strong layer of steel. Cyan plumes and armor plates decorated their crystalline coats of various colors. Orders were given not with the clubbing of subordinates, but from the calm and educated voice of what Smart Cookie inferred was a general of some sorts.

In seconds it was over, and the mangled bodies of several monsters lay in the pass next to several crushed ponies. The soldiers withdrew, carrying their dead with them while a pair of soldiers advanced to burn the bodies of the canines. They bypassed Smart Cookie completely, not even sparing him as much as a glance.

Until a pair of hooves stopped by his head. Feeling them nudge against his damp mane, Smart Cookie turned his delirious eyes skyward. A towering pony, much taller than any he had ever seen before, stared back at him. The pony was a mare, complete with a jade coat largely obscured by her cyan armor of diamonds and gold. Her sky blue eyes wandered across his body, the hexagonal sparkle in their irises transfixing the Representative. A mane of darker green hung to one side of her neck, ending in frayed coils below her shoulder. A thin and expressionless mouth completed her face from under her steel helmet.

But that wasn’t what caught Smart Cookie’s eyes. Protruding from her helmet was a beautiful jade horn easily measuring over two feet in length. A slight rustling by her armored sides drew Smart Cookie’s glance towards her flanks. Two large wings of beautiful green feathers fluttered loosely against her body. The feathers were freshly preened, looking like they were treated with a level of care and attention that rivaled even that which Princess Platinum enjoyed. The tips of her feathers parted, revealing a cutie mark of a crystal sword crossed in front of a diamond shield.

Smart Cookie’s head lolled back onto the chilly grass. A unicorn… with wings? Or a pegasus with a horn? How…? All he knew for certain was that she was a Crystal Pony.

The mare looked over her shoulder and spoke to another stallion covered in armor. “Go find that other pony that came through here. I think this is one of his companions.” Her voice was smooth as silk and undulated like the gently rolling waves of a calm lake. Smart Cookie felt a sense of ease as she spoke, feeling confident that, for whatever reason, he trusted these Crystal Ponies entirely.

Faintness tugged on the edges of his mind, and Smart Cookie felt himself falling into the void. The jade mare leaned down and felt his pulse, whispering into his ear.

“You’re safe now. I promise.”

Then darkness overtook him, leaving her words to follow him to his dreams.

Clover didn’t know how long she had been marching for. Her hooves were killing her. Her legs were killing her. Her horn was killing her. Every part of her body ached in some unique and painful way, and the barbarians refused to let her have a break and rest. They had been galloping at full speed for Celestis knows how long. She was parched, hungry, and violently shaking from the cold and the void ring still fastened to her horn.

The wagon had broken down fifty miles back, and they had been marching ever since. Even then, however, Halite had been careful to make sure that his prisoners didn’t take undue damage. They walked at a brisk yet comfortable pace along well-worn trails across open plains and hills for the majority of the journey, but something spooked Halite fifteen miles back. From then on, he ordered that his soldiers stay off of the roads and move only in the shadows of the forest, marching as brisk as they could possibly go. It was Tartarus, pure and unbridled Tartarus. Platinum had caved long ago, and Halite had two of his soldiers carry her across the rough terrain. Clover was forced to travel by her own four hooves, as weary and tired as they were.

Her hooves tripped over a root, and Clover was too tired to catch herself. With a painful crash and tumble, the pistachio mare cracked her jaw against the ground with such force she could only lay there, stunned. She brought a hoof to her face and saw it came off bloody, but the blood wasn’t from her face. She looked and saw a set of crimson hoofprints in the snow behind her, disappearing into the undergrowth of the forest. She had been marching for so long that she finally reached the point when she couldn’t move anymore.

The company of barbarians stopped at Halite’s whistle, and Clover could sense several eyes turn towards her crumpled and broken figure. One set of hooves in particular approached her. The fetlocks were gray and caked with mud. Just the pony she wanted to see, especially now.

Halite’s first action was to kick Clover’s snout to try and get her to stand up. The mareservant snorted in pain, trying to jolt her head away from the warlord and his painful hooves. Her limbs struggled briefly with the snow she lay on, but it was no use. She couldn’t stand.

“Get up,” Halite hissed, kicking Clover in the snout again. Her nose began to bleed, but still she couldn’t rise. “Get up.” Another crushing blow was delivered to her ribcage, causing the young mare to cough in agony. Growling, Halite took his sword from his scabbard and rested it on Clover’s neck.

“Sir,” one of the barbarians began, taking a tentative step towards his leader, “I thought we was keeping her. Wasn’t she worth some good amount o’ bits or somethin’?”

“She would be worth a few hundred, but I am hardly concerned. The Princess is worth much, much more. Besides,” he put slight pressure to the sword, drawing forth specks of blood, “she’ll only slow us down, and I want to get back to Onyx Ridge as soon as possible. Foul things follow the scent of wealth. Most of them fly.”

Clover strained against the ground, but her aching limbs wouldn’t support her. “Wait… I can march… just give me time to rest…”

Halite clicked his tongue and shook his head. “No, my little unicorn, we don’t have time to waste. I’m sorry, but I’m afraid it’s going to have to be this way.”

Tightening his grip on the sword, Halite raised it over his head. Clover squeezed her eyes shut, cringing and huddling her limbs close to herself in a fetal position. Sun and Moon, this was how it was all going to end, wasn’t it?

“Wait!”

The iron sword buried its nose in the ground next to Clover’s neck, leaving the frightened mare whimpering in the snow. Halite picked up his weapon and turned along with the rest of the Crystal Ponies to where Princess Platinum stood, a jagged shard of iron gripped in her teeth. One of her guards lay bleeding on the ground next to her, the iron still dripping his blood. The other she had in a headlock, the shard of iron pointed at his neck.

“If you so much as hurt her, I’ll kill this poor sod!” Platinum shouted, the iron quivering in her grip as she spoke. It was a laughable sight to see a proud Crystal warrior held hostage by a princess whose first and only care was whether her mane looked right. It was also very unlike the Princess to threaten to kill another pony, much less actually do it.

Halite called the bluff immediately. “You would do no such thing. You had the chance to finish off the soldier you wounded, and you did nothing. You lack the resolve to harm another pony. It’s not in your nature.” He advanced, his hooves crunching the snow underneath with great malice. “Put the shank down, Platinum. It’s not like you’re going to fight us all off.”

Her eyes darting from pony to pony, Platinum pushed off of the hostage she had and stepped backwards. Halite was right, she couldn’t hope to fight off all of the barbarians, much less himself. And it wasn’t like Halite cared whether or not she killed his soldiers anyway. There was only one thing she could do. Clamping the piece of iron between her hooves, she aimed it at her own chest.

Halite paused before speaking again, but Platinum could tell his tone had changed. “Platinum, let’s not do anything hasty. You wouldn’t want to ruin your coat, would you? Much less take your own life.”

Platinum gulped, but her resolve was steeling. “I know I’m the only thing you care about here, Halite. I’m worth thousands, tens of thousands, aren’t I? How much money are you going to get off of a corpse? Especially a corpse with a nasty piece of iron sticking out of her heart?”

“You wouldn’t do it.”

“Try me,” Platinum spat. Stealing a breath, the Princess pushed on the shard of iron. Rivulets of scarlet began to trickle from her coat as she gasped against the pain.

“Stop!” Halite shouted. “Stop!” His shoulders were shaking, and he swallowed sharply. Turning to his soldiers, he nodded his head. “Pick her up. We’re bringing her to Onyx Ridge with us.” He took a step closer to Platinum, bending down to her level. “I did what you wanted. Your servant is safe. Now, drop the shard.”

Platinum stared at her chest as she willed herself to stop hyperventilating. The blood trickled down her perfectly white coat until it dripped to the ground between her hooves. It was a shallow wound, barely worse than a paper cut, but the significance behind it scared her the most. She had come within inches of seriously hurting herself or worse to save the life of a servant. Why?

The shard of iron fell to the snow, her blood and the blood of the Crystal Pony she had wounded mingling together in a crimson stain. She didn’t have the urge to resist as two warriors replaced her bindings and carried her across their backs. As the barbarians began to move again, Platinum found she lacked the ability to express her emotions.

“Why?”

Platinum started as another pony gave her turbulent thoughts a voice. She looked across the marching barbarian’s back to see Clover being carried next to her, bruised and bloodied but alive. “Why did you save me?”

The question sat heavily in the Princess’ mind, but she found her answer not in her brain, but in her heart. A new mask of confidence overtook her features and she smiled softly to Clover.

“Because I realized that you’re my friend. Not just a servant. My one and only friend in this cruel, harsh world.”

Clover raised a weak eyebrow. “Really? I… I didn’t think you cared, Princess.”

“Of course I care, Clover darling. I didn’t before, that much is true, but now… well, now I realize that you’re important to me. You’re the only one who’s really ever had my side. Whether that’s from subservience or something else I won’t stop to ponder. But you’re here, with me, and I couldn’t turn my back on you.” Her eyes took on a resolved glint, and she nodded her head as if she had never been more certain of anything in her life. “And I promise you, Clover, that no matter what happens, we’re getting out of this. Together.”

The Princess’ intensity filled Clover with a newfound sense of awe and determination. Platinum was right. They would find some way to get out of this. No matter how tough the obstacles to their freedom were. No matter how high the walls were…

Celestis, those walls were high.

The troop of Crystal barbarians crested a hill on the edge of a forest to look out across a landscape of plains and fields that stretched on for a hundred miles in any direction. The snow shimmered softly under the early afternoon sun that had poked its way through the clouds, and tiny gusts and breezes swirled some of the crystals into lovely patterns. A backdrop of grandiose mountains in the west framed the picture beautifully. Clover knew that behind those silent obelisks of stone and rock lay the strait, her doorway to finding new lands for the Kingdom. Those thoughts were put on hold, however, when she saw the towering structure placed in the center of the fields about ten miles out.

The structure was a fortress of incredible strength and size. Black walls sloped upwards from the fortified ground surrounding it, their polished faces creating a blinding display as they scattered the sun’s rays across their onyx surfaces. They must have gone upwards for nearly two hundred feet; River Rock’s own stone walls paled in comparison, not even measuring to half of their height. Towers and buttresses of all kinds adorned the circular walls at regular intervals. Low ramparts ringed the fortress in concentric circles for at least a mile out from its impressive main gates. A brilliant castle, made of onyx bricks as far as Clover could tell, dominated the center of the fortress. It was then that the mare realized that Onyx Ridge was not just a fortress; it was a citadel of impressive scale, probably home to tens of thousands of Crystal warriors.

“Come on, move it!” Halite growled to his followers. “Onyx Ridge is only eleven miles away! Let’s hustle! I want to be in my own bed by nightfall!”

The two unicorns glanced at each other as their captors began the charge towards Onyx Ridge. Clover was glad that Platinum had given her that motivational pep talk. It gave her the strength and resolve to escape from Halite, no matter what the cost.

She would need that strength and resolve if she was going to find a way out of Onyx Ridge.

“See anything?”

“Nothing, sir!”

“Dammit,” Hurricane swore from high above the treetops. He and Pan Sea had been searching for any sign of Streak Wing and his company of bandits for days now, and hadn’t come across a single trace in their ever-widening search. He figured he would find something by now—a campsite, discarded bones, anything—but his guesses all came up empty. He was beginning to think that somehow he had lost the traitors and all the energy he had expended on the search was going to end up being a waste. Part of him argued that he should just move on and forget Streak Wing; there was no way that the deserter believed him to still be alive, not with the potency of the poison he had given him. It would be safer and wiser just to continue heading west, find new lands, and return. The mountains still loomed large on the horizon, beckoning for the Commander to surmount them. They were only a two days’ flight out at this point.

Still, something far more powerful than wisdom pulled on Hurricane’s soul and demanded that he find Streak Wing and claim his life as payment for the wrongs he had committed against Cirra. Was it pride, challenging him to avenge the blows against his honor and the honor of Cirra that this one traitor and his band of deserters had dealt? Perhaps it was his sense of duty that ordered him to strike down deserters and traitors as the old Empire once expected him to do. Maybe it was fear, telling him that if he didn’t kill Streak Wing first, the former Legate would find a way to destroy him and his nation.

Whatever it was, it had prompted the search for Streak Wing the day after Hurricane recovered from the poison. Whatever gear the deserters hadn’t taken, Hurricane and Pan Sea split between them, and after Hurricane had hunted enough food to feed them for a few days, the two Legionnaires took to the skies and began their spiraling search for Streak Wing. Hurricane only knew that the deserters had gone somewhere to the south or west, but he had no way of knowing where the pegasus’ destination lay. So, resorting to brute force locating tactics, Hurricane and Pan Sea swept back and forth across the forest and hills in widening arcs to try and find some evidence of the Legate’s trail, only to find nothing.

Fuming with suppressed rage, Hurricane flew to the top of a cumulus cloud and draped himself across it. Pan Sea followed shortly afterwards, setting his helmet down on the cushiony surface next to him. The two pegasi scanned the land below from their lofty perch, all but giving up on the search.

“I can’t believe we lost him,” Hurricane growled. He flexed his wings, arching the tips to meet each other over his head. The poison had left his muscles badly cramped and his stamina greatly reduced, making it difficult to fly for several hours straight. Hurricane, however, had been flying for several days straight, only stopping to sleep or eat. His wings burned, and he had lost half of his secondary feathers. At least his strong primaries were mostly unaffected by Galm’s Elixir.

Pan Sea coughed nervously into his foreleg. “Um, perhaps we should just forget about Streak Wing, Commander. Or at least take a break. That would be good, sir. Don’t we have a more important mission, anyway? I would think finding a new land would be more important than this wind duck hunt. I know Cirra only has enough food to last a month or two before we’re completely out.”

Hurricane rolled onto his back and grumbled. “Gods be damned if I let a traitor attack Cirra twice and live. Streak Wing needs to pay. Even if we ignore him and find a new land, imagine how much havoc he and his followers could cause during the migration. He has some of the best trained soldiers in the Legion with him. And you know how good they were with their hit and run tactics.”

Pan Sea gulped and dipped his head. He had never seen pegasi move like that before, wreathing themselves in cloud to stalk their prey. He hadn’t seen them, period. Not until they started diving out of the sky in their ambush. He could only imagine the difficulty the Legion would have in protecting its supplies and civilians against pegasi like them, especially at nightfall.

Scraping a bit of dirt off of his hoof, Hurricane let his legs dangle off of the cloud. “We have to kill Streak Wing. He’s too dangerous to let live.”

Looking at the trees below and the skies above, Pan Sea nibbled on his hoof as he thought. “Well, we know that they went to the south or west. Is there anything to the west, as far as you know, sir?”

Hurricane shook his head. “Nothing. At least, that’s what the explorers told me last year. They went as far as the mountains and back and didn’t find anything of importance. Just trees and hills.”

Sitting up, Hurricane turned to face the south. “But there was something that they did mention to me. There was a sizeable structure a good eighty or ninety miles south of here. A fortress of some sort, with walls of solid onyx and battlements of impressive strength. They said it was some sort of Crystal Pony city. Although I doubt that the warlords have the means or the desire to organize even a modest settlement, I know that the fortress does indeed exist. Perhaps we might find Streak Wing heading in that direction.”

Pan Sea raised an eyebrow. “You knew about a Crystal Pony encampment and didn’t do anything about it? Why?” He glanced at Hurricane nervously before shuffling his hooves across the cloud. “I mean, I’m sure you had good reasons, but—”

“Because I didn’t want to waste Cirran lives on destroying a distant and out of the way fortress that was of no bother to the Diamond Kingdom or the Low Valleys, that’s why,” Hurricane interrupted. “Crystal Ponies are stubborn as all hell when it comes to defending something they think they own. Just take Legate Thunder Hawk’s campaign against warlord Pyrite in the Middle Pass. Fifteen thousand dead to dispatch an encampment in the mountains numbering no more than five thousand. It’d cost so much more to destroy a stronger force inside a fortress. I don’t need to be throwing away the lives of my ponies on something like that. Let them come to us and do the attacking where we can dissect their ranks easily. It’s the best way to deal with them.”

Fluttering his wings, Hurricane hopped off of the cloud and began to circle higher and higher, Pan Sea following him close behind. They rode a light thermal up through the troposphere until they were several miles above the ground, offering Hurricane a good look at the world below. Gliding below some cirrus clouds, Hurricane began to fly to the south, looking for a break in the storm below.

“Come on, clear up you bastards,” he whispered to himself, his tired wings working to keep him aloft in the thin air. After several minutes of flying, his prayers were answered when a thin oculus opened above the plains to the south. The fields stretched out in every direction, but nestled in the center of their incredible snowbound brilliance was a single, solitary structure, its masonry as black as the darkest night.

Smiling, Hurricane began a rapid descent, feeling his ears pop as the pressure rapidly increased. His steep descent took him to speeds he had only reached a few times in his life, and he flattened his ears against the shrill winds his projectile shape cut through. He squinted his eyes against the cold air, feeling them begin to water beyond control, and he started to steer his descent with his wingtips alone. The thrill of diving at such a speed was remarkable, and he would have laughed if the air wouldn’t have choked him to death for doing so.

Feeling the air begin to tremble around him as he approached incredible speeds, Hurricane quickly dropped his legs and slowed his descent. He had approached the speed barrier that no Cirran could pass through, when all of sound seemed to disappear until there was only the wind and the flier. He had heard the stories of foolish pegasi who tried to break the barrier; how their wings had been torn from their body, how the sudden explosion of thunder and color proved absolutely devastating to any flying too close. The boundaries of the Gods were not so easily passed, and Hurricane had no intention of risking his neck on attempting to do so. He had a mission, and that came first and foremost in his mind.

The trees whipped past Hurricane’s tail as he descended closer and closer to the canopy below. He occasionally twisted or rolled to the side as a stray branch reached out to ensnare him, and the leaves swayed in the wake he left behind. He tried to measure his speed as he flew. He figured he must have been going eighty or ninety miles per hour. Undoubtedly, he was going much faster during the dive, but he had no real way of knowing how fast.

Several hours of flight took him to within twenty miles of the fortress, and he descended into a clearing, panting from his flight. He stumbled his landing but managed to recover into a trot, burning off his momentum with open wings as he came to a halt. Wiping the sweat from his brow, Hurricane turned and sat against a nearby tree. He was not as young as he used to be. He would need to remember that next time before sprinting several dozen miles in one go.

It took many minutes for Pan Sea to finally catch up, and when he did, Hurricane’s mouth twitched in amusement as the Legionnaire immediately began to preen his feathers. At least ten badly frayed quills were pulled from his wings in the first few minutes, and Pan Sea grumbled the whole time. While he was working, Hurricane took the time to inspect his own wings as well. They surprisingly weren’t nearly as bad as Pan Sea’s, but they could use some work. One or two loose feathers were pulled, and Hurricane smoothed the rest into place with his teeth. It occurred to him that the last time he had his feathers preened was when Swift Spear cleaned them the night before he left. A pang of loneliness filled his heart, as well as a strong longing for the friendly skies of Cloudsdale. It was difficult to leave all those he loved behind, but they never said being a leader was about making easy decisions. Instead, Hurricane turned the loneliness he felt into a stronger resolve to succeed in finding Cirra a new home, and he could start by killing Streak Wing and ending his dissention once and for all.

It took ten minutes for Pan Sea to decide his wings were in neat enough an order for his liking. Trotting over to Hurricane, he sat down next to the Commander and held his helmet between his hooves. “Are you sure you couldn’t have gone a teeny bit slower, Commander? I had a hard enough time keeping up as it was.”

Hurricane released a single breath of air that passed for a laugh. “No time to lose, Pansy. We don’t want Streak Wing to get too far ahead of us, now don’t we?” Swiveling his head across the tiny clearing they were nested in, Hurricane’s ears perked. “Especially not now.”

Standing up, the black pegasus began to trot to the opposite end of the clearing. Pan Sea leaned to his side, trying to see around Hurricane’s body. “What is it, Commander? Did you find something?”

“I found something, alright.” Bending down, Hurricane nosed a pile of leaves off of a glinting piece of metal lying covered near the tree roots. He smiled and balanced the blade between his hooves. Cirran lettering glared back at him, the grooves of the characters filled with dried blood. Looking again to the south, Hurricane tossed the knife aside and stretched his wings.

Pan Sea scrambled to his hooves and galloped over to Hurricane. “Was that Streak Wing’s, Commander? Are we back on the trail?”

Walking towards the edge of the clearing, Hurricane flicked his ears in response. “We’re back on the trail, Pansy. Streak Wing isn’t too far from us now.”

Pan Sea exhaled and checked his sword. “Are we going to be flying then, sir?”

“No. We’re going to walk. We’d be too exposed in the air anyway.” Glancing over his shoulder, Hurricane’s lips parted in a thin smile. “Looks like you finally got that break you wanted.”

Chapter 9: The Best Laid Plans

Even under several inches of snow, the scent of pine needles was fresh in Commander Hurricane’s nostrils. His and Pan Sea’s walk had taken them into the night and fifteen miles closer to the Crystal Pony fortress. While they still had yet to find any signs of Streak Wing and his followers, Hurricane knew it was only a matter of time. He had the scent, and it was leading him closer and closer to the fortress.

For the most part, Hurricane simply tried to follow the trees with noticeable gashes on their trunks from where one of the rogues dragged his wingblades along. The jagged tears along the wood could only be made by the skysteel scales of the blades, leaving out the possibility that they were carved by Crystal warriors. Besides, Hurricane had seen the wounds on too many bodies, especially equine bodies. Visions of fire and ash, choking soot and a thunderous roar danced across his eyes, and he shook his head to clear them.

There was a squelching noise to his right, and Hurricane spun on his hooves to face it, his head already leaning towards the hilt of his sword. He dropped the position, however, when he saw Pan Sea shaking his hooves in disgust.

“Ewww…”

Hurricane sighed and trotted over to Pan Sea. “What is it? Don’t tell me you’re afraid of a little mud.”

Pan Sea shook his head and began dragging his hoof through the snow to clean it. “It’s not mud, Commander, it’s… dirt.”

Raising an eyebrow, Hurricane looked at Pan Sea’s hoof. “Dirt? That’s what mud is, Pansy.”

“No, not that kind of dirt… like, dirt dirt, Commander.”

Realization dawned on Hurricane’s face, swiftly accompanied by a disappointed glare in Pan Sea’s direction. “Shit, Pansy. It’s shit. You don’t need to be making such a big deal out of it.” Shouldering past the Legionnaire, Hurricane crested a hilltop. His gaze hardened, and he slunk closer to the ground. “Although, maybe you should.”

Those words brought firm and immediate panic to Pan Sea’s voice. “What? Why?! Is it something bad?” He scrambled up the hill towards Hurricane, trying to shake his hoof as clean as he possibly could. “What is—?”

He was silenced by a powerful buck from Hurricane that sent him tumbling back down the hill and into a thick tree trunk. Hurricane turned over his shoulder and hissed at him, motioning with his head to be quiet and come listen. Pan Sea complied, swallowing his disgust at the last traces of ‘dirt’ that clung to his hoof.

Crawling to the edge of the hilltop, Pan Sea felt his stomach go into his hooves. There in the clearing, with a perfect view of the onyx fortress between two groves of trees, sat the deserter encampment. There was no fire and only a few tents between them, but the camp was heavily patrolled by ex-Legionnaires, all in painted red armor. Sentries sat in the trees, each with an uninterrupted view of the entire camp, as well as the sentry on either side. Streak Wing had chosen the ground for his encampment well; there was no way that Hurricane or Pan Sea could sneak in and assassinate him without alerting the other soldiers.

Which brought about the second glaring problem. When Streak Wing left Hurricane, he had ten deserters with him. Now, Hurricane counted no less than thirty-nine pegasi, most of them centurions, and even a few Legates. Where the additional deserters came from, he had no idea, but he knew that even for as skilled as he was, Hurricane couldn’t take on several Legates and centurions at the same time. His heart sank. How was he supposed to kill Streak Wing now?

“That’s a lot of soldiers,” Pan Sea whispered next to Hurricane. Taking off his helmet, the Legionnaire sat it on the ground behind him so it wouldn’t catch the moonlight as he turned towards his commander. “What do you suppose we do?”

Hurricane tapped a hoof against his chin. “I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

A shout arose from the center of the camp, and Hurricane saw a pegasus sprint out from one of the tents to where several of the deserters were clustered in a brawl. Even in the darkness, the red feathers against his bladed, white wings stood out like fire in the night. Charging into the knot of ponies, Streak Wing sent several tumbling before separating the rest from their entanglement. His sword was drawn and his bladed wings were held against his sides, and soon enough the camp fell quiet. When it did, Streak Wing relaxed and returned his sword to its scabbard.

“Enough!” the Legate shouted into his soldiers. “Enough! I know you’re restless! I know you’re itching for a fight! Stay your blades and hooves for but another night and day, and I swear to you, you will have it!”

The soldiers murmured to one another, but Streak Wing’s eyes silenced them. He began to pace in wide circles among his troops, checking them for wounds. The words did not stop there, however.

“Hurricane is dead, that much is for certain. Galm’s Elixir is lethal in the tiniest of doses. I plunged a blade soaked in the poison into his chest!” Hurricane winced, his hoof absent-mindedly travelling to the wound in his ribcage. “So to celebrate, we’re going to party at Onyx Ridge and trade for whatever valuables they have—bits, weapons, mares—before that army of Unionists we spotted on the flight down here moves in on them.”

Hurricane raised an eyebrow. Unionists? They were still around? From what he had gathered, their leadership was broken and the barbarians had them on the run. How could it be that they were still fighting?

Streak Wing wasn’t done talking yet, and his wingblades rattled as he shook out his feathers for emphasis. “After we get some Crystal blood on our hooves, we’re flying back to Cirra. With a few key assassinations, the nation will be in turmoil in mere months. We come back in and take the palace before the Praetorian is able to respond, and bam! We’re now in charge of the nation!”

The deserters gave Streak Wing a chorus of guttural cheering and support, and the traitor returned them a toothy smile. Holding up a wing to silence them, he began to pace across the clearing with intent and purpose. “When I am Commander Maximus, Cirra will once again become the great empire it was back in Dioda. You all fought in the Red Cloud War; you all know what Hurricane lost us! I’ll get it back! With the earth ponies and the unicorns subdued into an appropriate fighting force, we can take Dioda back from the griffons and escape this damnable blizzard! And then we’ll show them true Cirran fury! Not a one will be spared! Dioda will run red from coast to coast with Gryphon blood, suffocating in Gryphon feathers, and would we want it any other way?” Streak Wing vigorously shook his head as his soldiers shouted down Gryphus. “No! We would not.” Glancing to the position of the moon, he smoothed some of his feathers, and his voice along with them. “The night grows late. Tomorrow we make preparations for the journey. The day after that?” He laughed, a dark and menacing thing that sent chills down even Hurricane’s spine. “The Unionists are going to be advancing on our ‘friends’ at Onyx Ridge. How’s about we show them a taste of true Cirran fury?”

His soldiers cheered him one last time, and then Streak Wing disappeared into one of the larger tents with several of the other Legates. Lanterns were lit, and Hurricane could see them spread a map across the table before the canvas flap was shut. The soldiers then began to disperse, spreading across the campsite or to their bedrolls on the stone. The sentries whistled a few notes to each other, and then all was silent.

Hurricane stepped back from the hilltop and fluttered several feet back before walking in the opposite direction of the camp, Pan Sea right on his tail. When he was sure they were out of earshot of the camp, Pan Sea nervously trotted up to Hurricane, his flared feathers betraying his alarm. “What are we gonna do, sir? If they’re going to go to Onyx Ridge, we might not have much time.”

“I know that,” Hurricane countered. “The smart thing to do would be to wait for them to return from their expedition and kill Streak Wing while they’re tired and weak from the fight with the Unionists. Fighting through scores of Crystal warriors is bound to be tiresome.”

Pan Sea breathed a sigh of relief. “That’s good, that’s really good. I was worried you were going to say something… else…” He stopped as Hurricane’s teeth barely made themselves visible in the dim moonlight. “Oh no, oh no no, sir, please don’t, sir, please don’t.”

“Fortunately I have a better plan than the ‘smart thing’. It’s bound to be much more fun than waiting around for them to get back.” Having travelled sufficient distance from Streak Wing’s camp, Hurricane jumped into a tree to fix his bedroll between two branches. “We’re going to attack him right in the thick of the chaos the Unionist raid on Onyx Ridge is sure to create.”

“But sir…” Pan Sea whined, flying up into a tree next to Hurricane. “Why must we do these things the hard way? What happened to the calm and collected Commander that I knew? He’d never do something so… stupid, if you don’t mind me saying.”

Hurricane grinned as he hung his provisions from tree branches and settled into his bedroll. “He died with the poison, Pan Sea. At least for the time being,” he rubbed his hooves together, “I’m going to have some fun getting vengeance on that bastard.”

Smart Cookie awoke in an expensive bed in an expensive tent furnished with several expensive decorations. It took him a moment to recall where he was. Visions of a cliff side, canine monstrosities, charging Crystal Ponies, and a beautiful mare flitted across his eyes as he struggled to sit up in the bed. It was comfortable enough, with plenty of bird down in the pillows and tender straw in the mattress. If he didn’t know any better, the Representative would have assumed he was sleeping in the bed of royalty.

A plate of food sat on the table next to him. Covering the silver platter was a healthy selection of potatoes, lettuce, rhubarb, and even some carrots. Smart Cookie’s mouth watered, and he greedily reached for the plate. He hadn’t seen this much food in one place in weeks!

The next few minutes were an unforgettable experience for the famished Representative. The meat of the potatoes was brilliantly yellow, the lettuce and rhubarb were crunchy and firm, and the carrots overwhelmed his mouth with flavor. In just a short while, Smart Cookie had downed more food than he had eaten since he had left Amber Field, and it was delicious.

Taking a large gulp of water from the pitcher next to the table, the Representative reclined in the bed and listened to the world outside through the painted canvas walls. The muffled voices of soldiers reached him through the coarse fabric as they shouted orders to each other, but there was laughter and merriment behind it. Flocks of birds twittered all around the tent, feasting on whatever scraps of food the army left behind for them. The atmosphere simply sounded lively and happy, something that Smart Cookie didn’t expect to hear in a Crystal Pony encampment.

“May I come in?”

Smart Cookie nearly jumped out of his skin, not expecting to hear that voice so soon. It was the same flowing and melodic voice he remembered from the plains, gently tickling its way past the canvas and towards the Representative’s ears. He turned towards the large door flap of the tent and found himself having to swallow the urge to gasp in awe.

Smiling, the jade mare pushed aside the flap and walked into the tent, her tall frame easily fitting within the high ceiling. Wings fluttered against her sides, shaking snow off of their feathers, while the long horn protruding from her dark green mane filled a glass of water for Smart Cookie with Arcana. Pulling a chair up to his bedside, she sat on the comically undersized seat as the light glittered off of her crystalline body.

Swallowing sharply, Smart Cookie moved his eyes from her horn to her wings and back again. “You’re… you’re a winged unicorn?”

The mare laughed, an easy and lighthearted sound that teased the earth pony’s ears. “Technically speaking, yes. But some also call me a horned pegasus. Which one is more accurate?”

Smart Cookie had no words for her response, and she waved away his speechlessness with a kind smile. “They’re both correct, but to call me one or the other is to call you a wingless pegasus, or a hornless unicorn. No, I’m something else entirely. I’m an alicorn.”

“An… alicorn?” Smart Cookie’s head was reeling. “But only Celestis and Lunis are alicorns. There’s no way—”

The jade mare quietly shushed him. “I am not one of your gods, but just because the form of an alicorn is revered does not make it holy. I assure you, I was naturally born forty years ago, even if there was much fanfare. As far as we know, I’m one of only three alicorns in our history.”

Smart Cookie released a thoughtful breath and sagged in the bed. “That’s just… wow. This is just so much to take in… I never thought I’d meet an actual alicorn one day.” Scratching his head, Smart Cookie released that he was missing his hat. “Say, you wouldn’t happen to have my—?”

The feeling of his familiar feathered hat settling on his head silenced him, and he looked over just in time to see the last traces of a blue aura fade from the mare’s horn. “Thank you. You really saved my life back at the valley. Mine and the Chancellor’s.”

The alicorn angled her head to the side. “The Chancellor… he’s the brown one with the silly hat, correct?”

Smart Cookie nodded. “Yeah, that’s Chancellor Puddinghead. Keeping after him is a…” Words failed him for a moment as he tried to sort through his adjectives and find a suitable one to describe the eccentric Chancellor. “Is certainly an interesting experience.” Scratching his head, Smart Cookie looked towards one of the canvas walls with a small porthole cut through it. “What exactly were those things that were chasing us, anyway? Some sort of dog monster-thing?”

The mare’s response was a single word. “Vargr.”

“Gesundheit.”

“No, no,” the alicorn laughed and shook her head. “That’s what they’re called. Vargr. The dogs of the deep. They hunt for gems, crystals, and especially diamonds as some sort of primal instinct. Although they have been known to go after ponies when they fancy a bit of fresh meat.”

Smart Cookie blew air out of his teeth. “Wow. So, on a scale of one to ten, how dead were we if we hadn’t ran into you?”

“Easily a ten,” the alicorn chuckled. “At least for you, if you don’t mind me saying. That Chancellor of yours has got some pretty fast legs, and I don’t think he was going to slow down to help you out at all.”

The Representative murmured some personal opinions under his breath before reclining in his bed. “That’s for sure. Puddinghead isn’t exactly the most loyal.” He paused before laughing slightly and turning to face the mare. “I’m sorry, I should have asked this earlier. If you don’t mind me asking, what’d you say your name was?”

The green mare stood up and gestured for Smart Cookie to do the same. “Jade. It’s nice to meet you, mister…?”

“Smart Cookie, Representative of the Low Valleys, Chairpony of the Board of Representatives,” the orange stallion chirped. Trotting over to Jade’s side to keep up with her lengthy strides, he felt a new sense of meekness next to the towering mare. “Did you have any sort of title or anything? I could only imagine an alicorn such as yourself would be distinguished in some way.”

Jade laughed, pushing aside the tent flap for Smart Cookie to exit. “The army calls me Commander, the civilians call me Queen. My father, now, he called me Princess.”

Smart Cookie felt the words over with his tongue. “I like Princess. Do you mind, Miss Jade?”

“No, not at all. The titles themselves are inconsequential to me. All I care about is leading my subjects. Sometimes, that means being the Queen or Princess. Other times,” she gestured with a broad sweep of her hoof, “it means leading an army.”

Smart Cookie gasped as he looked out across the plains from the tent’s positioning on the only hill for miles. Thousands, tens of thousands of tents spread out in every direction along neat lines, interrupted every hundred or so to make way for a clearing that branched off into lateral side streets. The clearings were home to fireplaces, and the sheen of thousands of Crystal Ponies out and about nearly blinded the Representative. A rough series of ramparts, somehow dignified in their hasty creation, surrounded the miles-wide camp until they ended against a river to the north.

Princess Jade watched with slight bemusement as Smart Cookie struggled to close his gaping jaw. “Quite impressive, isn’t it? The culmination of fifteen years of hard work. This is the largest Union army in the Crystal Empire. In fact, with the exception of local garrisons at some of our settlements, this is the only Union army of the Crystal Empire.”

“How…” Smart Cookie rubbed his eyes, trying to size how large the camp was. “How many soldiers do you have?”

“Seventy-five thousand in total, with another ten thousand support staff limited to non-combat duties. I think it’s near the size of some of Cirra’s legions, if I’m correct.” Gesturing with her long horn, she began to walk down the hill. “Walk with me?”

Smart Cookie hesitated before galloping up to her side and settling into a comfortable trot to keep up with the mare’s strides. “Not quite, from what I know with dealing with them. A Cirran legion is usually ninety-six thousand strong; not really sure why they don’t just make it an even hundred thousand.” Glancing at the tents around them, Smart Cookie adjusted his hat before hastily adding: “It’s still an impressive size for an army, anyway.”

“Aye,” Jade agreed, dipping her head as she did so. “This army began as little more than the dream of my father, a dream I was destined to inherit. How much it has grown since then.”

A pair of generals trotted up to Jade, and after exchanging a few quick words, the Princess dismissed them with a wave of her wing. Walking further into the ordered confusion of the camp, Jade gestured towards several lowly tents home to only the greenest of privates. “When my father first started his crusade to unify the Crystal Pony tribes under one banner, these were the kind of ponies he had at his disposal. Young, poor, oftentimes sick and with no training, they were the backbone of this army’s humble beginnings. In time he shaped them, molded them with gentle encouragements and harsh discipline, gave the Union a spine of steel. In time, they became the finest soldiers the world has ever seen. You just saw two of them.”

Smart Cookie’s eyebrows rose as he whistled his astonishment. Quickly glancing across her shoulder to see that her companion was entertained, Jade motioned with a hoof towards where twenty soldiers were sparring at once in a massive brawl. “Father was a sort of revolutionary when it came to training soldiers. He believed that training should mimic the chaos and discord of an actual battle. Survival was taught first; military discipline was taught later. After all, what good is a company that can march in a straight line if they’re gutted on barbarian iron?”

“Not much good,” Smart Cookie agreed. Princess Jade nodded.

“Exactly. This was how he built his army. Through training came success. Through success, recognition. Through recognition, influence. Through influence… well, then you have a cause. This is our cause, my father’s dream. To unify the Crystal Ponies as one race, one empire, not disparate groups who fight each other and slaughter innocents for their coin and valuables. No, we’re far better than that. The warlords have tarnished our name for far too long. It’s up to us to stop it and make ourselves more than murderers and thieves… more than barbarians.”

“And you really think that’s possible?”

Jade grunted in response, but the corners of her mouth twitched into a smile. “I have to believe it’s possible. This is too important a cause to give up. Right now, power is in the hooves of those who would abuse it, like warlord Halite, instead of those who would use it for the common good.”

“Like you.”

“Yes, like me,” agreed Jade. “Where Halite and his allies fight for money and simply for reason to fight, I fight for peace and safety. Understandably a harder cause, but father taught me that because the cause is harder, that makes it worth it in the end.”

“Your father sounds like a pretty cool stallion. I’d like to meet him someday.” Smart Cookie looked on to Jade’s face for a nod, but instead he found it covered in sorrow. In a blink, however, it was gone, and the Princess only had a blank slate across her features, through which a small fire of determination shone through.

“I wish you could. But he’s gone on to the Summer Lands. He was a great stallion, a great Crystal Pony. He would have done so much more for us…” She sighed and kicked a stone away as she walked. “Sadly, it was not meant to be. Five years ago, the army had warlord Halite cornered in the northeastern fields. He had the mountains to his back, the ocean on his flank, and Cirra to the south. How he let his forces get worked into such a position, we didn’t know, but we weren’t going to sit on such a gift and let him slip away. Father and I gathered what we had—probably little more than twenty thousand soldiers at the time—and we threw everything at him.

“I think I know now that it was exactly what Halite wanted. Hurricane’s eyes stretch far and wide, and he saw the mustering soldiers on his northwestern borders. I can only assume he saw us as some sort of threat; Tartarus, he’d been fighting Crystal warlords for fifteen years by then. He sent in two legions to stomp us out, not understanding that we were the Union, not the barbarians.”

Smart Cookie shuddered, trying to imagine what it was like to be under aerial assault and outnumbered ten to one. “He didn’t recognize that you were uniformed, or that you were under the Unionist banner?”

Jade shook her head, a mixture of grief and anger revealed through gritted teeth. “In those days, we didn’t have any sort of uniform. Our soldiers wore what they could scavenge from the barbarians, or what they brought from home. And our banner was little different from any other warlord’s standard. Commander Hurricane thought we were just another group of barbarians foolishly threatening his borders. He—” she gulped, steadying her breath. “He led the assault on her camp. He cut apart our soldiers. There was fire everywhere. I tried to stay and fight, tried to help save as many of my soldiers as I could. I downed many a Legionnaire that day, but I had hoped that my compassion towards their wounded would be enough to show them that I wasn’t another barbarian.”

Smart Cookie ran a hoof through his mane. “It didn’t work?”

“No. It didn’t. And as the perimeter of our camp crumbled to nothingness and my forces continued to get slaughtered, I came across my father. He was bloodied and leaning on a halberd, breathing heavily. He told me to go. I tried to argue with him, but…” She gasped and swallowed down her emotions. “My father saved my life that day. He caught Hurricane’s attention so that I could run and rebuild the army elsewhere.

“I ran, and as I looked over my shoulder, I saw Hurricane flay him alive with his sword.”

Shaking slightly, Princess Jade paused by a fire to catch her breath and dry the tears that had formed on her cheeks. “I will never forget that image. Halite escaped in the confusion and retreated to Onyx Ridge to continue building his own army, while I lost damn near the entire Union that day. The Unification War would have been over had not Cirra interfered. Instead, I find myself in the same position I was in five years ago. Halite is cornered, and my army stands ready to crush him. Will this time be any different?” She shrugged her shoulders, a motion Smart Cookie found interesting because of how her wings moved as well. “Only time will tell, but know this: I don’t blame Hurricane for what happened five years ago. I don’t blame my father or myself for falling for Halite’s trap. I only blame Halite for what happened, and before the week is out, I’ll have his head on a pike, or die trying.”

Smart Cookie was taken aback by the Princess’ fire. “And you’re moving on Halite now, I assume? Where is he? How big of an army does he have?”

They summited a hill together, and Jade pointed with her horn across a long clearing to the southeast. Several miles away, at the neck of two rivers and surrounded by earthen fortifications, stood a fortress as black as night. Its solid black stone walls towered impressively over the earth below, spaced with fortifications that supported catapults and ballistae aplenty. Smart Cookie wasn’t sure how large the fortress was on the inside, but he figured it had room for thousands of soldiers behind its black walls and intimidating gate.

“You’re… you’re going to attack that?” Concerns over Jade’s safety filled his mind, and he fought to suppress them. Jade was the commander of her army, after all. She would have another idea of how to keep her ponies safe.

“I’m afraid not,” she muttered softly. Smart Cookie was astounded, but before he could get the chance to speak, Jade stopped him with a look. “I know. You worry about the safety of my army, about my safety, and you wish that I had thought up another way to destroy Halite. I wish that too, but it’s simply not feasible given the current state of affairs. Food is quickly growing scarce, something I’m sure you’re familiar with, and a standing army is a hungry army. I don’t have the time to wait for another solution. Either Halite surrenders, which I know he is not going to do, or we break Onyx Ridge apart by force.” Her sweeping wing graced over a hundred catapults and siege towers standing in the clearing to the west of the army, each one bristling with hooks and pulleys and weaponry for taking the fortress.

Smart Cookie remained appalled. “Surely there’s another way! You can’t get through those walls like that! I mean, I don’t even think your siege towers are tall enough to scale those walls!”

Jade agreed, her head dipping slightly farther than a usual nod with her weariness. “Unfortunately, they’re mere distractions to keep their warriors away from the gates until our catapults can pound them in. Thousands of soldiers will die in this battle, and I very well may be one of them. I am at peace with that. The entirety of the Unionist movement has been building to this moment, this singular event that will determine the fate of the Crystal Ponies.” She sat on her flank, wings drooping slightly by her armored sides. “I wish we had better odds. Halite’s cornered in terms of geography, but we’re cornered with time. I’m sure he knows that we’re out here in these fields anyways. The longer we wait, the longer he has to prepare, and the more food that the army uses up.”

“But what if your catapults can’t batter down those walls? They look pretty strong to me.”

“Then I have to use my last resort option,” said Jade. “I’m the only one in this army with wings. I can get over those walls. That gets me access to the gate controls. If I can fight my way through the garrison of soldiers standing up there, I should be able to get the gate open. Then it’s only a matter of holding the gates open to allow my army to filter in before I eventually get overwhelmed. Hopefully enough of my soldiers will have gotten in by then to get the gates open again in earnest and defend the controls.”

“You’d really give up your life that easily?” Smart Cookie was impressed. He could never imagine doing something so selfless as that.

Princess Jade’s neck shook as she nodded her head, but her eyes remained fixed on the distant fortress. “Yes I would. It’s not something that I would like to do, but the fate of the Union hinges on this one battle. I won’t let a fear of death keep me from letting my father’s dream be realized.”

Smart Cookie dipped his head. He suddenly felt so insignificant and worthless standing next to Jade. She was a selfless, determined princess who wanted nothing more than for her ponies to be happy and safe, and was willing to give her life to do so. She was the epitome of all things honorable and righteous in the world. A true leader, and one who deserved to lead more than anypony else.

And what did that make himself? A cowardly earth pony who was concerned about finding a new land solely so that he could be done with Puddinghead’s company and could seek his election to the chancellorship next year? He didn’t deserve to be standing here next to Princess Jade. He didn’t deserve to be talking with her, or to know her name, or to think that her flank was pretty—

The Representative slapped himself, hoping that his blush wasn’t visible through his orange fur. What was he thinking! A Crystal alicorn princess was so far out of his league that he didn’t even exist on the same plane of reality as she did! Stupid, stupid, stupid!

If Jade noticed Smart Cookie’s internal strife, she chose not to acknowledge it. Instead she focused her attention on the brown earth pony blundering up the hill towards them. His gait was decidedly hurried, and he had to pull his hat out of his face several times as he stormed the hill.

Cresting the hill between the two, Puddinghead coughed several times into his foreleg as he stood to catch his breath. “Smart Cookie… there you are… phew… I’ve been looking all over for you! How’ve ya been, secretary?”

Smart Cookie shrugged off Puddinghead’s remarks while Jade backed up to give them space. “I’m fine, Chancellor. I was just having a lovely talk with Princess Jade here about the Crystal Union. It’s actually pretty interesting. I would never have known how it all works otherwise.”

Puddinghead’s expression told Smart Cookie that, contrary to his belief, the information was not interesting at all. “Yeah yeah, whatever. Listen, Smart Cookie, we gotta talk.”

The Representative raised his eyebrow but refused to budge. “Yeah? What about, your chancellorship?”

Puddinghead glared at the green mare standing slightly behind Smart Cookie. “I meant talk in private.” He waited for his message to be heard by all present, and soon enough Jade coughed into her wing and cleared her throat.

“Right. Well, I’ve got some business to take care of with the soldiers,” said Jade. “I know you’re on some important mission or whatever from what the Chancellor told me earlier, but I do hope that you’ll at least hang around for dinner before you leave.” Taking to the air with her beautiful wings, the Princess hovered in place a second longer. “Talk to you later.”

Smart Cookie watched as Jade flew away, shaking his head as she disappeared from his sight. Turning back to Puddinghead, the two began to walk back down into the camp. “What is it, Chancellor? Are the Unionists treating you all right?”

“Of course they are, silly, they recognize true authority when they see it,” Puddinghead gloated. “I made sure that they stuffed our bags with food and water for the next leg of the journey. Speaking of which, I’d very much like to get on that as soon as possible, if that’s alright with you, my esteemed secretary.”

Smart Cookie grumbled but refrained from calling Puddinghead out on his mistake. “We don’t have to be leaving right away, sir. The Unionists are actually really helpful. They’re even offering us dinner, too! How could you turn that up?”

Puddinghead remained skeptical. “I don’t know, Smart Cookie, they just rub my hat the wrong way. I just want to be getting out of here as soon as possible. The sooner we find a new land, the sooner I can get back to throwing wild parties!”

“Can we at least stay for the night, Chancellor? I’d like some time to get some rest before we start walking again, and I think the warm food would do us good.”

Puddinghead rolled his eyes. “Fine, Smart Cookie, but only because you asked nicely. But in the morning, we gotta put some serious distance behind us! This land won’t find itself!” He began to bounce away, his hooves acting like springs to his jumps and his hat flopping wildly on his head. Smart Cookie began to follow with slow steps, scrunching his muzzle to one side of his face in concentrated thought.

As he descended the hill, he looked on again at the distant black fortress and the miniscule figures he could see approaching its gate. He thought of what Jade had said and what they were going to be going through in two days’ time. He thought of the odds they were going against and his hopeless feelings for the alicorn.

He thought of the idea of a cause, and realized he didn’t have one he could call his own.

The moaning and grinding of gears filled the air and rattled Clover’s teeth in her jaw. All around her, warlord Halite’s soldiers shouted orders to each other. Belongings were checked, scouts watched the nearby hills, and the bindings on the two unicorns were tightened while the Crystal barbarians waited for the massive gates of Onyx Ridge to groan open.

The fortress had been intimidating from afar, but Clover felt absolutely insignificant and worthless next to the mighty walls of onyx. They were solid slabs of stone that stood from ground to rail at two hundred feet tall. Their spotless, black faces were placed at a sharp incline from the ground, giving them support and resilience against catapults and other siege weapons. The walls bristled with rows of sharp spikes to keep ponies from scaling them, and innumerous murder slits decorated the surface at regular intervals. Complicated grates stuck out from under overhangs in the walls, and Clover supposed that they were used to pour boiling oil down entire swaths of onyx at once.

Even as impressive as the walls themselves were, the gates were even more so. Three sets of thick iron grates all stood within a gatehouse consisting of three massive towers of onyx stone. Judging by their structure, Clover guessed that each one held the opening mechanisms for its respective gate. The huge gears clanked and rattled as the several-ton gates slowly crawled their way up the sides of the entryway. Even without a significant garrison, the fortress would still be impenetrable.

A thick powder of ground onyx flew into the air as the gates pulled through their grooves, and Clover found herself choking on the heavy dust. Beside her, Platinum wheezed into the sweat-stained and muddy remains of her royal garments. The Princess looked even more miserable than Clover had ever seen her, and seeing Platinum in such a hopeless state crushed her spirits. No matter how bad things were, the Princess had never let herself be defeated. Whiny, yes, dramatic, of course, but defeated? That was the one emotion Clover had never seen from her. To see it now, and so plainly embroidered across her face, was a shocking wakeup call.

A swift kick to her flank prompted the green mare to hobble forward towards the gaping maw of Onyx Ridge. She chanced a look across her shoulder only to see Halite glowering at her, his sword grasped between his teeth. She yelped as Halite kicked her again, and without further ceremony began to shamble into the fortress.

“Welcome to Onyx Ridge,” Halite hissed to her and Platinum. “I hope you enjoy your stay here, because you ain’t getting out unless somepony pays the right price for your sorry coat.”

“One day, Halite,” Platinum weakly retorted, “One day you’ll get what’s coming to you.”

The bludgeoning of Halite’s sword across Platinum’s flank launched the Princess into a pile of filth immediately within the perimeter of Onyx Ridge. “Humph. Spirited. We’ll see how long that lasts. Take a look around you, Princess. Tell me, what do you think happens to spirited property here?”

Clover spared the opportunity to survey her surroundings, and she had to place a hoof to her mouth to stop herself from vomiting. The immediate area around the gate was filled with rough tables and stalls where several bedraggled and shivering ponies stood hitched to posts. The stench was mortifying and overpowering, causing Clover to gag on her hoof. Crystal Ponies conversed with each other around the tables, regarding the hitched and tired ponies like property. Appraisals were made and bits and gems clattered across the rotten wood as ponies became slaves and changed owners, being led away on rough rope bridles towards one end of the clearing. Some tried to fight but were quickly subdued by the stronger Crystal warriors, and ultimately they ended up either resigned to their fate or simply too exhausted to resist.

The two unicorns shuddered as Halite ushered them further into the complex, where they got the opportunity to come face to face with several of the prisoners. Most were too weak to say anything, but Clover understood the message in their eyes, the silent pleas for help. The majority of slaves were simple earth ponies or unicorns taken during raids, but there were several Crystal Ponies tied down as well. The green mare felt herself shudder and involuntarily reach for the void crystal ring on her horn as she saw several unicorns with black tendrils marring their once colorful horns, the effects of void poisoning all too clear in their bodies. Her hoof was quickly slammed away by the flat of a barbarian’s sword before she was kicked again to keep walking.

“Help! Help, somepony help!” The distressed wails of a mare caught Clover’s attention, and she turned to see a bedraggled unicorn sprinting in an uneven gait away from a pair of barbarians. Her coat was a filthy lavender, although it was difficult to tell underneath the grime and blood that covered her body. Her mane was frayed and ripped apart, and her left foreleg had obviously been broken at some point and had never healed properly. A void crystal ring around her horn gave way to several toxic tendrils of void poisoning that had decayed the appendage into uselessness. Her eyes were fevered and her neck was sweaty, even in the cold.

Before Clover could react, Halite shoved her aside and stepped forward to intercept the fleeing mare. The lavender unicorn tried to sidestep him, but the warlord was too quick. Just as her hooves began to slide in the mud and snow for traction, Halite coiled his hind legs underneath him and delivered a powerful kick to her jaw.

The result was quick and painful. Bone crunched under the powerful blow, and Clover could see a spray of saliva and blood fly out of the mare’s mouth. Her scream was tripped up under her own tongue as her head was flung backwards from the buck. Making a complete reversal in midair, the prisoner landed on her face in the muck behind her. Several broken and bloodied teeth fell around her like snowflakes, leaving the mare whimpering, too weak to move or shout in agony.

The two warriors that had been chasing her quickly trotted up to Halite and took possession of the incapacitated mare. As they struggled to haul her to her hooves, Halite wiped the blood off of his hooves and growled at his subordinates. “I hope she wasn’t worth too much.”

One of the soldiers stopped to salute Halite while the other reattached the bridle to the mare’s face and gave a sharp tug on it. “No sir, she’s one of the no-sells. Feldspar and I were trying to take her back to the barracks for some fun, but she broke loose. Thanks for the assistance, sir.”

Halite grunted and began to walk again, prodding Clover and Platinum along. “Then you should take better care of your game, Mica. I can’t be expected to step in whenever your quarry gets away from you.”

The warrior known as Mica dipped his head and coughed nervously. “Yes, of course, warlord Halite. It won’t happen again.” Then he galloped towards where his companion stood with the unfortunate lavender mare in tow. Together, the three ponies rounded a corner and walked down an alleyway out of Clover’s sight. The only indication of where they were heading was the distressed whimpers and wails the captured mare occasionally gave out.

The two unicorns weren’t spared much time to think about their fellow pony’s plight. A heavy blow to Clover’s flank caused her to stumbled forward and begin to hobble along on three legs, with the fourth held out to her side in pain. She noticed that Platinum was getting decidedly better treatment than her, but Clover wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. She knew the price that the Princess had on her head, and she didn’t envy her friend at all.

Walking several more minutes, Clover was able to gauge how many warriors Halite had in the fortress. There were hundreds of buildings ranging from simple one story barracks to a massive castle in the center, but the number ponies she had seen were considerably lower than what the infrastructure would suggest. Onyx Ridge was obviously built to hold well over a hundred thousand warriors; by her best guess, Clover would be surprised if there were barely more than twenty thousand.

They soon enough came to a series of rough iron cages placed against the impressive bulk of an onyx wall at the western end of the fortress. There was no protection or overhang to shelter from rain or snow or wind; the cages were simply open and exposed to the elements. Hundreds of shivering and sick ponies sat gloomily in their cells, most without the energy to sit up for any extended period of time. But there was one thing Clover noticed about them all; they watched their captors silently and angrily, a fire burning in their eyes that she wouldn’t have expected to see from beaten and defeated ponies.

Cage doors were opened, and the two unicorns were flung into their individual cells, side by side. A warrior advanced on Clover, and she shrank back into the corner of her cage in fear. Stooping down, the barbarian attached a heavy shackle of iron and void crystal to her neck. The weight of the metal and the hunger of the new crystal for her Arcana dragged Clover down to the floor of her cell in exhaustion. She was too tired to even move as the warrior shouted and sprinted from her cage to the one immediately next to her, leaving the door open.

To her left, Clover could see Princess Platinum struggling against one Crystal barbarian as he tried to fix the manacle around her neck. The Princess was snarling and bucking with whatever energy she had left and was making the warrior work for it. Dainty hooves became powerful bludgeons, and one critical hit between the stallion’s knees brought the crystalline warrior to the ground.

Before she could flee from her cell, however, the second warrior bull-rushed her, sending the white mare toppling back into the iron bars of her cage. She tried to climb to her hooves, but soon the heavy weight of the soldier on her back pinned her to the floor of her cell while another barbarian managed to fit the shackle around her neck. As soon as the void crystal touched her flesh, Platinum groaned and went limp, her eyes rolling back in her head. The fight with the soldiers had been exhausting, and the void crystals snuffed out whatever energy she had left. Satisfied that they had their prisoners secure, the barbarians left the cells and closed the doors behind them, turning the two locks on each gate before they began to tend to their other duties.

Clover could see Halite watching her and Platinum from just beyond the cells, a smirk of iron across his face. “I hope you enjoy your stay in Onyx Ridge, mares. For one of you, you should be getting out relatively quick. The other,” he said as his eyes slid towards Clover, “can expect to be here for a long time. Make yourself comfortable around the soldiers. They’ll sure make themselves comfortable around you.”

Wasting no further breath on words, Halite spat at the ground and stormed off towards the center of the fortress, leaving Clover and Platinum behind. The two mares were left panting as they fought to overcome the hunger of the void crystals, only able to watch the hooves of soldiers as they walked past and listen to the wails of the broken all around them.

“Psst!”

Clover’s ears found the energy to perk, and she shifted her head towards her right. A small unicorn was looking at her, her teal irises shining in the dim sunlight. Struggling to rise to her hooves, Clover took two steps before collapsing against the wall of her cage, the void crystals ringing lightly around her neck as they devoured her Arcana. Moaning slightly, she tried to focus on the unicorn in the cage next to her, but her vision remained blurry.

“Nnng… Who… are you?” she managed to whimper, overcoming the difficulty of transforming her thoughts to words through her pounding head.

The little unicorn stuck her hoof through the cell wall, precariously balancing a small diamond on it. Looking at Clover and then back at the gem, she shook her hoof lightly for the mare to take it. “Press it against your horn.”

Clover fumbled with the precious gem in her hooves and almost dropped it before bringing it through the iron cage. Shaking, she managed to bring the gem to her horn, right where the void crystal ring was clasped.

Sudden relief overwhelmed her body and cleared her mind, leaving the green mare gasping in exhilaration. Taking the diamond away from her face, Clover saw that its clear surface had been replaced with a dull and inky black. Setting the diamond aside, Clover rubbed her forehead, enjoying the ability to think clearly.

“What was that?” she asked the small unicorn. “And who are you?”

The unicorn, an aqua filly who looked like she was barely more than ten, smiled back at her. “That was just a diamond, but it was filled with a lot of mana. It took about a month to store that much mana on my own. It’s enough to satisfy the crystal’s hunger for a few days. I hope that helps!”

Clover’s eyes flickered to the void ring on the aqua filly’s horn. “But you’ve got a ring of your own. How could you get any mana out? How did you get ahold of a diamond? And you still didn’t tell me what your name is!”

“Hehehe, you ask a lot of questions,” the filly giggled. “My name’s Diamond Polish, though the others call me Diadem. Not really sure why though. What is a diadem anyways?”

Clover opened her mouth to respond, but Diadem’s giggling stopped her. “Oh, don’t be silly, I know what a diadem is. A headband, a tiara, a crown. It’s nice to know the others think so highly of me, right?” Diadem’s lips were parted in a wide smile that seemed totally out of place with its surrounding context. “What’s your name?”

“C-Clover,” she began, still trying to cope with Diadem’s enthusiasm. “Clover the Clever. I’m the apprentice to Star Swirl the Bearded, and Princess Platinum’s highest serving mare.”

Diadem’s smile enlarged at the names Clover recited, even though such an action should very well have been impossible. “Ooooh, I always wanted to meet Princess Platinum! And tell me more about Star Swirl the Bearded! Does he really have a beard that’s soooooo big that he has to have a whole room to himself to keep it in?!”

With her head clear, Clover was able to laugh at the little filly’s excitement. “No no, my little pony, if that was true he’d never be able to read his books. His beard would just get in the way.” She glanced around her, noticing that there were no guards to be seen. “Who told you that, anyway?”

Diadem’s face darkened, and she brushed at a pebble that sat atop a pile of hay in her cell. “My older brother did. That was before they took him away. The mean shiny ponies. I haven’t seen him since. I don’t know how long ago it was. It’s hard to keep track of time in these cells.” Shaking her mane, the filly’s composure suddenly lit up. “At least he’s not in the cages anymore, and he said he’d come back to help us!” She clapped her hooves together, shifting from side to side as she bounced.

Clover bit her lip and tried to put on her nicest smile. “I’m sure your brother won’t let you down, Diadem. I’m sure he’ll get you out of here some way or another.”

A rough laugh sounded from two cages down, and Clover looked through Diadem’s cell to see the stallion who was making it. “That’s the spirit, Clover. Don’t give up hope, right?”

Standing up, the stallion walked closer towards the light, allowing Clover to see his dark green coat and gray mane. The stallion was at least in his late forties, although the signs of work and hard labor covered his crippled and thin body from head to hoof. A rough set of rags covered his flanks, obscuring his cutie mark.

“I would say that Diadem’s lucky to have met you, but I think you’re lucky to have met her. Just like how we all were. She’s been a bright light in some very dark days. And she’s our ticket out of here.”

Clover raised an eyebrow, but Diadem’s bouncing figure spoke first. “Yes! That’s right that’s right that’s right! Greenleaf says I’m very gifted! Like, he’s never seen magic as powerful as mine! Mama always said I was going to be a very powerful and beautiful unicorn princess some day!”

The old pony known as Greenleaf laughed weakly, a short wheezing sound that hinted towards old wounds to his ribcage. “Yes you will be, Diadem. Yes you will.” Turning to Clover, Greenleaf’s expression became much more serious. “You want to know how Diadem was able to fill that diamond full of mana with a void ring on her horn? Brute force. She simply has so much mana that her Arcana can overpower the crystals. Why, I’ve never seen anything like it before!”

“That’s… incredible,” Clover murmured. “And so young…”

“I couldn’t believe it at first when I saw it either,” Greenleaf agreed. “But the kid’s got the power, and she’s definitely not lacking the talent either. Us and the other prisoners are all set to break out when the opportunity arises. The problem is, we haven’t had that opportunity, and Diadem can’t take on Crystal barbarians. She’s too young, and I want to limit her exposure to the senseless killing us stallions do to each other.”

“So what are you saying?” Clover asked. “We should just sit here and wait?”

Greenleaf shook his head. “The time to act is soon. You and Princess Platinum are fresh here. Void poisoning has yet to take hold of your horns.” There he paused to tap his own horn, which was a solid black in stark contrast with his dark green coat. “We don’t have weapons, and most of us unicorns are too poisoned to fight with Arcana. But Diadem didn’t get her name for nothing. She’s powerful, but she’s also crafty. Really, she’s the crown jewel in the breakout plan. Without her, none of this would be possible.”

Diadem nodded her head vigorously. “Yup yup yup! I came up with this really cool idea to get us out of here! Just you wait and see!”

“Share it with Clover, why don’t you?” Greenleaf prompted. “I’m sure she and the Princess would like to know.”

Clover glanced over her shoulder to where Platinum was passed out on the floor of her cage. “I’ll tell her about it when she wakes. Sound good?”

“Of course!” Diadem chirped. “Now, I think it’ll go something like this…”

Amber Field was decidedly darker and more lifeless than Typhoon had last remembered it being. Snow fell in heavy sheets from the clouds, scattering throughout the town on merciless winds. It was only mid afternoon, but the thickness of the storm clouds blocked out so much sun that it very well might have been night.

Not a pony was to be seen as Typhoon and Cyclone descended into the empty whiteness that was the town square. The street lamps had all been snuffed out from the winds, making navigation all but impossible. In response, Cyclone shook the ice off of his wings before setting them ablaze in a quick burst of Empatha. The light they produced illuminated the square, and Typhoon found herself gravitating towards the fire for warmth.

“And here I thought you liked the cold,” Cyclone jested as he noticed Typhoon sticking close to his side.

“I do,” the mare countered, “but not in weather like this. Cold I like, but there’s a difference between cool and freezing. Have you listened to your feathers lately? It’s at least forty below out here.”

“The only thing my feathers are telling me is that they’re nice and warm.” As if to emphasize his point, a series of sparks and tongues of flame flared off of his wings before cooling back down to their normal size. Gesturing with his hoof, Cyclone pointed to the dilapidated storefront of a nearby building. “Here, this is what the informant told us to look for, right? Tear’s Wares?”

Walking closer to the weathered sign, Typhoon pulled the piece of wood off of its rusty and frozen chains with a quick tug of her neck. Placing it on the ground, the Imperator lowered a wing and scraped the ice off of the sign. Sure enough, the faded ink underneath the ice identified the sign as belonging to Tear’s Wares in the earth pony alphabet.

“Yes. We’re close. And over there is the old church.” Typhoon flicked her multicolored tail towards the burnt-out husk of an old building to their right. “Do you see where Half Mane’s Elixirs is?”

Cyclone shook his head. “No. It’s probably back in one of these alleyways. Perhaps we should split up?”

Typhoon considered the statement before nodding and flexing her wings. “Yes, that’d be a good idea. We can cover more ground that way. Plus, it’d be good to stretch my wings and keep the ice off of them.”

“You would have that problem, wouldn’t you?” Cyclone accused. Galloping off through the snow, the stallion fluttered his blazing wings and took to the air, leaving a trail of fire behind him that the blizzard greedily ate up. The light followed him as he went, serving as a glowing beacon in the dark and lifeless city. At least it wouldn’t be too hard for Typhoon to find him again if she needed to.

Taking a running start of her own, Typhoon managed to elevate herself over the rooftops of Amber Field’s market district and began to spin in lazy circles overhead. Every house had well over five feet of snow on their rooftops, and the thatch was bending precariously under its weight as a result. Several buildings had already collapsed from the storm, and the poor district had been all but buried with the blizzard. Further into the town was a series of blocks that stood black and barren under the snowy wastes, an unfortunate side effect of Cyclone’s ‘incident’ when he was chasing Jewel. For the pegasus who had once come to view Amber Field as her second home, it was saddening to see the state of dilapidation that had overcome the town. Even if the blizzard were to inexplicably pass, too much of Amber Field’s infrastructure had been destroyed for the town to ever recover.

Touching down in an alleyway between several buildings, Typhoon vigorously shook the ice off of her wingblades and primaries. Several large rats scattered into the shadows as shards of ice landed all around them, their alarmed peeping growing quieter and dimmer as they fled. When the last of the noises disappeared, Typhoon began to walk up and down the alleys, searching boxes and checking locked doors for an entrance to Jewel’s supposed hideout.

Half an hour of searching later, and Typhoon was beginning to wonder if her information was wrong. Every alley within the block that Brown Oats had described had been torn apart in her search for any kind of concealed entrance, and despite the hubris covering her armor and feathers, she had found nothing. She could only hope that Cyclone was having better luck.

Noticing that the alley she was in had suddenly brightened, Typhoon turned around to see Cyclone come walking in from the street. His wings were still ablaze, but she noticed that he had the strap of his sword loosened.

“Come on,” he ordered, gesturing with his head. “I think I found something.”

As Cyclone walked away, Typhoon loosened the strap on her sword as well and followed him. They zigzagged out of the alleys and across the street towards a narrow passage between two stores. A wall of snow stood four feet high at the entrance to the street, and so the two pegasi fluttered over it and into the dark passage on the other side. A few steps in and rounding a corner, Cyclone pointed with his fiery wing towards an access door at the bottom of the building.

Typhoon slid down the snow bank towards the door and lifted the lock up to inspect it. “You’re sure that this is it? For all we know it could just go to the storage of this building.”

Not bothering to speak, Cyclone simply walked down next to Typhoon and tapped the side of the door frame with a hoof. Carved into the old wood was a simple icon of a cut gemstone. Typhoon felt the carving with a hoof and realized that it was much newer than the wood it had been placed in. Looking back at the lock, she could see that it bore a similar mark on its metal surface.

“How’s about we pay Jewel’s gang a little visit, hm?” Cyclone asked as he placed his sword through the door at the hinges. The cumulostratus skysteel hissed as it began to siphon Cyclone’s Empatha, and with a burst of fire the metal hinges were melted off of the door frame. Turning to deliver a powerful kick to the old wood, Cyclone launched the door inwards where it clattered down a long staircase of stone and mold.

The two Cirrans glanced at each other and nodded before they descended the staircase, Cyclone leading the way through the darkness with the fire he carried across his wings and Typhoon bringing up the rear. She drew her sword and kept her wings slightly parted towards her sides, ready to fight on a moment’s notice.

The stone smelled of mildew and sewage, and its rough-hewn blocks were covered in slimy mold and algae. The hooves of the two pegasi echoed loudly as they walked down hallway after hallway, making an offbeat clopping rhythm that bounced across the stone. Their armor rattled with each step, and the slight groan of flexing wingblades was plainly audible in corridor after corridor. Realizing that there was no way for them to move silently in the dank hideout, the Cirrans quickened their descent into Jewel’s lair.

“You’d think there would be more activity,” Typhoon whispered to Cyclone above the sounds of their hooves. “It’s unbelievably quiet.”

Cyclone came across an intersection of hallways and paused to check his corners. “I agree. Jewel used to have this town in his grip, and an operation like that would need a pretty sizeable workforce. Unfortunately, nopony’s here. You think they caught wind of us and moved out?”

Typhoon shook her head. “If they knew we were coming, they would have ambushed us as soon as we took two steps into their hideout. I think either we haven’t run into their ambush, or they relocated elsewhere.”

“Humph. I’d say they went elsewhere. Amber Field’s a dump now. There’s nothing left of value in it. Money’s the only thing criminals want, and there’s none of it here. Problem is, where exactly did they go then?”

Rolling her shoulders, Typhoon chose a hallway and began to walk down it, Cyclone at her side. “Don’t know. Maybe we’ll find something they left behind. Jewel may be smart, but Mobius knows his subordinates aren’t. They’d have made mistakes somewhere.”

They continued on in silence for a while longer, rounding corners and taking hallways as they approached them. Eventually, the two pegasi found their way into a spacious room with windows placed up high along the edge of the ceiling. The glass had been shattered and dripping mounds of snow were piled underneath. The air was incredibly damp and humid, and had been for a long time as evidenced by the moldy wooden tables scattered throughout the room.

Walking along the perimeter of the room, Cyclone began to light torches with his wings while Typhoon began to go from table to table and try to see if anything was left. She wrinkled her nose at the smell of mildew, and twice her hooves crashed straight through rotting wood as she leaned across tables.

“You cover this room, I’ll search some of the neighboring chambers,” Cyclone suggested, to which Typhoon grunted her approval. The clopping of his hooves dulled as he walked out of the room to be replaced by the grinding of wood against stone as he began to rip the nearest room apart. Typhoon rolled her eyes and went back to delicately examining the contents of the circular room. Cyclone’s search tactics were definitely as straightforward as his interrogation tactics.

Growing frustrated with the lack of evidence around the tables, Typhoon abandoned such an obvious search and began to snoop around the edges of the room. Most of the walls either ended in snow or grime, although several had rubble and trash along their bases. Not wishing to run her hooves through muck and filth, Typhoon instead pulled out her sword and began to sift through some of the piles of refuse with its tip.

Much of the refuse was chunks of wood or rotting rinds of food, but soon enough Typhoon managed to dig up a small, bound notebook from underneath a pile of snow and gravel. Gingerly taking the soggy paper between her hooves, the mare laid the book on the table and began to nose through its contents. Most of the text was indecipherable or decayed from the moisture, but several pages towards the center of the book were still somewhat preserved. Setting her sword aside, Typhoon found a chair that was relatively clean and sturdy and sat down to study the book.

Page after page of text in an unknown alphabet greeted her, although the lines were so crisp and uniform that she had no doubt that it could only have been written by a unicorn. The text wasn’t in the earth pony or unicorn alphabet however, leaving her with no means to determine its meaning. Instead, she gently pushed several pages aside until she came across a few pictures.

The pictures were little more than crude sketches, but several of them had bulleted notes to the sides, as well as arrows to show movements. They looked like gate mechanisms and floor plans, though for what, Typhoon couldn’t tell. There was a large page of what she supposed was a map, but half the paper had been torn out and the other half was covered in mildew and mud. Only a few notes in that strange alphabet managed to survive near the top.

“Cyclone!” Typhoon called out. “Cyclone, I think I found something!”

The quick staccato of hooves striking stone gave way to Cyclone’s appearance in the doorframe. “Really? What did you find? All I could find was a few rusty blades and some scraps of leather.”

Placing her hoof on the book, Typhoon beckoned to Cyclone with her wing. “This is what I found. It looks like a journal of some sort—Jewel’s maybe. Problem is, I can’t read the language. Any ideas?”

Cyclone trotted over to Typhoon and spun the book so that the text faced him. After furrowing his brow for several thoughtful seconds, he shook his head. “It’s definitely something that I’ve never seen before. Regardless, it sure as hell seems important.”

“Maybe somepony else can read it. Somepony like Star Swirl, perhaps?”

Cyclone’s face drew into a scowl, but he discarded it with a shake of his head. “Yes. Perhaps. I’d rather not share this kind of information with another horn. Who knows what they’re all planning.”

Typhoon raised an eyebrow. “Star Swirl is one of father’s closest friends. I’m sure he would be willing to help us.”

“You’d do well to learn that just because somepony is somepony else’s ‘friend’ doesn’t mean that you can trust them,” Cyclone scolded. “Enemies often come from the most surprising of places. Still,” he sighed, beginning to walk away. “You’re probably right, though. Star Swirl may be a horn, but he’s been reliable before. Let’s just hope that his integrity still holds true today.”

Shaking her head, Typhoon picked up the book and began to follow Cyclone out of the hideout. Whatever his disgust for the unicorns was, he was going to have to get over it sooner or later. Cirra may have survived before on its own, but the past twenty years had shown that it did better when working with the other races.

As she left the abandoned hideout and began the long flight back to Cloudsdale, Typhoon began to wonder just how long exactly any alliance could last under pressure. It would be a question that she knew would haunt her dreams at night as the world only continued to get colder and colder.

The fire crackled in the chilly night, struggling all it could to repel the cold air and warm the ponies sitting around it. At one point in the night there had been near a dozen; now there were only two. Their unarmored coats and the strange hats they wore atop their heads seemed out of place in the middle of a military camp.

Each held a wooden mug of cider that they drank from sparingly, savoring the warm burn of alcohol as it slithered down their throats. One was on his fifth tankard, while the other had yet to work his way through his first. They sat in silence, listening to the crackling of fire and the gentle rush of the wind around the peaks of tents.

Tossing his emptied tankard to the side, Chancellor Puddinghead reclined on the log he sat on and kicked his legs out from underneath himself. He and Smart Cookie watched the wavering orange sheets of flame, extenuating their tense silence for several more minutes before they finally found reason to break it.

“Have you packed all my things, Smart Cookie?” Puddinghead’s voice droned from underneath five rounds of cider. “We should probably be ready to get a move on by daybreak.”

“Yes, Chancellor, all your things are ready,” Smart Cookie murmured, not taking his eyes off of the fire. “You’ll be set to move on by day.”

Puddinghead’s ears perked as he tried to pick up on the meaning behind the Representative’s tone, but he dismissed it with a slight shrug of his shoulders. “That’s good. The sooner we get away from these shiny barbarians the better.”

Smart Cookie said nothing.

“I mean, sure, they saved our lives and all that, but they’re freaking me out. What do they eat to get all crystal-y like that anyways? Diamonds?”

Smart Cookie still said nothing.

Puddinghead glanced at him and raised an eyebrow, slightly shaking his head. “I’m pretty sure it’s diamonds. But still. They’re really weird. Hopefully they and the other barbarians at the fortress wear each other out. That means fewer raids come next spring!” Looking for another tankard of cider but not finding one, Puddinghead slumped in his seat before noticing Smart Cookie’s still half-full mug. He stared at it for several seconds until the Representative finally sighed and gave it to him.

Snatching the mug away, Puddinghead tilted his face upwards and downed more than half the remaining contents in one go. Setting it back down on the log, he rubbed his hooves together and extended them towards the fire. “What was I talking about? Oh yeah, hoping that the shinies all kill each other off. The world would be a better place if they did. Especially if they got that big flying unicorn one as well.”

Grinding his teeth together, Smart Cookie stood up and walked away from the fire. Puddinghead looked after him, confused, and scrambled up to follow him. “Hey, Smart Cookie! Where are you going?!”

“Away from you!” Smart Cookie hissed, spinning about to confront the Chancellor. “I can’t stand to listen to you anymore! All you’ve done since Jade and her army generously saved our lives and took us in is bash them and their kin and everything they stand for!”

Puddinghead tilted his head to the side, drunken confusedness dominating his face. “So?”

“So what!” Smart Cookie shouted, stomping his hoof for additional effect. “Has it ever occurred to you that the Crystal Ponies are ponies too? Ponies who just want to have a home, and have to fight if they even want a chance at ever finding peace? That they’re more than just the stereotypes we label them because of the actions of a few powerful warlords?!”

“Not really.”

“Aaaaughh!!” Smart Cookie slapped a hoof against his brow. “Hopeless! These ponies are in the same situation that we’re in, but they’re much more desperate! Jade’s only got this one chance to try and bring the Crystal Ponies together as a proud race. If she fails, then the attacks will only continue to get worse.”

Puddinghead stared at Smart Cookie until realization dawned on him. “Ooooh, I see how it is. Smart Cookie thinks he’s got a fillyfriend. Ooooh.”

“Shut up! Just shut up!” the Representative shouted. “At least she cares more about my well being than you do, Chancellor! And she saved my life, so I’m going to return it to her and help her out any way I can!”

The Chancellor squinted at Smart Cookie and his voice turned grave. “You’ll be killed, Smart Cookie.”

Drawing a shaky breath, Smart Cookie turned away from Puddinghead. “Maybe. But at least it’ll be for something more worthwhile than following you through the wilderness and having to listen to you all the time.”

Glancing at his mug, Puddinghead downed the rest of it and tossed the tankard away. “So be it, Representative. So be it. But remember that we came out here together to find a new land for the earth ponies. You may have forgotten it with your infatuation with a mare way out of your league, but I haven’t. I haven’t, Smart Cookie. Remember that.”

Turning around, Puddinghead trotted back to the campfire and shouldered his belongings. Without another look over his shoulder, the Chancellor stumbled away between two tents and disappeared into the night.

Smart Cookie released a distraught breath and turned back to the campfire. “Puddinghead?”

There was no response.

Sighing, the Representative sat on his haunches next to a tent and placed his head between his hooves. He was alone now, finally getting what he wanted after complaining about Puddinghead for so long. He finally had gotten rid of the annoying chancellor.

It left a bitter taste in his mouth, one that hung with him as he tried to rock himself to sleep.

Chapter 10: Onyx Ridge

The steel stretched on into the night for miles and miles, unending lines of silver across a gray countryside. No trains had come along the tracks since the last one arrived in Saraneighvo, and it was unlikely that any were going to any time soon. The lines were deathly still and silent, and a thin coating of ice was beginning to creep over their disused surfaces.

Rainbow Dash groaned as she chomped into the fabric bit she had made for herself to stop her teeth from chattering. Hers and Twilight’s progress along the lines towards Stalliongrad had been painfully slow and incredibly cold. They had been walking for a full day and had only covered little more than ten miles. Now, their journey was taking them into the second night since their escape from Saraneighvo, and so far they had seen little more than snow and boulders against a turbulent gray sky.

Her sides shaking, Rainbow fluttered her wings underneath the heavy winter jacket she wore to try and reflect more of her body heat against her coat. Even through the coarse fabric, her feathers were screaming that it was thirty below, and the temperature would only continue to drop as night pressed its deadly kiss across the land. The water in her canteen had frozen over long ago and her food was beginning to run out. If they didn’t find civilization soon, they were going to freeze to death in the unrelenting Stalliongradi cold.

There was a rustling in a grove of dead bushes to her left, and Rainbow spun in place just in time to see a purple tail disappear into the undergrowth. Grumbling, the prismatic mare marched over to the brambles and kicked them apart, pulling Twilight out by the tail. The unicorn struggled before Rainbow managed to hurl her over her shoulder with a final tug.

Scrambling to her hooves, the pegasus glowered at her companion. “Will you give it a rest, Twilight?! You’ve been doing this all day! What is it this time?”

Sneezing, Twilight stood up and shook the snow off of her coat. “Didn’t you see the pegasi, Rainbow?” Raising a hoof to the sky, she pointed a wedge of pegasi soaring high above the earth in the direction of Saraneighvo. “They could be more Black Cloaks looking for us! I’m just being cautious!”

Rainbow Dash smacked her hoof against her face with such force that Twilight wondered whether or not she broke her nose. “For the love of Celestia, Twilight, calm down! I’m pretty sure the only Black Cloaks trying to kill us were those ones back in Saraneighvo, because they seemed pretty crazy to me. Besides, being discovered and taken someplace warm and full of food would be pretty preferable to wandering in this frozen wasteland. Tartarus, I’d even be happy if Discord himself came and teleported us out of here!”

“Well, excuse me for being more than a little worried!” Twilight exclaimed. “Do you know how much trouble we’d be in if we were caught? Then I’d have to explain the whole thing to Princess Celestia!” Clutching her chest to forestall an imminent panic attack, she began to mime one of her letters. “‘Dear Princess Celestia, today I learned that not all guards are really nice like my brother. Sometimes they may give you free drinks, but other times they'll follow you to an inn and burn the whole thing down because they think you’re a rebel insurgent. If you would be so kind as to have Spike send me a copy of A Beginner's Guide to Running from Stalliongradi Authority, I'd very much appreciate it. Not that I'm running from the Black Cloaks or anything, I just need it for that research project I'm working on. Your faithful student who most definitely still does not have a criminal record, Twilight Sparkle.’”

Rainbow snorted and shook her head. “I’m sure the Princess is more concerned about you getting home in one piece than which side of the law you’ve been stepping on,” she offered. “Besides, you know that you did nothing wrong, so I’m sure that’s all that matters. We just need to get out of this Tartarus-hole and someplace warm. Trust me, you might think it’s cold, but it sucks to be a pegasus right now. Especially one that can’t fly,” she added as her frozen wings rippled underneath her winter coat.

Twilight giggled softly and shook her head. “Alright, Rainbow, let’s see what we can do about shelter. Hopefully there should be an alcove or something we can hide for the night.”

They walked on for another mile, but as the temperature dropped and their breathing became more ragged, they still had not seen anything other than flat ice. They were both thirsty and hungry, yet there was nothing to sustain them as they struggled to climb the shallow incline of a small hill. Their energy was just about spent, and if they squinted they could still see the fires of distant Saraneighvo behind them.

Rainbow Dash felt her hoof slip out from under her on a particularly firm patch of ice, and she collapsed face first on the edge of the hill crest, her legs splayed out uselessly on either side. Her breathing had become little more than a panting wheeze and her whole body violently shook. The cold had sapped the last of her strength, and she couldn’t even make a noise from where she lay.

Luckily, Twilight had heard her companion collapse into the snow and turned around from the hill crest to trot back down to her. “Rainbow! Rainbow Dash, are you alright?” Searching through her saddlebags, she looked for anything to wrap the pegasus in and help ward off hypothermia, but she found nothing. Undeterred, she placed the bags on the ground and stripped off her outermost coat. Clenching the fabric between her teeth, she bent over and curled it around Rainbow’s body and nudged her friend to her hooves.

“T-thanks, T-T-T-Twi,” she chittered through the numbness in her face. “D-damn hollow p-p-p-pegasus bones. Hold n-no heat whatsoever.”

Shivering herself, Twilight let Rainbow lean against her shoulder as they walked up the hill. “Don’t worry, Rainbow, everything will be alright. See?”

The two wanderers crested the hill to find a rough wooden lodge built off towards the side of the rail lines. There were gaps in the boards and the door was slightly ajar, but the presence of a chimney hinted towards the possibility of building a fire within, away from the blistering winds and numbing cold. It was a marvelous prospect, and Twilight couldn’t get to the door fast enough.

Applying a little bit of magical force, she was able to break open the rusted lock and usher Rainbow Dash inside. The pegasus immediately stumbled against one of the walls but managed to guide her hooves towards a simple chair placed in front of a brick fireplace. Twilight followed, shutting the door behind her and lowering a bar across the frame to keep it closed. Trying to shake off the cold and the numbness that clung to her hooves, Twilight found her way into what she supposed was the kitchen.

She almost squealed with joy to accompany the celebratory growls her empty stomach provided her as she opened the pantry. Several cans of food greeted her as she peered within, and she only had to brush a few cobwebs off of the nearest to take it out. They were still sealed, and each one was stamped with an expiration date of 1450 A.S. A little past its expiry, but she wasn’t about to complain. Food was food, and canned food was fairly safe, even given its age.

Returning victoriously with several cans of food like a Spurtan from battle, Twilight strode into the kitchen and deposited her spoils of war across the table. The noise was enough to draw Rainbow Dash’s attention away from the fireplace, where she had her wingtip nestled amongst a pile of wood. Without further delay, the pegasus hopped to her hooves and took shivering steps towards the table where Twilight was working on getting the cans open.

“You found f-food?” the pegasus stumbled over her chattering teeth. Twilight nodded and passed Rainbow an opened can, which the pegasus immediately dove her muzzle into.

“It was in a pantry in the back. Obviously at some point this little shack was home to somepony, but whoever it was is long gone now.” She glanced over to the pile of wood Rainbow had been messing with. “Were you trying to get that fire started with your wing? Like Imperator Cyclone?”

“Disthn wuhrk,” the pegasus muttered around a mouthful of canned beets. Swallowing, she pounded her chest with a hoof and licked her lips. “That’s good. Yeah, anyway, it didn’t work. Don’t know why though.”

“Maybe you just weren’t doing it right,” Twilight suggested as her horn came to life. She grasped hold of a stray rock with her Arcana and chipped it against the brick of the fireplace, producing the spark that she needed to get the tinder to light. Within a few minutes she had a roaring fire that dispelled the stagnant cold air that had filled the shack and began to circulate warmth throughout the desolate structure.

After stuffing their stomachs with reasonably decent fare, the two ponies each found a seat in front of the fire and sat there, absorbing its warmth. Luck had kept them alive another day, and there was a faint glimmer of a chance that they could make it to Stalliongrad by the end of the week.

They sat in silence for the better part of the hour, simply enjoying the warmth of the fire. Soon enough, however, Twilight found boredom beginning to creep over her, and she instinctively reached for Hurricane’s journal. Flipping open to her bookmark, the mare slouched into a more comfortable position and propped the book open with her forelegs.

“So, Rainbow, ready to get back to reading?”

A loud and protracted snore reached her ears, and Twilight turned to find Rainbow passed out in her chair. Her mouth hung open as she snored, blowing a strand of orange hair back and forth across her face. Her wings twitched slightly in her sleep, undoubtedly the result of another of her Wonderbolts dreams.

Smiling, Twilight draped a blanket across Rainbow with her magic and turned back to the fire. She considered taking after her friend’s example and bunkering down for the night, but found that she couldn’t. The open book stared up at her expectantly.

She sighed and held the book in front of her with her hooves. It was late at night, but here was a good story she hadn’t finished yet waiting for her. Habits from late nights of study fought their way to the front of her brain, and before she knew it, she was already two paragraphs into the next section of Hurricane’s work.

The sun rose on a world already bustling with activity. Ponies had been up for the past two hours, making final preparations and checking their gear. The Unionist camp was abuzz with the muted thrill of adrenaline and anticipation, and not a soldier found the restraint to sit still, even if no words were shared between compatriots. A hallowed silence filled the still air, and not a soul dared to break it.

The siege crews had left an hour before to prepare their engines, and the occasional thwack of tightening cords or the dull boom of massive wooden doors being loaded shut provided the only noise across the hushed hillside. Nopony paid it any mind, and friends whispered quietly among themselves of family and loved ones, wives and children. Pictures were shared, drinks were had and prayers were made in little knots across the camp.

Smart Cookie found himself on the outside of all the soldierly dynamics, struggling to keep his helmet balanced on his head. He had gone to see Jade earlier that day and tell her that he was staying to help fight. The mare was incredulous at first and tried to dissuade him, but the Representative remained resolute, if a bit frightened. Eventually, Jade released an exasperated breath and waved to her generals to find him armor and a weapon to use. Then she disappeared back into her tent, presumably to make peace with her gods and to find the strength to lead thousands of ponies to their deaths.

It took all of two minutes for the generals’ aides to find Smart Cookie equipment from a pile of discarded gear at the edge of camp. The first thing the Representative did upon receiving his gear was try to wash the bloodstains off of the iron. The aides informed him that the sword and armor had belonged to a soldier felled in battle by an arrow before he even had the chance to fight. The thought was very discomforting, and had left the orange stallion fidgeting outside of the muster point all morning.

There was a sharp whistle from the end of the clearing, and Smart Cookie along with the rest of the soldiers snapped their necks towards its source. The early dawn light just barely made the silhouette of a tall pony walking out of her tent visible. Seeing that she had her soldiers’ attention, Commander Jade took slow and deliberate steps towards a raised podium at the edge of the clearing. Nopony dared to speak or move until she surmounted the wooden steps and called out to them.

“Come!” her voice rang out, loud and clear against the stillness of the morning. “Come closer, and let us pray together.”

Smart Cookie found himself shuffling closer towards the tall mare, his armor clanking unnaturally around his body as he did so. A swarm of soldiers engulfed him, propelling him towards the front of the crowd. Even as thousands of ponies tried to gather in one small clearing, a small knot of open space around Smart Cookie left him able to move freely. Instead of comforting, however, it served only as a reminder of how much of an outsider he was to the Crystal Ponies.

Jade regarded her soldiers silently as she waited for them to assemble. Hers was an impressive figure, clad in beautiful and striking iron armor accentuated by highlights of cyan paint. The metal extended across her chest and down her back and sides, encasing her soft coat in an iron shell. A helmet of iron, diamond, and cyan adorned her head, with a hole cut out of the metal for her horn to protrude from. Even that appendage was protected by a sharp blade that ran the length of the horn. Her crystalline wings shuffled at her sides, rattling the rigid blades that ran along their crests. Unlike Cirran wingblades, however, these were straight pieces of iron hinged at several points to provide some movement. Smart Cookie doubted that, for as impressive as they looked, they were flexible or comfortable to fly in.

As the muttering came to a standstill and the crowd became silent, Jade coughed quietly to herself and took two steps forward. Now was the pivotal moment, and her soldiers seemed to lean with her as she placed one hoof on the edge of the podium and gently rocked it back and forth. Her eyes darted across the ground as she muttered a few lines to herself, but when she looked up again, they were determined with an impressive fire.

“The snow glistens on the ground with the brilliance of the sun, reflected for all to see no matter where they look. Some may find this annoying. The glare can be straining to the eyes and painful to look at. Why should a pony pay such inconveniences any mind?” Her voice started out wavering, but began to harden with layers of steel and resolve that Smart Cookie found impressive as she turned out more words. “In a way, we are like the snow. Some may find our struggle for unity and peace pointless or silly, saying behind our backs that our efforts might better be spent elsewhere. They shun us, not understanding, nor wanting to understand what it is that we go through for them.

“In a way, we ourselves regard our fight like the glare of the snow. The hardships we have suffered through, the battles we have fought, the friends we have lost, all make us question whether or not this cause is actually worth it. Believe me when I say that I, more than most, have questioned whether or not this cause is worth it.” She paused to gauge her listeners’ reactions and, finding them pleasing, swallowed and carried on. “The weight of thousands of deaths presses on my mind daily. It is not something that is easily pacified. Believe me when I say that I worry for each and every one of you, each and every day. I know that today, just like any other day, I may be sending you to your deaths. You know this too, but for some reason or other have decided to stick with me. I cannot thank you enough for that.

“We are like the snow, but I refuse to take that in a negative way. We, like the snow, are bright and shining; we are a brilliant example of hope in its darkest hours, of a resolve and tenacity that dares stand up to the shadows of our past and scream unto the heavens, ‘No more! No more will I take your cruelty! You may have tarnished my name, driven salt into my fields, killed my family and raped my countryside, but no more! You, warlords, who have ruined the name of the Crystal Ponies for so many years! You, cowards who would hide behind force and fear to better yourselves at the expense of others! I call out to you and damn you, not alone, but with the voices of thousands and thousands of ponies who will take it no more! Separate we were weak, but together and united, we are stronger than any of your threats, more powerful than your finest steel, mightier than your tallest walls! Today, the hammer of justice swings down upon you, and today, you will feel its blows! Abandon your fiendish ways, barbarians, and you might yet find some mercy in our hearts!’

“And are we merciful ponies?” Jade nodded her head emphatically, drawing several soldiers around Smart Cookie to do the same with her enthusiasm. “Yes we are! Does that make us weak like the warlords proclaim? No it doesn’t! It simply means that we are more pony than they are. Emotions make us strong, not weak. Emotions make us brave, not cowardly. Emotions make us more than we are, and let us never forget that.

“And so we are like the snow, letting the world see our brilliance, no matter where they may look. Some may find us crude, others may see us as hopeless, but I see what they cannot. I see the beauty in the snow, I see the art in the land, I see thousands of wondrous ponies who have put aside their lives to become soldiers and fight for something greater than themselves. Now, together, who is willing to show Halite that we are more than a nuisance to his eyes?!”

The cheering of tens of thousands of Crystal Ponies filled the camp and nearly split Smart Cookie’s head in two. Despite the noise, however, the earth pony felt alive and energetic, ready to throw himself to the blade if need be. Jade’s words were powerful, and they were strongly felt by all present. It was a beautiful sight, and for the first time in a long time, Smart Cookie felt like he was finally part of something bigger than himself.

Jade smiled, tilting her head downwards and nodding. “I knew you would be up to the task! Let us show Warlord Halite what we’re made of! Find your company leaders and assemble for the march! We move out in little more than an hour.”

As one, the cheering soldiers split off into enthusiastic packs, following the shouts and commands of their superiors. In a few short minutes, the entire clearing had been emptied, and the brilliant sheen of thousands of crystalline coats moving into the fields around the camp danced across the rough canvas tents. Smart Cookie started in a few directions before ultimately stopping in the middle of the clearing, unsure of whom to follow or which way to go.

“Representative?” asked a soft voice from behind him. Clanking in his foreign armor, the earth pony turned and almost plowed headfirst into Jade’s armored chest. Leaning back slightly, Smart Cookie craned his neck upwards to find the alicorn’s eyes.

“Great speech,” he began, slightly lifting off his hooves as he spoke. “I thought I was a good speechwriter, but that was impressive. How long did it take you to come up with that?”

Jade laughed and shook her head, although the actions were surprisingly lacking in merriment. “You thought that was planned?”

Smart Cookie lilted as he searched for words. “But… surely you…”

“Hush,” the mare ordered, which Smart Cookie instantly obeyed. “I’ve learned that the best speeches are ones driven by emotion, not thought. Sure, it takes a level of intellect to order your words, but all of that you just heard? I came up with that on the spot.”

“So did you mean all those things that you said?”

“Of course I did,” Jade answered, beginning to walk towards the southeastern corner of the camp. “I don’t say things that I don’t mean. And,” she said, stopping abruptly to face the Representative, “I mean what I said earlier. You don’t have to do this. This isn’t your fight, and I don’t want to see you hurt. You can still back out now if you want.”

Smart Cookie swallowed hard before looking Jade in the eyes. “I’m certain, Jade. Believe me, I asked myself if I really wanted to do this hundreds of times throughout the night. Each and every time, no matter my reasoning, I chose to stay.”

Walking farther away, Smart Cookie stood at the top of a small incline where he had a clear view of Onyx Ridge. The wind blew across his shoulders, and instinctively he reached to steady his hat, only to find an iron helmet in its place. He shifted again at the unfamiliar weight of the armor and glanced at the sword he had never touched hanging against his flank. He questioned whether he had the resolve to use it. The reluctant answer was no different from before.

“Ever since this damnable blizzard started, I’ve longed for the simpler days,” Smart Cookie began. “In those days, the only thing I had to worry about was Puddinghead dragging me to yet another party. I didn’t have to deal with intertribal hatreds and tensions. I didn’t have to deal with famine and trying to hold the nation together. Things were just so much easier.”

He shook his head, his shoulders sagging visibly by his sides. “In a way I envy you, I guess. Last night, I saw what it meant to have a cause you believe in. I saw Crystal Ponies coming together around the campfire, not as fellow soldiers, but as brothers in arms. They believed in your cause, and it became their cause in effect. Then I thought on what I supposed was to be my own cause. To find a land where we can leave everything behind, including this blizzard? Does such a land even really exist?” He shrugged his shoulders and turned to face Jade. “Do we even deserve it? It may sound silly, but I’m almost positive that this blizzard is the result of hatred among all our races. Do we really deserve a second chance to redeem ourselves after what we’ve done to each other?”

Jade blinked, but remained silent.

Smart Cookie’s hoof traced a small pattern in the muddy snow covering the trodden ground. “I don’t know the answer to that, but ultimately, it’s not my place to decide. But seeing you all, and the struggles you’ve gone through to unite your race, and the struggle you have yet to finish to do so… perhaps I’m staying because I want to learn how to be a better pony. I always prided myself on being neat, punctual, succinct, and popular with the Low Valleys, but that doesn’t make me a good pony. That just makes me a good politician. But I see better hearts than mine in the lowest of soldiers in this camp, and it makes me question myself. Am I really a good pony?” He sighed, looking over his shoulder towards the distant west. “I don’t know. By the end of today, however, I do know that I’ll find the answer. I’ve been living in the shadow of my career for too long. It’s time to see what I actually look like under the sun.”

As the orange earth pony walked away, Jade only blinked and looked on. There was nothing more Smart Cookie could add, and anything she could say would only detract from the sacred moment the two had shared.

Mica yawned and scratched at the coarse hairs that decorated his chin. He hated patrol, hated when Feldspar got away with ‘managing the tables’ instead of going on patrol, and especially hated when his friend ‘forgot’ to get him a spot at the tables as well instead of letting him get stuck with watching the prisoners for the umpteenth time this week. One of these days, Feldspar would be the one stuck watching a bunch of lousy bags of skin and lice rot in their cages instead of him.

Speaking of the worthless piles of flesh, one of them groaned in its cage. The offending noise was quickly silenced with the sharp clash of a hoof against the iron bars and a threatening growl, and Mica returned to walking up and down the length of the pens. Damn slaves. They couldn’t let him have some time to rage about his assignments in peace and quiet, could they?

A few heavy flakes of snow landed on Mica’s nose, and the warrior scattered them with an angry sneeze and a curse. He grabbed his war axe and raised it to the sky, as if damning the snow gods for their endless storm, before sliding the axe back across his flank with a smooth and practiced motion. The iron head of the weapon clinked against his crystal flesh, and he fussed with the handle for a few more seconds to arrange it in a way that wouldn’t bring it into contact with his body. At least the fleshies didn’t have to worry about their hides clinking and clanking with anything they carried.

Wait. Pause. Reverse. Rewind. Mica quickly backtrotted several cages along his route to one of the centermost. A rather familiar figure was lying in the shadows, breathing heavily under his armor. His breathing was ragged and labored, and the interior of the cage was covered in blood. A discarded scabbard lay by his side, and it was all too obvious that it was missing its blade.

“Feldspar!” Mica shouted, rushing to the cage and peering in. There was his friend alright, seemingly unconscious against the back of the iron bars. It must have been that damn green mare who did this. He knew she was trouble from the moment he laid eyes on her, and this was her cage after all.

“Hang on, buddy, I’m going to get you out of there!” he exclaimed, reaching for the latch on the door. Surprisingly, the padlock was still in place, and there was no way that the unicorn would have been able to pick it with her freaky magic with the Dark Stone on her horn. The only explanation was that Feldspar had been lured too close, and the prisoner had somehow managed to grab his key, subdue him, and lock him in her own cage.

Several powerful bucks to the cage lock shattered the frigid metal in two, and Mica kicked the door aside and ran in. Feldspar was struggling to sit up against the back of the cage, apparently having regained consciousness at the sound of Mica trying to bash the door in. He grunted briefly, then rubbed at his head.

“Feldspar, you idiot,” Mica cursed, taking a look around the cage. “How in the name of Tartarus did you manage to get yourself trapped in here?”

Feldspar grunted and tried stumbling to his hooves, only to collapse against the back wall again. Mica noticed that he even had the mare’s shackle around his neck. “M-mare was… awfully tricky,” he muttered. Suddenly he gritted his teeth and stuck a hoof towards his head, where the edge of his helmet was covered in blood. “Think she done somethin’ to my head. Think ya could take the helmet off for me?”

Mica rolled his eyes and trotted closer to his friend. “Only this once, you lousy oaf, but you got to learn better to… to take… care… of…” his words trailed off as he felt his hoof slide completely through Feldspar’s helmet and bump against some invisible object protruding from his skull.

With a powerful kick, Feldspar sent Mica reeling into the side of the cage. Grunting from the impact, Mica moved to stand just as he saw a void ring land between his hooves. Frightened, he glanced up to where the stallion was advancing.

Instead of seeing Feldspar, however, the stallion’s coat and colors seemed to wash away in a stream of mist and cloud, dissipating into the air around him. The pony that occupied the spot where the Crystal warrior was just moments prior was instead a light green unicorn mare, her horn already glowing with an aura of Arcana.

“How?! But—!”

Mica’s words were sharply cut off by a powerful sleep spell that struck him square in the face. The Crystal warrior twitched once or twice before his limbs went limp and a quiet snore resounded from his throat. Lifting the stallion with her magic, Clover levitated the incapacitated barbarian to the back of her cage, where she hoped the shadows would hide him for at least a little longer.

“Yeah! Woohoo! That was AWESOME!!” Diadem cheered from the adjacent cage, already hopping up and down on her stubby legs. The faint glow from her horn faded, and the illusions of the blood and scabbard in Clover’s cage reverted to water and a stick.

“Hush, darling,” Platinum whispered from Clover’s other side. “We don’t want to let any of the shiny ponies know about what just happened. Can you be quiet for me?”

Diadem placed her hooves to her mouth and nodded her head vigorously. Smiling, Clover turned to the shackle around her neck and blasted the iron hinge holding the void crystals together with a burst of magic. The metal glowed red hot and melted, causing the shackle to fall into two pieces on the ground in front of her. Clover then trotted out of her cage and placed her freed horn against the lock on Platinum’s cage. A singular pulse of magic was all it took to shatter the lock and allow the Princess’ door to swing wide open.

Platinum trotted towards the front of her cage and waited while Clover broke apart her shackle, trying to shake the dirt and grime out of her coat in the meantime. She readied a quick cleaning spell, but the void ring on her horn reminded her of its presence, and she collapsed, gritting her teeth in pain.

“Ungh… Clover, dear, do you think you could get this cursed thing off of my horn?”

Clover shook her head and moved to help the Princess up. “I’m sorry, Princess, but I can’t. I only got mine off because that warrior accidentally pulled it off. If I touch yours, it will cripple me again. We have to find tongs or something to get it off.” Checking both ways to see that the prison block was still empty of soldiers, Clover trotted towards Greenleaf’s cage with Platinum close behind.

Greenleaf looked up at Clover and smiled. “Ha! I knew that would work. Good thing these barbarians aren’t half as smart as they are strong. If our luck holds up, getting out of here should be a breeze.”

Clover readied a spell to break Greenleaf’s lock, but he stopped her with a wave of his hoof. “Not now. We’re going to have to fight at some point if we’re going to get out of here. It’s hard to hide a hundred tired and worn out prisoners in the shadows. No, we’ll need weapons first and foremost.”

“So what do you want us to do?” Clover asked, turning to glance at Platinum. “I don’t even know where the armory is.”

Greenleaf pointed towards Clover’s cage, where the sleeping form of the Crystal warrior lay still. “Take his sword, first of all, and don’t be afraid to wield it with your Arcana. Trust me, the dexterity really helps. Then, make your way deeper into the fort. The armory should be located next to the castle. Get about, say, a dozen swords or spears and bring them back here. That’s really all we’ll need; we don’t have many others in fighting shape.”

Clover gulped and looked towards the terrifying black castle that stuck out of the ground like a shard of onyx. “Right. We’ll try to be back soon, but I don’t know how many guards we’ll run into. Platinum and I may have to take it slow at some points.”

Greenleaf nodded in understanding. “Right, right. Don’t let yourselves get caught. They won’t be as tolerant of you now as they were when you were in your cages.”

After that particularly reassuring statement, Clover and Platinum turned to leave. They were just about to round a corner into the shadows when they heard Diadem call out in her tiny voice behind them:

“Stay safe, please! I know you can do it!”

Then they twisted into an alleyway, and the cages were left behind them in the dim early morning glow.

The sun had risen to about halfway to its zenith, shedding faint gray light through the thick clouds that covered the sky. Vultures and crows called out to each other, filling the air with their damnable cawing and screeching. They had seen the movement of the siege engines, and to them it meant only one thing; lunch was about to be served.

Smart Cookie felt the ground shake underneath him with every step as tens of thousands of hooves stomped the same rhythm into the dirt at once. He was marching alongside Jade, as the Princess—no, Commander—had ordered that if he was going to fight for the Union, she wanted him somewhere close by. As such, the estranged earth pony found himself in the presence of the finest soldiers in Jade’s army, the generals who had served with her father since the beginning of his crusade.

The army engulfed the top of a hill in its march on Onyx Ridge, and from his vantage point Smart Cookie could see ponies begin to scramble about on its walls and several signal flags being changed from the tallest watchtowers. They were only half a mile away at this point, as the morning fog had masked much of their approach, but with the coming of daylight that cover had abandoned them, leaving the army out in the open to Onyx Ridge’s catapults and siege weapons.

But instead of ripping the Unionists to shreds as they marched, the massive weapons along the walls remained entirely silent. It was an eerie feeling to know that he was being watched and at any moment could be killed, but not be able to know when exactly that moment would come.

“Why aren’t they firing?” he shouted over his shoulder and the thunderous stomping of the army to Jade. The mare raised an eyebrow and lowered her neck to bring her ear closer to Smart Cookie, and the earth pony shouted his question again.

“Halite is an arrogant bastard!” Jade yelled back at him. “He’s going to want to talk about his might before he actually shows it to try and get us to back off! But we’re not going to, because we know he’s weak! Just last month we crushed the largest army he could muster, and now he’s only got about fifteen thousand of his most loyal troops hiding behind those walls! I say we rip them asunder and end this right now!”

All too quickly, the ranks of the army came to a stop in front of the massive gates of Onyx Ridge. The iron constructions were barely fifty feet away, the same distance as a good horseshoe kick from where Smart Cookie was standing. But there was no sound, with the only exception being the collective lungs of thousands of Crystal Ponies in close quarters.

Commander Jade turned to one of her generals, a small stallion with a determined face. “General, I want the catapults aimed at their artillery. As soon as they send their first shots off, take them apart. If you miss after the first volley, pull back behind the hill to where they can’t shoot ours and focus on the gate. If we lose our siege engines, we’re stuck in the open. We’ll be slaughtered if that happens.”

The general nodded and withdrew into the crowd of soldiers behind him, barking off orders as he did so. Smart Cookie looked over his tail to see several messengers scatter towards the rear of the Union lines with the messages of their officer. Before he could watch them scramble to the siege weapons, however, a thunderous voice echoed across the entire clearing.

“Warlord Halite, present yourself immediately!” Jade declared in a volume that seemed physically impossible to reach. “I, Commander Jade of the Crystal Union, have business to conduct with you!”

There was an unbearable delay as Smart Cookie craned his neck towards the tops of the walls. He could make out the sharp points of numerous weapons bristling along the crenellations, as well as the shining bodies of the Crystal barbarians behind them. The barbarians were glaring at the Unionists below, and several were slamming their mighty weapons against the onyx stone to try and intimidate their opponents. Just as quickly as it started, however, it ended when a gray pony stuck his head out over the walls, his heavy black armor seeming to blend in with the onyx stone he stood atop.

“I know who you are, Jade!” warlord Halite spat back at the mare. “What business do we have to discuss here? I’ll tell you what, there is none!” Jade glared back at the warlord and spread her wings, but Halite shouted her down before she could speak. “You think that we are going to surrender? Just because you have more ponies does not mean that you have the advantage. I have the walls, I have the artillery, and it should be you who is surrendering today!”

“And why is that, Halite? Do you not understand what it means to be attacker and defender?” Jade taunted back, although Smart Cookie noticed that her hoofing had spread into a more balanced and ready stance. All around her, her soldiers copied her actions, and Smart Cookie clumsily adopted the combat stance as well.

Halite waved his hoof in front of his face as if he were trying to brush away the stupidity of the question addressed to him. “Every one of your soldiers are dead, Jade. What do you think my catapults have been doing while we’ve been talking? Sitting still and collecting snow?” He pointed with his hooves to either side, where the catapults had finished rotating and were angled at a dangerously steep angle. “I’m offering you one more chance to surrender now, or your soldiers die by the thousands, Jade. Just how much are you willing to stake on this pathetic dream of yours?”

Jade drew her sword and raised it to the sky, each and every follower doing the same. “I have already staked my life on it, Halite! I damn well hope you are ready to stake yours!”

Halite smiled.

Jade growled.

Smart Cookie cringed.

And the world exploded into flying stone, screaming bodies, and diving pegasi.

Clover gulped and leaned around the corner, her breathing uneven and her shoulders shaky as she watched the group of Crystal Ponies standing in the open ahead of her. Her legs were sore from crouching for so long, and she nervously glanced at the sky again. The sun was continuing its ascent, and every minute that she and Platinum wasted, the streets became a little bit brighter.

“Are they gone yet?” Platinum whispered across her shoulder, her eyes fixed on the length of the alleyway they had just snuck down. Beads of sweat adorned her neck, accompanied by the occasional wince as the void ring found some pocket of her mana that it had yet to consume.

“Not yet,” Clover whispered back. She bent down and lowered her head to the ground, slithering her neck around the corner like a snake. The three barbarians were still laughing and punching each other in the face as some sort of friendly gesture. Clover rolled her eyes as the largest one toppled the smallest to a round of raucous laughter. Stallions. She would never understand them.

Across the dirt road was a stack of crates lying in the shadow of a rather large building. It was only thirty feet away—Clover figured she could cross that distance in two seconds at a quiet trot—but the crossing was in full sight of the three barbarians. There was no way that she could get across without being spotted. She groaned and tapped her skull, trying to think of what she needed to do for an invisibility spell. Star Swirl had taught her one once, some very long time ago, but the lesson itself was dusty in her mind. How she wished she would have had more time to prepare before leaving for this mission with Platinum. She could have learned so many useful spells in that time.

Just as she began to prepare her leylines to order the mana into what she hoped was the correct pattern for the spell, she heard shouting from the group of barbarians. Gasping in alarm, Clover stumbled backwards and pressed herself flat against the wall. “Get down!” she hissed to Platinum, even as she felt her own knees buckling under her.

The thundering of hooves was getting closer, and Clover could see little pebbles shaking in the dust and snow around her. Her Arcana wrapped around the hilt of the sword and held it by her side, but she whimpered quietly as she did so. Sure, she had taken on one surprised warrior alone, but three charging Crystal barbarians? She stood a snowball’s chance in Tartarus of fighting them off.

The terrifying, pounding hooves came closer towards the alley, and Clover gritted her teeth, ready to spring forward and fight them off if need be. At least she would give Platinum time to get away. But just before she jumped, she saw the trio rush completely past the alleyway.

Confused, Clover lowered the sword and inched closer towards the corner, swallowing hard to steady her breaths. Just then, dozens of other soldiers rushed past her in the same direction as the three she just saw. Yelping quietly, she scrambled back into the shadows against a quivering Princess Platinum.

“Where are they all going?” the white mare whispered, leaning slightly to her side to look around Clover’s trembling body. A cloud of kicked up dust and snow met her face head-on and the Princess recoiled, spluttering and coughing at the foul grime that assaulted her nostrils.

The two unicorns lay pressed against the wall for several minutes as what seemed like the entirety of Onyx Ridge’s garrison rushed past them. They both knew that if any of the soldiers so much as glanced in their direction, they would be killed instantly.

But no soldiers looked to the side, and soon the streets were empty. Slowly rising to their hooves, Clover and Platinum stole cautious steps out into the open, looking up and down the streets but seeing nopony. There seemed to be a lot of shouting coming from the north end of Onyx Ridge, but at this distance it was so faint it seemed only like a dull roar.

“Wonder what that’s all about,” Clover muttered. Checking the streets one last time, she began to sprint towards cover on the far side. “Come on, Princess. Hopefully it’ll be a little easier to reach the armory now.”

Galloping between crates and boxes that formed cover of all sorts, Clover and Platinum made their way deeper into the heart of Onyx Ridge. Several times they thought they heard soldiers, but cautious approaches always revealed that it was simply their imagination. Onyx Ridge seemed deserted—a curious implication, given its size, but at this point it didn’t seem too far from the truth.

Ten minutes of galloping and hiding brought them to the base of the black castle in the center of Onyx Ridge, and in that time they had still seen nopony else. Whatever it was that called the attention of the warriors to the north of the fortress, it must have required the focus of the entire garrison. Clover shuddered to think what it could be that demanded the concerted efforts of twenty thousand soldiers.

“There! The armory!” Platinum whispered, bringing Clover’s thoughts back to the present. Just off to the side of the castle stood a low-lying brick and mortar building with a heavy door swinging wide open. Inside, several swords and spears glinted in the dim gray of the late morning light. Hundreds of hoofprints left the snow and mud churned up in front of the entrance, and several barrels and crates had been knocked over.

“It looks like a tornado hit this place,” said Clover as she walked into the doorway. Inside, the disarray seemed even worse. Weapons were scattered across the floor and several racks were upturned. There must have been a mad rush to grab swords and gear before every warrior relocated to the north. Onyx Ridge was preparing for an assault of some kind; that much was certain.

Clover began to rummage through the piles of equipment, brushing aside swords, spears, and war axes of all kinds until she found what she was looking for. Using her Arcana, Clover levitated a pair of tongs into the air and turned towards Platinum. The princess still had yet to recover from her sprint throughout the camp and was panting heavily. Hopefully, the removal of the void ring would take care of that.

“Hold still,” Clover commanded, placing the tongs around the ring on Platinum’s horn. “This might hurt just a little bit.”

Platinum looked up, her eyes filled with worry. “What do you mean it might HURT?!!”

The void ring crackled with mana as Clover wrenched it loose from Platinum’s horn. The crystals were intent on devouring as much mana as they could on their way out, and the Princess’ horn strobed with uncontrolled Arcana as the mana was pulled free. After a brief struggle, Clover managed to tear the ring away from Platinum and fling it over her shoulder, where it clinked and clattered across the piles of swords laying in the corner of the room. The white mare instantly collapsed and began rubbing her horn, but her moans were no longer of pain, but of relief.

“Ooooh… That’s divine…” Platinum hummed to herself, finding her returning strength sufficient to clamber to her hooves. She turned to Clover and, smiling, threw herself into a heartfelt embrace with her companion. “Thank you for getting that horrid thing off! Thank you, thank you!”

The strength of Platinum’s hug nearly crushed Clover’s ribs and left her gasping for breath. “I… you’re… welcome,” she wheezed. “Please…”

Platinum released her friend, letting Clover fall to the ground on her flanks. “Sorry. Right then, Clover darling, let’s get going, shall we?” Collecting several swords in her recharging Arcana, Platinum left the armory and began to trot back towards the prison block. Clover gathered several weapons of her own and, along with the tongs, followed her princess away from the castle.

The walk back to the prison cells was considerably quicker than the walk to the armory now that the soldiers were cleared from the streets. Sidling up next to Platinum, Clover deposited her weapons at the foot of Greenleaf’s cell and leaned in to shatter the lock.

“Ha! I knew you had it in you, Clover,” Greenleaf praised from the back of his cage. “Bust open these locks and melt off the void shackles, and we’ll be good to go.”

Two burst of Arcana later, and Greenleaf was stretching his legs outside of his cage. He sighed in pleasure as he cracked his back and shook out each of his hooves in turn. “Ah, that’s better. That’s the life. Been months since I even stepped out of that filthy iron cage. Quick, let’s work on getting the rest of our compatriots out of here.”

Clover nodded and turned to work on Diadem’s cage. “Platinum, take my tongs and try and get that ring off of Greenleaf’s horn. I’ll open the locks and send any unicorns to you.”

Diadem began bouncing up and down in front of Clover as she worked, the chains fixing her leg to the bars rattling with each hop. “You did it! You did it, you did it! You guys are so awesome! I want to be just like you when I grow up!”

Her excitement caused Clover to chuckle, and she popped the lock without too much trouble. Walking into Diadem’s cage, she bent down and focused her Arcana on the chain around her leg. “I know you’ll be a wonderful mare when you grow up, Diadem. I’m just happy to give you that chance.” The chain shattered with a light tinkling, and Diadem immediately bounced out of her cage and hopped over to where Platinum stood with the tongs, still working on Greenleaf’s horn. “Now, let’s see about—”

A thunderous voice interrupted her, and Clover spun towards the north where she heard it echoing. “Warlord Halite, present yourself immediately! I, Commander Jade of the Crystal Union, have business to conduct with you!”

Clover backpedaled from the intensity of the summons. Her mind’s encyclopedia sifted through the millions of pages of its contents until she found the information she was looking for. “The Crystal Union is still around? I thought that they had been wiped out years ago.”

Greenleaf looked towards the northern wall and winced as Platinum finally wrenched the ring around his poisoned horn. “They’re around, alright. I used to do scouting for them before I…” his voice trailed off, and he gestured around him. “Before this. Commander Jade’s a fine leader. Halite’s got to be quaking in his armored hide right now.”

Clover raised an eyebrow as she went to open the lock of an earth pony mare. “Really? How big of an army has Jade got?”

“I reckon it’s somewhere upwards of sixty thousand,” Greenleaf supposed. “Halite used to have that many soldiers here in Onyx Ridge or in the neighboring countryside, but he sent them off a long time ago to try and rout her army. Seeing as how she got here first, I’d say that force is no more. No wonder there’s only been a skeleton crew stationing this fortress.”

Again, Jade’s voice rang out over the fortress. “And why is that, Halite? Do you not understand what it means to be attacker and defender?” She appeared to be challenging something Halite had said, but without context it was impossible to figure out. Instead, Clover focused on getting the rest of the prisoners out of their cages—a monumental task, considering how many there were.

“So I assume we’re not going to be leaving by the front gate,” Platinum supposed as she tugged on Diadem’s void ring. Greenleaf simply laughed and shook his head.

“Well, that was the original plan, actually, because there’s no other way out of Onyx Ridge without two hundred feet of rope.” He picked up a sword from the ground and made a few swings with his neck. “We’re going to have to find another solution then.”

Clover finished melting the latch on a void shackle and set another unicorn free before moving on to the next one. “What about the Union, though? You think they can help us get out of here?”

“Only if they can get through those gates,” Greenleaf countered. “And they’re mighty hard to get through from the outside. I bet they can shrug off catapult fire like it’s nothing.”

Jade’s voice echoed across the fortress one last time in a peak of defiant rage. “I have already staked my life on it, Halite! I damn well hope you are ready to stake yours!”

Then the shouting began, and the ground shook as catapults exchanged fire. The prisoners all huddled together close to the ground as shots began to fall inside Onyx Ridge, skewering towers and buildings a short distance inside the walls. There was a tremendous clang as stone bounced off of iron, but the sound of iron falling to pieces was distinctly lacking.

Clover looked up again to where the towers over the main gate were just barely visible. Then she saw catapults lining the east and west walls of Onyx Ridge, silent and unmanned. A sly smile crept across her face.

Greenleaf saw it, then saw what she was looking at, then let the same expression shape his own muzzle. “Right. Let’s get the rest of the prisoners free, and see whether or not we can give the Union a little bit of inside help.”

Diadem began bouncing in circles around Greenleaf and Platinum while they worked. “Oh boy! A battle! I always wanted to be a mighty warrior like my brother one day!”

Clover simply laughed and shattered yet another lock. Halite was about to get a rather rude wakeup call from the ponies he had abused for so long.

“Get down! Here comes another volley!”

Smart Cookie flung himself against the ground, grunting in pain as the impact forced the air out of his lungs. Several-ton boulders landed all around him, launching plumes of dirt, snow, and blood into the air. As soon as the volley from Onyx Ridge ended, the Unionist catapults fired their rounds at the walls of the fortress. The Unionist boulders were even larger, and each one found some mark on the walls. Thousands of shards of onyx rock came flying off of the fortress, raining down death on any pony below. Scrambling backwards, Smart Cookie found his hoofing and managed to scurry away from the worst of the stone rain. The screams redoubled around him as several shards weighing almost a hundred pounds each skewered several Crystal Ponies by his sides.

“Keep firing!” Jade shouted over the roar of the siege. Her face was covered in dirt and Crystal blood, and strands of her mane had forced their way out from under her helmet and across her eyes. “I want those catapults taken down! Don’t tell me that we don’t have the angle needed on them!”

Smart Cookie scrambled over to the mare, his knees shaking the most they had ever shook in his life. As smaller rocks from Onyx Ridge’s half-sized catapults landed around him, he had to resist the urge to grab onto Jade’s legs and begin bawling like a foal.

“Look out!” somepony shouted, pointing his hoof towards the sky. “Here they come again!!”

“Right!” Jade screamed back. “This is it! Everypony brace yourselves!”

Smart Cookie ducked low and held his sword to the side as he spotted the figures in glinting armor streaking across the sky. With a murderous roar, almost a hundred pegasi ripped through the Union’s lines, scattering blood, guts, and armor across the battlefield. Each pegasus found a target and killed it as they passed at frightening speed, and aside from a few torn feathers, Smart Cookie couldn’t tell if they had even wounded one of the flying warriors. When the group passed and retreated into the smoky cloud cover, he pressed his side against Jade’s and shouted up to her.

“Just what the hay are Cirrans doing here?! And why are they attacking us, not Halite?!”

Jade grunted and shoved Smart Cookie to the ground, narrowly dodging a ballista round in the process. Pulling the earth pony to his hooves, she began to sprint along the front lines towards a siege tower. “They ain’t part of the Legion, I can tell you that! They’ve been harassing our supply lines for months now! Red armor and loose command structure, they’re deserters for sure!” Stopping at the side of the siege tower, she screamed a few words to the frightened sergeant and got him to order the tower to advance on the walls. “For some reason, perhaps that very reason, they’ve allied themselves with Halite and his bastards!”

Another wave of Unionist artillery slammed itself against the walls, tearing large gashes out of the top and ripping apart several of Halite’s catapults. The siege engineers had adjusted their aim to fire on the top of the tower, and the effects were devastating. In addition to the ruined catapults, the stone boulders ripped down several of the walkways and towers, sending dozens of barbarians plummeting to their deaths, screaming. Another of the stones slammed against the gates, but other than putting a dent in its construction it did little against the massive bars of iron.

“How’re we going to get through that?!” Smart Cookie shouted to Jade. The armored mare simply through Smart Cookie onto the siege tower and fluttered up after him, pointing to a hole in the side of the wall. “If we can’t batter down the gates, we’ll take the control rooms and raise them that way! Good thing Halite didn’t have enough onyx to build solid walls! We’ve got an interior we can access—assuming the tower can get there is all.” Kicking open a door, Jade ran in and flew up the central shaft of the tower, gesturing for Smart Cookie to follow on the ladder.

Smart Cookie gulped and clambered up after her, struggling to ascend with the unnatural weight of the iron pressing down on his shoulders. The siege tower shook violently, almost flinging him off of the ladder when he was near the top, but Jade bent down and hauled him up by his mane.

“Commander!” shouted an out-of-breath private. “Major Malachite’s tower! Look!”

Smart Cookie and Jade both leaned over the railing and saw the foremost tower advance on Onyx Ridge’s walls. As it approached, all the remaining catapults on Onyx Ridge’s northern wall turned and aligned with the tower, their crew loading the massive rounds into their baskets and winching back the arm. At the command of some unseen barbarian officer, all the catapults released at once, piercing the siege tower from several different angles with their hefty stones.

The result was absolutely devastating. The tower shook twice and then collapsed in a violent explosion of wood and splinters. It listed heavily to the side as it fell, raining fire and wooden planks down on all below, until the bulk of the engine snapped in two and fell directly on top of a company of Crystal Ponies. The screaming and dismay was difficult to make out above the roar of the battle, but it was there alright.

“Buck!” Jade shouted, turning back to the rest of the ponies on the tower. “When this thing hits the wall, I want everypony through that hole in seconds! The longer we wait, the more time they—”

“Incoming!” Smart Cookie screamed, knocking Jade to the floor of the tower with his shoulder. Fifteen pegasi screeched by overhead, their wingblades tearing horrid and ragged holes through the cluster of soldiers on deck. Several Crystal Ponies tried swinging their swords at the pegasi as they passed, but the flying soldiers were too fast and nimble for any of them to connect. Just like before, the group of Cirrans banked hard and rose into the cloud cover when they had finished their attack, effectively concealing their movement.

“Holy shit!” exclaimed one soldier, clutching his chest to try and slow his heart. “That’s great, just bucking great, man! Now what the buck are we supposed to do?! We’re in some real fruity shit now, man!”

“Hang on!” Jade retorted, spreading her wings to gather her soldiers attention. “Just another hundred feet and we’re at the walls! Just a little more!”

Unfortunately, the spreading of her wings also caught the attention of the nearest catapult. Shouting, the barbarians manning it heaved and struggled, managing to turn the weapon around and lower it towards the tower. The arm was levered back, and two of the largest barbarians managed to haul a boulder into the basket.

“Game over man, game over!” shouted another Union soldier. “What’re we going to do now?! What’re we—”

His voice was cut off by the sudden explosion of the catapult as a massive ballista round skewered the construction, launching the weapon off of the walls and down to the bloody ground below. Jade, Smart Cookie, and the rest of the soldiers on deck huddled under the shrapnel and splinters of the destroyed catapult as they landed all around them.

“What was that?!” Smart Cookie exclaimed, rising to his hooves alongside. Jade. The Commander squinted, but soon her face broadened in a smile.

“Looks like we’ve got some inside help!” She shouted. With a mighty thud, the siege tower connected with the hole in the side of Onyx Ridge’s wall and latched on. Kicking down the boarding gate, Jade stood aside as her cheering soldiers rushed inside and began to attack the nearest barbarians they could see. Then she turned tail and followed them, Smart Cookie right behind her.

“Let’s show Halite how little his fortress can do for him now!”

“Boom! Hahaha! Load another one! Don’t give them any reprieve!”

Clover wiped the sweat off of her brow with a hoof before returning to the stack of ballista bolts and fitting another one to the body of the machine. Her, Platinum, Greenleaf, and the other prisoners had commandeered one of the ballistae on the west wall and had managed to rotate it almost completely around to fire on the siege weapons fixed to the north wall. With Diadem’s keen eye and surprisingly accurate aim, they had just shorn one catapult completely off of its mounted position on the wall and were moving on to the next target.

“Whew!” Platinum grunted as she used her powerful Arcana to winch back the cord on the ballista while Clover loaded the next round with her own magic. Despite the physical exertion, she seemed to be enjoying the opportunity to strike back at the ponies who had so badly disgraced her the past few days. “Where’s that Halite fellow? Put a shot straight through his skull for me!”

Diadem scrunched her face and squinted with one eye down the length of the ballista shot Clover had loaded. “Uh, Halite’s the big mean one, right? Not the mean one, but the big mean one, like, the mean mean one who’s mean… yeah, I don’t see that one, but I see another catapult!” Sticking her tongue to the side, the filly made the appropriate mental calculations and began to give directions to the stallions moving the weapon. “Alright, a little right… a little more… now down, left, down again… there!” Hopping up and down in the seat meant for a pony twice her size, Diadem looked absolutely ridiculous behind the gunner’s station, but she was surprisingly (or perhaps unsurprisingly) enthusiastic about being in control of such an awesome machine.

“Alright! Winch back, stand clear, and FIRE!!”

With a tremendous thwack of its drawstring, the ballista released its next round at Greenleaf’s command. The oversized arrow cut its way across the fortress and slammed straight into the back of the next catapult, tearing the throwing arm from the assembly and braining one of the stallions in its crew. Clover winced at the gore and glanced towards Diadem, but apparently the filly had been too excited about the successful hit to notice the particularly gruesome way that her aim had just killed another pony.

“Ha! We’re showing them!” Greenleaf laughed, shaking the sweaty hairs of his mane from his face. “I haven’t felt this alive in ages! Halite, your reputation ain’t worth shi—” He stopped, glancing over his shoulder at the filly watching him intently, and swallowed the last letter of his curse. “Ahem. Worth crap.”

Clover sniggered and went to grab the next round with her Arcana. “Watch it, Greenleaf, don’t forget we’ve got a child here!”

Diadem spun in the seat, her face filled with an adorable pout. “Hey! I’m not a child! I’m ten!”

“With aim like that you might as well be twenty-five,” Greenleaf muttered, turning to find another target. Suddenly his face blanched, and he scrambled to grab his sword. “Incoming barbarians, twelve o’clock! Get your flanks in gear and plug the gap!”

Several of the prisoners grabbed their weapons and rushed forward to stand by Greenleaf’s side, forming a phalanx of death between the advancing Crystal barbarians and the commandeered ballista. Even then, it was only a hoofful of poorly equipped prisoners against fifty incoming barbarians.

Platinum bit her lip as she wrenched back the drawstring of the ballista. She could see the incoming barbarians over Greenleaf’s shoulders, and she knew they were going to get slaughtered. Latching the massive cable into place, she turned towards Diadem. “Aim it at the walkway. We need to take out those mean ponies before they get to Greenleaf.”

Diadem’s head bobbed up and down, and she looked down the round Clover finished loading into the assembly. “Alrighty then. Um, go down, then waaaaay to the left… now up a little bit… no that’s too far… good!”

“Right!” Platinum shouted, wrapping her hooves around the control lever. “Have at you!”

With a loud click, the lever slid into the firing position and released the cable on the ballista. Again the cord snapped forward, launching its deadly missile at the advancing ponies. Clover barely had time to shield the little filly’s eyes from the gore before the missile turned fifty charging ponies into red slush across the walkway.

Platinum gritted her teeth and worked on pulling the cable back, trying to shrug off the wanton death she just witnessed. Across the northern wall, several more Crystal Ponies had emerged, but these ones were different. They were covered in iron and cyan armor, and they immediately attacked the barbarians nearest to them as they stormed out of the stair tower. Most surprising of all, however, was the massive mare leading them, a pony with both a unicorn’s horn and a pegasus’ wings. Hacking away with her sword and swinging her wings, the mare fought her way through reams of Crystal barbarians as she advanced towards the three towers above the massive iron gates.

“You see her?!” Greenleaf exclaimed, pointing to the mare. “That’s Commander Jade! Damn, I never thought I’d see the day. I always met with her generals when I scouted for her, but never the mare herself. How’s about we give her a little help taking those towers?”

“Right!” Platinum called back. “Diadem, see that big green mare over there?” Seeing the little filly nod, Platinum pulled the priming lever on the ballista into place and pointed towards a knot of barbarians. “Don’t let any of the mean ponies get to her or her followers. She’s our friend.”

“Okie dokie!” Diadem chirped back, and Platinum felt the need to suppress a motherly shake of her head. The little filly’s cheery demeanor was just too out of place for the battle raging around them.

The ballista was aimed and another round was fired, tearing a chunk of the walkway off and taking several barbarians with it. Commander Jade skidded to a halt in front of the sudden gash that opened up in front of her and glanced towards the rogue ballista, confusion illuminating her face.

Diadem waved back at her.

Jade shook her head like she was trying to clear a daydream, incredulity clearly plastered across her features. She looked like she wanted to fly over and make sure that she wasn’t insane, but attacking barbarians forced her to bring her attention back to the fight. Hacking apart several warriors and sending their bodies tumbling down from the walls, Jade and her entourage of Crystal Ponies, plus one earth pony that Platinum noticed, advanced into the first gatehouse.

“Heehee! She saw me, she saw me!” Diadem sang as she bounced in her seat. “I’m getting to know sooooo many cool ponies! Clover the Clever, Princess Platinum, and now Commander Jade? Oooh, when do I get to meet Commander Hurricane and Chancellor Puddinghead?”

Clover laughed and fitted yet another bolt to the ballista. “Only three left! Make them count!”

Greenleaf surveyed the remaining stockpile and pointed to four armed unicorn stallions. “You, go and find some more rounds for this thing! Our lives may very well depend on it!” Nodding, the nominated group galloped away, breaking down the door of the nearest watchtower and sprinting inside.

Platinum levered back the cable and slotted it again, but collapsed shortly thereafter. The strain was starting to become too much for her, even though she was very gifted in terms of magical strength. “Ungh… Clover, darling, you think we could switch? I can’t… keep this up for much longer.”

“Sure,” Clover called back, walking over to Platinum’s side and letting the mare rest against her shoulders. “Take all the time you need. We’re almost d—”

Diadem’s sudden panicked shrieking cut off her words. Before Clover could even turn to see what was wrong, three sizeable stones slammed themselves into the masonry around the ballista. Catapults and ballistae on the eastern wall had turned completely around to return fire on the rogue ballista the prisoners had captured, and their volleys were relentless. Stones and bolts of all sizes began to descend on their position.

“Diadem, run!!” Clover shouted over her shoulder, pushing Platinum towards Greenleaf, who immediately took up her weight. The frightened filly clambered over the body of the ballista and launched herself towards Platinum, her hooves outstretched as she flew towards the green mare.

No sooner had her hooves left the ballista did a massive stone slam into the nose of the machine, ripping the wood apart and tearing a gaping hole in the onyx walkway where the prisoners were assembled. The taut cable that Platinum had exhausted herself wrenching back into position broke free, and it snapped across the walkway with such force that it decapitated three unlucky prisoners before cleaving several crenellations in two.

The terrible rain of stone wasn’t over yet, though, and more ballista rounds and catapulted boulders smashed into the walkway around them. Clover heard the horrible groaning of strained stone, and she felt the floor buckle beneath her. Looking down, she saw massive cracks rip across the polished, black surface of the walkway, spouting plumes of dust and black gravel into the air. With a sickening lurch, the section of the walkway Clover and Diadem lay on angled downwards several degrees, and Clover felt her hooves dangle over the edge.

“Hang on!” Greenleaf shouted, grabbing a spear from a nearby earth pony and thrusting it towards Clover. “Just hang on!”

Clover heard the distinctive whoosh of more catapults being launched, and she knew where they were aimed. With a forlorn glance, she looked towards Platinum’s fearful and pleading eyes and mouthed an apology.

Pulling Diadem close to her side, Clover shut her eyes and released a deep breath as the first of the stones slammed into the wall beneath her.

Jade kicked her hooves out in front of her as a massive ballista bolt shredded the onyx walkway only a few feet ahead of her. The shaft of wood cleaved the crenellations on both sides of the wall in two as it took out the legs of several barbarians, sending the limbless bodies tumbling off the side, shrieking in agony. Whirling about, she flared her wings in preparation to streak across the fortress and take out the offending artillery piece.

She quickly located the culprit along the western wall, and took two steps forward to take flight. Suddenly, she stopped in shock. There in the engineer’s seat was a little filly that looked no more than ten or eleven. Not only that, but the filly was smiling and waving at her. Around her, several tired and dirty unicorns worked on loading another round into the ballista. They were devoid of armor or the crystalline sheen of the Crystal Ponies, so she knew that they weren’t on Halite’s side. Then realization clicked. They must have been the crew that took out the catapult that almost killed her and her soldiers.

She laughed and turned quickly to block the sword swing of a barbarian with her bladed wing. Halite’s prisoners were biting back at him! Their aid would help accelerate the fall of the fortress immensely.

“Come on!” She shouted to the soldiers following her. “Let’s take down the first gate! On me!” With a righteous fury, she batted aside several barbarians and entered the first gatehouse.

Smart Cookie stumbled in after her, hyperventilating and tripping over his own hooves as the adrenaline guided his limbs instead of his brain. There was fighting all around him, ponies cutting each other apart on their swords of steel and iron. He scrambled closer to Jade’s side and nervously clutched his sword between his trembling jaws. This was a bad idea, a bad, bad idea!

The interior of the gatehouse was simply a large stone box with windows on both ends and huge winches in the center meant for raising the several ton gate below. There were ten or fifteen barbarians in the room, and each one found a different Union soldier to engage. Smart Cookie found himself scrambling along the walls and around fighting bodies as he tried to get away from the worst of the melee.

Eventually, he found himself at the north end of the room looking out over the Union army below. Multiple siege towers had affixed themselves to the walls, their occupants struggling to reach a hole either too high or too low on the wall to enter. He could see the carnage of several destroyed towers lying outside, as well as piles of bodies of dead soldiers. He estimated that Jade’s army had lost about a quarter of its strength in the attack as they just sat outside waiting for the gates to open. As long as she had troops inside Onyx Ridge, however, Jade wasn’t going to let up on the attack, no matter how many dead it would cost her.

Deciding to stop gawking at the carnage outside and do something useful, Smart Cookie examined the massive gate winch for any clues as to how it worked. There were massive wheels and valves of all sizes, as well as several levers affixed to large gears. Huge chains descended into the floor, and massive counterweights hung from the roof of the south wall. Taking a guess, Smart Cookie began to kick open levers and tug on valves to try and produce some effect.

With a thunderous groan, the entire gatehouse shook as Smart Cookie opened the last of the levers. There was a hiss of rattling chains, and he could see an absolutely enormous block of onyx plummet past the south windows. Chains inside the gatehouse clanked as they were taken up by the large wheels, and there was a chorus of loud cheering outside as the first of the iron gates lifted. As if on some unheard cue, the remaining barbarians in the room withdrew out the eastern door and began to rush towards the central gatehouse.

“Yes!” Jade exclaimed, bucking an unlucky pony out of the northern window. “Keep at it! Two more to go, and Onyx Ridge falls!”

Smart Cookie cheered and followed Jade and her soldiers out towards the next gatehouse. Halite’s warriors were in chaos and disarray, struggling to respond to the multiple breaches to the walls and repel the soldiers assaulting the gatehouses. The second gatehouse was stormed and taken in a matter of minutes, and the middle gate was raised without too much incident. The army outside was pressing against the last gate, abandoning caution and worry about what were to happen if one of the gates were to suddenly drop down in their rush to try and get inside.

“One more!” Jade called out, rallying her troops around her. “We’re coming for you, Halite!”

The last gatehouse was considerably better defended than the first two, as Halite had caught wind of what was happening and had arranged an appropriate response. Speaking of Halite, Smart Cookie caught a glimpse of the gray Crystal stallion in his black armor inside of the last gatehouse. The warlord knew that Onyx Ridge was lost if Jade took the last gate, and he was determined to not let that happen.

With a ferocious war cry, Jade and her soldiers plunged into the depths of the third gatehouse and began to take apart the defenders. There were more than in the previous houses, and there was almost no room to move inside. Bodies pressed against bodies in a deadly melee, and the floor soon became slippery with blood.

A yell astonishingly close to Smart Cookie’s ear caused him to jump to the side, and he felt the slash of an axe pass dangerously close to his chin. He turned to see a rather large barbarian advance upon him, murderous blood rage filling his eyes. With a monstrous roar, the stallion ripped his axe out of the cloven floor tiles and swung it at Smart Cookie again.

The Representative barely managed to dodge that attack, and attempted to swing back with his sword. The iron weapon clanged against the barbarian’s neck armor but did no damage, and the massive pony head-butted Smart Cookie back towards the northern wall. The orange stallion felt his shoulders dangle over the railing as the cold wind flew into his eyes and blinded him. He lurched forward just in time to avoid having his head removed like a chicken under the assailant’s powerful axe.

Again Smart Cookie swung at the barbarian, and again his strike proved ineffectual. With a shake of his head, the barbarian grabbed onto the blade of Smart Cookie’s sword with his teeth and yanked it out of the Representative’s grasp. Shouting in dismay, Smart Cookie watched as the piece of iron was flung out of the window and towards the ground below.

The barbarian lowered his guard to laugh at the earth pony’s helplessness, and in that time Smart Cookie decided to throw all his chips into the pot and side with the stupidest plan he had ever come up with. He didn’t run away. He didn’t dance around the stallion. He didn’t even call for help.

Smart Cookie charged into the monster that was almost twice his size with his shoulder and sent the brute stumbling backwards.

The barbarian was shocked that such a little pony would try such a foolhardy action, but Smart Cookie didn’t give him much time to think. Instead, he pivoted on his forehooves and delivered a powerful buck to the exposed stallion’s chest.

Smart Cookie had always been an avid horseshoe player and had learned how to play by kicking the shoes towards the target rather than by tossing them with his mouth. Years of practice had given him exceptionally good strength and aim, and the buck sent the barbarian reeling back towards the window. The brute’s back collided with the sill, and he teetered dangerously close to the edge, limbs flailing on either side for balance.

One last nudge was all it took to send the behemoth over the edge and falling to his death.

“The winch, Smart Cookie, the winch!” Jade shouted across the room to the earth pony as she finished off yet another soldier. “Let the army through!”

Smart Cookie turned from the window and breathlessly began slamming levers down on the gate system. The wheels began to turn and the walls shook as the counterweight descended and began to raise the last of the iron gates.

“No!!” Shouted a loud voice from behind Smart Cookie, and a figure kicked him to the side and began to reverse the levers. Regaining his hoofing, Smart Cookie saw warlord Halite trying to break apart the chain holding the gate up. Growling, Smart Cookie kicked him away and sent the larger stallion tumbling through the eastern doorway. Jade saw the action and brushed aside Crystal Ponies, barbarian and unionist alike, to get to the warlord.

“Halite, you can’t escape! This will be the end of you!”

With a loud thud, the counterweight hit the ground and left the last gate fully open. Cheering and shouting began to fill the atmosphere, and Smart Cookie looked out the south window to see the Union pouring into Onyx Ridge, fanning out to hunt down every last barbarian who dared hide or fight between the buildings.

Abandoning the sight altogether, Smart Cookie ran out the east door to find Jade and Halite. He didn’t have to look hard. The two ponies were exchanging blows mere yards away from the gatehouse while their respective underlings cut each other to ribbons around them. Smart Cookie lowered his helmet and began to charge towards Halite when the first of the stones hit.

A volley of stones was launched from the catapults on the eastern wall, peppering the onyx walkway and slamming against the roofs of the gatehouses. Dismayed, Smart Cookie looked towards the western wall and the allies he hoped were still there. Instead, he only saw the collapsing section of walkway were the friendly ballista had once stood take its crew down to the ground below.

“Jade, they’re trying to destroy the gatehouses!” Smart Cookie screamed over the carnage. He knew that if the winches were destroyed, the several ton gates would come slamming down, never to open up again. Luckily, there were already several thousand Union soldiers within Onyx Ridge at this point, with hundreds flowing in every second. If they could get just a few thousand more in, the fort would fall.

Jade was too preoccupied with her fight against Halite to notice. Again, Smart Cookie heard the whooshing of catapults and ballistae firing on their position, and he lowered his head against the crenellations to brace for the impact. The stones tore through the wall, leaving the walkway teetering and twisting along the last of the supporting wall.

Another large stone was coming in, this one aimed at the very center of the collapsing segment of the wall. Hugging the crenellation tighter, Smart Cookie called out in dismay.

Then the stone hit, sending two hundred yards of Onyx Ridge’s northern wall collapsing to the ground below.

Streak Wing and his closest Legates flew hundreds of feet over the burning walls of Onyx Ridge. Halite was performing poorly. Typical of a Crystal warlord. He had expected the assault to take all day at the least before it was repelled. Instead, it had taken barely more than an hour for the walls to be breached. Onyx Ridge was lost, and Halite had nopony else to blame but his own stupidity.

“Look!” one of the pegasi shouted, pointing with a hoof to the north wall of the fortress. Streak Wing spiraled downwards to take a closer look. Cracking, straining, groaning, the onyx walls of the fortress shattered into thousands of several-ton chunks as they absolutely collapsed from top to bottom. The Union’s siege engines had been effective, and they certainly were resilient. He had lost too many soldiers trying to take them down, and in the end he had only toppled two catapults and silenced one tower. One hundred pegasi were more than a match for five times that number in Crystal soldiers, but they were still only one hundred pegasi.

They flew through a cloud of smoke to mask their movements, descending on the other side of the fortress to find more targets to strafe. Eyes focused dead ahead, Streak Wing called over his shoulder to the Legate closest behind him.

“Hey, Sleetstop! How many survivors we got left?”

“Forty-two, sir,” the Legate called back. “We lost several trying to take down the catapults. More on the general cuts through their lines. We should pull out now if we want to have any left for the attack on Cloudsdale.”

Streak Wing sighed and nodded. “Right then. Eagle Tail, go and round up the last of our survivors. We meet at camp, then fly east.”

Silence.

Streak Wing and the other Legates turned to the space in their formation where Eagle Tail was supposed to be, only to find it empty. They spread out in a circle, confusion on all their faces.

“What the hell?!” Streak Wing called out. “Where the hell did he go?!”

“He was just here a second ago, sir,” Sleetstop called back. “I swear I was just looking at him before we flew through the cloud cover! Where could he have go—?”

His words were cut off with a thud as a shadowy figure shot out of the clouds below and propelled him into the sky. The other Legates scattered, their wingblades rattling in flight.

“What was that?!” Streak Wing shouted, looking around him. “Where did it come from?!”

“Sir!” shouted one of the Legates, pointing off to the side. Sleetstop’s body was tumbling out of the sky several hundred feet away, blood spraying from a cut in his neck. The body fell to the ground with a sickening crunch audible from even so far away.

“Shit!” Streak Wing exclaimed. “Form up! Whoever it is, don’t let them catch you!”

There was a shout from behind him, and Streak Wing turned just in time to see the last two of his Legates get tackled out of the sky. Their screams were cut short with the drawing of blades, and Streak Wing was just able to see a black and a yellow coat disappear into the clouds below.

“Buck!” he shouted, beginning to dive after them. “Damn it, I knew it was too much to hope that you’d stay dead!!”

He plunged through the clouds, but they were so thick it was impossible to see. All around him the world was gray, laden with ice and smoke and ash. He coughed several times as he tried to gather his bearings and see through the impermeable thickness of the stratus.

He looked up just in time to brace himself against the charge of a black pegasus clad in onyx armor, wingblades aimed for his throat.

Chapter 12: The Narrow Strait

Twilight yawned and set the journal aside, making doubly sure that it was safely nestled within her saddlebag. The fire had died down to but a few sparks, and she was starting to feel some of the Stalliongrad cold creep its way into the building. It tickled her mane and pricked at her hooves, and her leg involuntarily twitched to shake off the chill.

Rising from her seat, Twilight sighed as her joints popped and cracked. Slowly trotting over to the hearth, the unicorn sat down and began to poke at the logs, trying to stir up the embers and force the armies of winter into a hasty retreat. As she did so, a quill dropped on her hooves. She examined it for a second before her tired mind realized that she had released it from her Arcana to jostle the logs. The blue feather that Rainbow Dash had offered her had already been worn to a rounded and blunt point, and with a grumble, Twilight tossed it into the fire. She would have to ask the pegasus for another quill tomorrow. If only she had her own wings, then she could pull quills from them whenever she wanted.

She stifled another yawn and glanced to her right, where Rainbow Dash lay curled up in a colorful ball on top of her winter coat and jacket. The pegasus was breathing quietly, her wings twitching slightly with her dreams. At least she had recovered from her hypothermia and was sleeping peacefully. Twilight knew she would never have forgiven herself if something bad had happened to her companion.

With the fire now flared up to a comfortable warmth, the lavender mare smiled softly and spread out her own coat and jackets before the fire as a makeshift bedroll. Judging by the stack of notes she had taken while poring over the last two chapters of Hurricane’s journal, she had probably been up for four or five hours after Rainbow had given in to sleep. At least she wasn’t planning on heading south again for another day. This little cabin in the middle of nowhere had saved her life, and she wasn’t ready to leave it behind just yet.

Twilight was snoring before she knew it. She also didn’t remember what woke her up barely an hour later. Her nerves were frayed and the dim glow of the crackling fire was a blinding shear of light. The simple wooden room blurred and swam across her eyes, and she placed a hoof against her head to try and pound out the sleepiness. Leaning against the wall, Twilight took a deep breath and listened.

The cabin was quiet and still. The only movement was the dancing of the shadows against the opposite wall from the crackling fire. There were only three distinct sounds: the fire, Rainbow’s quiet snoring, and Twilight’s own heartbeat as she tried to swallow her heart.

She must have stood like that for five minutes before taking a breath and moving back to her original spot by the fire. “It’s okay, Twilight,” she muttered to herself. “You’re just paranoid and worried that you’re going to get a sickle driven through your neck. There’s nothing wrong. Statistically speaking, seventeen out of every eighteen ponies would be scared if they were in your position.”

Having calmed herself with the infallible force that was logic-based reasoning, Twilight sighed and lay down on her jackets. Good old logic. It always held the answer to every problem.

Unfortunately, it didn’t seem to have an answer Twilight would have liked to hear when she heard growling outside of the cabin door.

Twilight locked up stiff as a board. There was definitely a continuous growl from the door to the cabin, along with what sounded like a snuffling sound. Gently pushing aside the covers with trembling hooves, Twilight scooted over to Rainbow Dash and shook her.

“Nnnnooooo… Five more minutes, Papa, please… mmmm, maybe fifteen.”

“Rainbow Dash!” Twilight hissed, recoiling from the noise of her own voice. The growling at the door had stopped, but the unicorn had a distinct feeling that it wasn’t gone. “Rainbow Dash, get up! I… I don’t think we’re safe here.”

“Twilight?” Rainbow Dash rose and rubbed her bleary eyes with heavy hooves. “Can’t you let a mare sleep? What is it, four in the morning?”

Twilight held a hoof in front of her muzzle and shushed the pegasus. She pointed with her horn to the door, where the growling had resumed at a lower pitch. “Get your gear, Rainbow.”

The pegasus gave a curt nod and began to prowl about the room, her wings flexing and arching above her back and by her sides in preparation for flight. “What are those? Diamond dogs?” She laughed slightly as she put her saddlebag together. “If only we had Rarity here to deal with them.”

“I don’t think they’re diamond dogs,” Twilight muttered as she carefully placed her saddlebag on her flank.

“If they’re not diamond dogs, then what are they?”

With a snarling bark and growl, the door to the shack was shorn from its hinges and flung aside. In its place stood the largest animal Twilight had ever seen, aside from a dragon. The figure stood on its short hind legs as it gripped onto the sides of the doorframe with arms as large as a pony. Powerful muscles rippled under a patchy coat of short black fur and white scars. The wood creaked in agony as its canine claws crushed the doorframe, and its drooling jaws snapped with anticipation of a meal. Bloodshot eyes leered at Twilight as she stood frozen in place.

The eye contact lasted only a second before the massive canine charged through the door, its claws ripping chunks of wood out of the hall. Twilight squeezed her eyes shut and dove to the side, slamming her skull against the cabinet but managing to hop away from the gnashing teeth of the beast. The dog snarled and turned, but before it could charge again at Twilight, a blue blur swooped through the air and kicked the brute to the ground.

“Hah!” Rainbow whooped, spinning away from the downed animal. “How do you like that, you hairy mutt? Next time pick on someone your own—!”

Rainbow’s words were cut off as the dog whipped its arm from the ground and enveloped her entire body in one hairy paw. With a ferocious roar, the canine flung Rainbow Dash against the wall. The wood cracked, but the pegasus didn’t stop there. With a cry of pain, Rainbow was sent completely through the wall and into the snows beyond.

“Rainbow!” Twilight shouted, peering through the suddenly opened hole in the wall. She could see the powder blue coat of her friend rolling through the snow in the darkness outside of the shack.

Behind her, the canine scrambled to his feet and barked at Twilight before beginning to lunge at her. The unicorn’s face tensed in concentration, and a barrage of purple bolts of Arcana scattered across the dog’s coat, burning patches of fur from its skin. The canine yipped and fell to the ground, writhing in pain, while Twilight sprinted through the gap in the shed to Rainbow’s side.

“Nnngh…” Rainbow groaned, clutching her side in pain. “I’ve always been more of a cat person anyway…”

As Twilight helped Rainbow up, a chorus of low howls reflected off of the moon and the silver night skies. The two ponies clutched each other as the calls rose in pitch before dying off, one by one.

“Are you hurt?” Twilight whispered to Rainbow.

The pegasus grunted and stretched each of her limbs one by one, pausing on her left foreleg. “M-my leg…” She tried to stretch the leg again but winced and ground her teeth against each other. “Sprained… I’ve had worse.”

“I’ll look at it when we get to safety,” Twilight assured her. “But right now, we have to move. Can you walk?”

Rainbow Dash nodded and began to limp away, even as she bared her teeth in pain with each step on her left foreleg. Twilight tried to support Rainbow’s shoulder, but the pegasus nudged her away with the crest of her wing, determined to walk on her own.

The two ponies only made about fifty feet of distance from the cabin before the first of several pairs of yellow eyes appeared in the darkness ahead of them. The growling soon followed, and Twilight could hear the shuffling of snow all around them just outside of her sight. With a simple spell, a bright purple manalight appeared above her head and illuminated the hilltop.

No less than fifteen canines of varying size hissed and whimpered as they threw their meaty arms in front of their eyes. They all resembled the lumbering beast Twilight had incapacitated inside the cabin, from the patchy and scarred coats to the long, yellow fangs that were too large to hide behind split lips. The fur around their claws and teeth was the color of dried blood.

As the dogs began to recover from the flare Twilight had created, she channeled another spell into her horn. With a distinct pop and the slight caress of nausea, both ponies found themselves outside the pack of diamond dogs. Shaking off the aftereffects of the teleportation spell, Twilight nudged Rainbow away from the dogs and tried to help her move as fast as possible.

A howl of rage split the night, and the pack of canines turned as one to bear down on the two ponies. Snow and ice were torn from the ground and kicked into the air like a dust cloud following a stampede in the desert. The wind caught the ice and scattered it into the sky, obscuring the dogs for but a second.

A shout of exertion rose to challenge the howling of the pack, and the entire stretch of frozen tundra between Twilight and the diamond dogs rippled and bucked skyward. The explosion of ice launched the pack into the air, where they yipped in terror before slamming into the ground. The cracking of bones was picked up by the wind and propelled across the surrounding countryside, and Rainbow Dash pressed her ears flat against her head to block out the noise.

“Way to go, Twilight!” Rainbow cheered while holding her foreleg against her chest. “That sure showed them!”

The lavender mare moved to dip her head, but the small action turned into a face plant in the snow. Twilight groaned and rubbed her eyes to clear the stars. “Heh… Did everypony see that? Because I am not doing it again.”

Rainbow Dash knelt down next to Twilight and struggled to pick her up with one hoof. “Come on, Twilight. Don’t make me have to worry about you not being able to walk now.”

“Give me a minute, Rainbow,” Twilight pleaded as she massaged her temples. Furrowing her brow, the unicorn looked off in the direction of the churned earth and bit her chapped lip. “Umm… Is it just me, or is it awfully quiet?”

Rainbow gulped and ushered Twilight to her hooves. She could see several bodies, crippled and dead, but the rest of the pack was nowhere to be seen. “Maybe we scared them off.”

“Wishful thinking on your part.”

Both ponies turned towards the masculine voice as he emerged from the settling snow. The brown unicorn held a sword in his magical grip and trotted over to the nearest twitching canine. With a small grunt, he impaled the beast’s neck, eliciting a small cry of pain alongside a wheeze.

Twilight squinted at the figure before her jaw dropped. “Haven?”

Sheathing his sword, Safe Haven smiled and cantered towards the two Equestrians. “Privet, Twilight. Miss Dash.”

Rainbow groaned and smacked her head with her good hoof. “Celestia… that sounds so lame…”

“I don’t get it,” Twilight began, looking over Haven’s bloodstained winter coat. “I thought you were still back in Saraneighvo? And just what in the hay happened back there anyway?!”

Haven laughed and passed Twilight a canteen of water, which she took several sips from. “I was in Saraneighvo until just recently. I do apologize if my service was not up to Canterlot standards, but war is war.”

“Wait, you’re with the rebels?”

“For what other reason would I leap over the bar to drive my sword into a Black Cloak’s shoulders?”

“I thought…” Twilight trailed off. “I don’t know what I thought. It all happened so fast.”

“I’ll give you the quick version, but then we have to go,” Haven said. “Those three ponies who walked into the bar? They were the rebel leaders in Saraneighvo. They were planning the whole revolt for months, and that just happened to be the night it was set to go off. Unfortunately, Miss Dash brought the Black Cloaks to us in her drunken stupor.”

“It was some pretty good vodka…” Rainbow Dash muttered to herself.

Haven rolled his eyes. “Black Cloaks already have a poor enough tolerance for crime as it is. Marshall Serp goes insane whenever he sees a rebel. The moment he walked in, I knew it was a bloodbath waiting to happen.” Levitating his sword from its sheath with his magic, Haven showed off the series of notches in the iron of the blade. “The Marshall’s got a few of his own on his beloved sickle. At least there were too many of us for him to deal with before he could rip my throat out with it.”

“Great, so I’m now consorting with outlaws?” Twilight half-joked, half-accused. “If there were so many of you, how come you’re not in Saraneighvo?”

“The Commandant of the Black Cloaks showed up, that’s why,” Safe Haven responded. “Came all the way from Stalliongrad itself with his other lackey, Marshall Molot. Our hold on the city was shaky enough as it was after the first night. The Commandant’s soldierly prowess is enough to turn that tide on his own. I’ve heard the bastard’s had training from the captain of Canterlot’s Honor Guard.”

Twilight wanted to ask more questions, but a distant howl stopped her. Haven glanced in its direction and frowned. “We need to move. They may have fled with their tails between their legs but they’ll be back soon enough. Killing some of the pack just makes the rest angrier.” With a curt nod, he began to walk away to the west.

“Um… Haven? Stalliongrad is to the south.”

The stallion paused before shaking his head and continuing onwards. “I know.”

With no other option, Twilight and Rainbow shrugged and limped after him, each trying to clutch their jackets against their coats in defiance of the shrill winds.

Commander Hurricane and Pan Sea marched on towards the west, chasing the setting sun as it disappeared across glacial tundra. They had left the ruins of Onyx Ridge far behind them, and the smoke was just an inky black splotch against an indifferent gray sky. At least the storm had lessened the farther west they had travelled.

Hurricane grunted as he climbed over yet another series of craggy hills. His chest was killing him, and each breath was only another spear in his gut as his lungs expanded and contracted around the splintery ends of his broken ribs. With an annoyed breath, the Commander pulled his dragging wings up to his sides again, where they immediately began to droop. The two lines on either side of him extended for at least a quarter mile into the distance.

“Are you okay, sir?” Pan Sea asked as he approached Hurricane. “It’s your chest again, isn’t it?”

“’S’nothing,” Hurricane groaned, trying to shake the ache out of his chest. He regretted the action a second later when his diaphragm cried out in protest, leaving the stallion gasping for breath.

“With all due respect, sir,” Pan Sea began, “It is something. Broken ribs are always a pain—no pun intended—when you’re trying to travel. You can’t fly, you can hardly walk, and you can’t fight.”

“And what would you have me do about it?” Hurricane growled. “Sit and wait until it gets better? We’re on a short timetable, Pansy. The longer it takes for us to cross the Narrow Strait, the longer Cirra starves. I will not lose my nation through inaction.”

Hurricane pushed off of Pan Sea with a wing and began to walk again, despite the Legionnaire’s protests. “Commander, it’s gotten worse since the fight, that much I can tell! If you don’t stop to rest… you might never fly again.”

The black pegasus halted before lowering his head. “I don’t care if I never fly again. What good is it to fly when my family is dead? I have my priorities, private, and I’ll die before I see them failed.”

Pan Sea stared in exasperation before cursing and trotting after his commander. “Damn it, sir, I’m just trying to look out for you!”

“I understand that,” Hurricane spat back, “And I don’t give a griffon’s ass. We move, or Cirra dies. It’s as simple as that. I intend to keep moving.”

“At least promise me that you’ll refrain from straining yourself.”

Hurricane rolled his eyes. “I can’t promise you anything, Pansy, but I’ll give it my best if that’s what it takes to make you shut up for once.”

Somewhat satisfied, the yellow pegasus was content to nod and trot after Hurricane at a several pace distance.

After several more miles of slow and agonized walking, Hurricane and Pan Sea finally found themselves at the edge of the Narrow Strait. Instead of finding a sea like the maps predicted, however, they only found an icy waste stretching from one landmass to another.

“The storm must be really powerful if it’s pushing glaciers this far out,” Hurricane muttered.

“At least it makes it easier for us to cross, sir. You know, since you can’t fly and all.”

“Humph. That much is true,” Hurricane conceded. “Still, I’m alarmed it’s spread this far. What is it, a three days’ flight back to Cloudsdale from here? If this goes on for much farther… The Exodus was bad enough. I do not want to relive that again.”

Pan Sea involuntarily shuddered at the horrible memory. Even twenty years past and the flight still haunted him. The tattered remains of a broken empire…

Hurricane was already walking on without him, and the private shook the thoughts out of his head before trotting to catch up. “But it doesn’t.”

“And just how can you tell, Pansy? All I see is the glare of ice for miles.”

“Because if the storm was raging on the other side of the Strait, wouldn’t it produce its own glaciers that just stack up in the middle? I don’t see a ridge of ice or anything, and listen.”

Hurricane paused with one hoof in the air and flicked his ears about. Sure enough, he could hear the popping and heaving of thousands of tons of ice crawling across the ground. From there it covered the Narrow Strait until it began to brush against the opposite shoreline. In the air, he could also hear the calls of seagulls.

“Birds? I thought they all fled from the storm or perished with the cold. You’re right, Pansy, we must be getting close now.”

With careful hoofsteps and wings splayed open for balance, the two pegasi slid down an icy slope and clattered their hooves onto the glacier below them. The sounds of hoof against solid ice was one they had not heard for a long time; almost the entirety of Compact lands were coated in snow, not thick ice. Still, the translucent surface did not give way, and after a few moments struggling for balance the Cirrans began to march across it.

The experience could be equated to walking across the desert, except much worse. Howling winds deafened the two, and snowdrifts stung their face and eyes. The air was devoid of any humidity whatsoever, and Hurricane’s hooves slipped several times on the ice. One time he tripped and fell on his side, incapacitating him while he fought to clear the various shades of red from his vision.

“Ungh… How I wish Swift was here.”

As the black pegasus began to move again, his thoughts drifted to his wife and his children. What were they doing? How did Cirra fair? Hopefully it was doing alright. He knew his family was competent enough to run the nation, but they had no means of saving it. That was his job, and his job alone. Still, what he wouldn’t give to curl up next to that blonde coat one more time…

“Hurricane!”

Hurricane snapped back to the present and managed to stop himself before he stepped off the abrupt edge of the glacier. He turned around and sat on his flank, looking at the ice stretching off behind him. The opposite shoreline was but a distant smear of white against a lighter blue and gray. Had he really gone that far already?

With Pan Sea arriving by his side, the two pegasi faced west. What Hurricane saw stole his words and his breath.

Green. So much green. Verdant fields, rolling hills, blue skies and a yellow sun. It was life made into the Earth, and it was beautiful. Hurricane couldn’t remember the last time he had seen such a healthy shade of green. He looked down at the fifty foot drop from the edge of the glacier and whistled. That little crevice was the dividing line between an old land and a new; a dead land and a fresh one.

“Thank you, Mobius, for bringing us to green hills and blue skies,” Hurricane prayed. “May we find peace and abundance with your all-seeing eyes and your fleet wings.”

With a deep breath, he crossed the threshold to life.

It was a solemn kind of quiet that filled the air as Smart Cookie and Chancellor Puddinghead supported Jade as she walked through Onyx Ridge. The screams of war and death were now in the distant past. What took its place was only a calm melancholy as the Union soldiers sifted through the remains of buildings, doused fires, treated the wounded and buried their friends.

There had been cheering—at one point. Jubilation, shouting, laughter. Hugging, hoof-bumping, singing, dancing. Soon enough there would be drinking and gambling if the officers were kind enough. But not now. Now, the army only watched as their commander threaded her way between them, supported on either side by foreign ponies.

Jade’s beautiful green coat had lost some of its luster under streaks of blood and dirt, and her limbs trembled with every step. She had barely recovered from her body going into shock, and now she was forcing it to march on again so soon. Her wings—her good wing—was loosely coiled at her side, while the wounded one dragged across the ground, despite how much Smart Cookie tried to keep the appendage draped over his back. Crystal blood from the split crest soaked his shoulders, but he didn’t care.

Despite that, the mare’s eyes were bright. Not with the fire of bloodlust or anger, but the soft twinkle of pride. Pride not for herself, but for every one of her soldiers. From the siege engineers to the swordsponies to the archers to even the nurses and medics, she gave them all her undivided praise. They noticed it, and their smiles, no matter how small, reflected some back.

Two Crystal Ponies approached Jade, stopping before her, each covered in blood. Their eyes widened in shock when they saw the condition she was in, and both only gave the shortest of salutes before rushing to her sides. “Commander…”

“It is nothing, generals,” Jade spoke to them. Her voice was loud, clear, and confident. Smart Cookie couldn’t find the slightest trace of pain in it, even though he could feel her wing periodically spasm on his back. With an imperceptible nod, she signaled the two generals to step aside and let her through. They complied without question.

There were steps in front of her, and the powerful alicorn stopped to collect her breath before trying to mount them. Smart Cookie and Puddinghead were the only ones near her sides as she did so, and so only they could hear the gasps and moans of pain as she ascended. Jade glanced to both her earth pony companions and shook her head, silently asking them to let her go on alone. They both dipped their heads and stepped back several paces.

When Jade finally came to a stop, she was in the center of the courtyard that had served as the last stand for Halite’s garrison. The ground was slick with blood, and the colts had yet to clear away all the bodies. Smart Cookie shuddered as he saw several off to the side. So much death. He hoped he would never have to hear the final death toll that Jade’s dream had cost her.

“Brothers…” Jade began, letting the single word hang in the air. “I never asked you to do this for me. I never wanted to lead any of you to the blade. It wasn’t my place to do so. But… you did. You did it anyways. I… I honestly don’t know how to thank you. Mere words are not enough. They will never be enough. The dead don’t need words, they need somepony to remember them.

“Fifteen years ago… fifteen long, agonizing, bloody years ago… my father dreamt of a time when the Crystal Ponies could live in peace. The elders called him a dreamer; the warlords called him a weakling. He wisely admitted to one and rejected the other. Dreams shape the world, not the other way around. Dreams make the pony. They certainly made my father. From just a couple of ponies tired of belittling themselves and dreaming of a greater life for our race, to the army that stood and fought and died today, we all gave ourselves unto this dream of unity. Not in part, but with every last drop of sweat and blood we could possibly give. Because that was what was right.

“I look east, and I see three races, disparate, weak, and filled with hate, and I pity them. Their wars bring unnecessary death and wanton destruction. They don’t need to fight, but they do anyways. Were that they could all gather here and watch what we all gave just so that we could have the opportunity to stand together. I believe they could have learned so much from us.”

Smart Cookie shuddered and looked at his hooves. He could feel the eyes of the soldiers glance towards him and Puddinghead, but they were not there long.

“In the end, that dream is not something that I can give to them. Unity is something they must find in themselves, not for me to share with them. I would not ask you to follow me were I to do so anyways. It isn’t your place. It isn’t mine either. But I know that one day, maybe on a day just like this, they will find peace with each other. The warlords believed that peace is the absence of war. I believe that war is the absence of peace. Representative Smart Cookie, Chancellor Puddinghead, you would do well to remember this and counsel your larger and more militant neighbors.”

The two earth ponies dipped their heads and stood tall, letting Jade’s praise shine through them. Jade smiled, then began to walk in a slow circle to see all her soldiers.

“This fortress… this ground… this dream has seen so much death and bloodshed today. Far more than there should ever be. I always heard talks in camp about how we would turn this place into a monument of our victory when we were done. How we would hallow this ground as a symbol of Crystal unity. I can assure you that today, you did. It was not I who did this. It was the brave ponies, living and dead, who struggled here, that have consecrated this land, far above my poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what I say here, but it can never forget what you did here. And I would not have it any other way. The dead are the true heroes. Although my name will be forever attached to this spot, remember them over me. It would be wrong to do otherwise.”

Jade sighed and looked to her left wing, where blood still slowly trickled from the open wound. “We all paid a price here today. Some of us, it was a mere scratch. Others, it was a limb, a sense. For too many, it was a life. It should make sense that those who gave the most receive the highest honor. But they would not want us to drag our hooves over them. The time has come to set about finishing our dream of unity. We may have removed the jams in the machinery, swept the rocks from the gears, but we still have work to do. Now, for the first time in history, the Crystal Ponies will have a nation. We must decide who shall rule that nation.”

It didn’t take long before several Crystal soldiers stepped forward and bowed to Jade. Drawing their swords, each lay the length of their blade at the mare’s hooves and backed up, leaning low to the ground. A low cry began to fill the fortress, starting softly but soon being taken up by the entire army present. The chant rang out over and over again, until it was the only thing Smart Cookie could hear:

“Queen of the North! Queen of the North! Queen of the North!”

Jade looked on at all her soldiers with tears in her eyes. She looked like she wanted to stop them, but knew that she couldn’t. It was the one thing that she hoped she never would have had to hear, but she knew that nopony else could take the title for her. Raising a muddy hoof to the sky, she quieted the chant, but not the enthusiasm.

“I could never ask for such a title, but I could not turn you down either. You have done so much for me… If it is I you want to lead you, then very well. I will try my best. If I fail you, feel free to have my head and my wings. You have given so much for me, and it is the least I can give back.”

With a sad smile, Jade spread her good wing across her chest and bowed to her soldiers. “Now up! There is much to be done! In but a few days’ time, we move north again and return home! I don’t believe I have to remind you that your families await you!”

With a loud cheer and the stomping of hooves against the muddy ice, the Union soldiers dispersed and set about picking Onyx Ridge clean of food, weapons, corpses and stragglers. As they all left, Jade slowly stumbled down from her podium and approached Smart Cookie and Puddinghead.

“That was a beautiful speech, my lady,” Smart Cookie offered, bowing low. He was raised with a gentle hoof under his chin.

“I am no lady,” Jade scoffed, smiling slightly. “Just an icon. Royalty and nobility is not for me, but if it suits my soldiers—my new subjects—then I will put up with it. Still, it will be something else to be called Queen of the North instead of simply Commander.”

“You deserve it.”

“Yeah!” Puddinghead enthusiastically offered, his limbs trembling as he fought the urge to bounce in place. “I didn’t think you were a cool pony before, but now I see differently. It takes guts to do what you did and be willing to give your life for a cause. I don’t have those kind of guts—I know, shocking—but I admire you for it. Perhaps I can learn a thing or two about myself from all this.”

Jade laughed and pushed a sweaty lock of her mane from her face. “I think you might. There’s always something to learn.” Turning to Smart Cookie, she leaned downwards slightly. “What about you, Representative? Did you find out if you are truly a good pony?”

Smart Cookie released a breath and looked away. “No. I’m not.”

Jade and Puddinghead both looked taken aback.

“Did I fight for what was right?” Smart Cookie asked. “Yes, I did. Was I willing to give my life for that? I guess. I’m not a good soldier, but I tried. But I don’t have that drive like your soldiers do, Jade. It wasn’t my cause I was fighting for. I still don’t have one of my own. Until then? Maybe then I’ll call myself a good pony.”

Jade walked over and draped her good wing across the Representative’s orange back. “You are a good pony, Smart Cookie. It doesn’t take a cause or a dream or death to make you one. It simply takes a heart in the right place. And though sometimes you may feel lost or confused, I know that your heart is in the right place. Nothing can change that. Nothing.” She quickly drew her wing away from the Representative’s back and knelt down in front of him, bringing the two to eye level. “You’ll find it one day, Representative. You’re closer than you think.”

Puddinghead waited several seconds before shifting his weight. “Hey, Jade, do you think you have any supplies you can spare? The Representative and I need to get going west really soon. I hope to do that by tomorrow morning.”

The mare stood up and pointed with her horn to the castle. “Head there, Chancellor. You’ll find our requisitions officer organizing Onyx Ridge’s spoils. I’m sure he can find something for you.”

The Chancellor nodded and began to trot away. Smart Cookie looked after him and grabbed his hat. “I should probably go too—”

He was cut off as Jade stayed him with a wing. She bent her long neck down to the Representative’s eye level and smiled. Smart Cookie blinked as he felt her warm breath on his cheek and neck. They were only inches away.

“Thank you, Smart Cookie,” Jade whispered in his ear. “Thank you for everything.”

It wasn’t a kiss, but the nuzzle she gave him was more than Smart Cookie had ever dreamt of.

Clover pulled down her hood as she and Platinum braved the winds on the rocky plains to the west of Onyx Ridge. Behind them, Greenleaf and Diadem walked with all the prisoners who escaped from Halite’s fortress. The train of haggard ponies formed a snaking line through the snow and ice, but the warmth of hope pervaded the group. For many, it was the first time they had left Onyx Ridge in months.

After several hours of walking, the two lead unicorns spread out their robes underneath them and sat on the frigid snow. From there, they were able to admire the setting sun as it shed its sad, orange light through a gap underneath the gray clouds. Somewhere, a bird twittered in the distance, and the happy call was answered by another.

“It’s beautiful,” Princess Platinum remarked as she rested her chin on her hooves. Clover responded with a small nod and mirrored the Princess’ posture. It certainly was a beautiful sight.

“First time I’ve seen the sunset in Sun knows how long,” Clover said.

“I know what you mean,” Platinum answered as she shifted her flank to sit more comfortably on the snow. “All it’s been for the longest time is gray and bleak, mixed here and there with a little black and crimson.”

Clover winced at the subtle nod towards Onyx Ridge. Even though she had been lucky, and her time at the fortress had been little more than a day, she knew the things she had seen would haunt her for the rest of her life.

Platinum seemed to pick up on Clover’s thoughts, and she shifted a little bit closer to the pistachio mare. “No need to be glum, dear. What’s past is past. Look on the bright side; you found your father, and now you’re heading west again.”

It was amazing to see the Princess act in such a way for Clover. Barely two weeks ago she would have regarded the mare as she always had: a stuck-up brat whom she had to obey simply because Platinum was royal and she was not. Now, her perception of the Princess was entirely different. Not only was she less harsh, but Platinum actually seemed to care for her. That, and she no longer acted like a spoiled princess. That much was obvious as the white unicorn sat on the ground in her tattered and stained royal garments like any other pony.

There was the light pattering of hoofsteps behind them, and Clover turned to see her father and Diadem slowly walking through the snow. Clover spread her hoof across the snow and gestured for them to sit, to which the old stallion happily obliged. Diadem, on the other hoof, simply spent time bouncing in circles around the other three unicorns.

“Woohoo! I’m soooooo excited to see the Narrow Strait! I’ve never been this far out west before! What do you think we’re going to find over there? Magical creatures that are… like, magical?! That’d be so awesome!”

“Ease up a little, kiddo,” Greenleaf happily remarked to her. “We still have a ways to go until we’re across the strait. Until we get there, conserve your energy. You’ll need it for later.”

Platinum raised an eyebrow. “You plan on crossing the strait as well?”

Greenleaf nodded. “Of course, although, probably not until a little while after you do. I have to get our little group here organized before we set off.”

“You should come with us,” Clover pleaded, wrapping a foreleg around her father’s. “We can all make the journey together.”

“Believe me, Clover, there’s nothing more I’d rather do. But I have more than just you to take care of. Diadem, the other prisoners… they all look up to me. And I, like it or not, have to lead them because of that.”

“But we’ve only just been reunited…”

“I know, Clover, I know.” Greenleaf smiled and placed his hoof under Clover’s chin. “But you’re a strong mare, now. You don’t need me to watch your back. Diadem does. I know you’ll be just fine without me. Besides, this isn’t the end. When you’re done with your mission, you can come and find me.”

“And where will you be?”

Greenleaf simply extended a foreleg and pointed to the west. “Somewhere out there. Diadem and the rest of the prisoners and I are going to make a home for ourselves. A small hamlet that might one day grow into an impressive city. A city for the ponies like us whom life has beaten down over and over again. We escaped the cages warlord Halite locked us in, and that city will be for us, the ever free.”

Clover rolled the words around on her tongue. The City of the Ever Free. “It has a nice ring to it, wouldn’t you say?”

“It certainly does.” The stallion’s expression hardened, and he turned towards Clover. “What about yourself? What will you do when you find this land of yours?”

“I guess I’ll have to head all the way back across the wilderness to tell King Lapis and then march all the way back,” Clover replied. “After that, it’ll be back to the same old grind. Same job, different castle.”

“Oh, Clover, I assure you that I’ll make sure you’re treated like a noble,” Platinum interjected. “It’s about time I pay you back for all the hard work you’ve done for me for ten years.”

“Well, I just want you to know that I’ll never close my door to my daughter,” Greenleaf said. “You’ll be welcome to join us wherever it is that we finally settle down. Besides, I’d like to catch up on all that father-daughter time we missed.”

“Thanks, Dad,” Clover said as she nuzzled her father’s chest. “I think I’ll take you up on that offer at least a few times.”

Just then, an earth pony stallion trotted up to them. “Greenleaf, we’ve got the supplies you asked us to gather all organized. We should rest tonight and be ready to leave by tomorrow morning.”

Greenleaf dipped his head. “Thank you. We’ll move at first dawn.” Standing up, he gestured towards the distant west. “I’ll walk you two down to the Strait if you want. It isn’t too much farther from here.”

“That’d be great,” Platinum replied. “But what will we do about Diadem?”

All three ponies turned to where the little filly was passed out in sleep on a snowy rock. Greenleaf laughed and wrapped a scrap of cloth around her body to keep her warm. “When I told her to calm down and save her energy, I didn’t mean to crash. Don’t worry, she’s a heavy sleeper. She won’t be up for another few hours.”

“Today has been fairly draining,” Clover said. “And I doubt that she got much sleep the night before the breakout. I remember when I was a filly, anything as exciting as that would keep me bouncing from hoof to hoof.”

“Heh. She’ll be disappointed she didn’t get the chance to say goodbye,” Greenleaf remarked. “But I imagine you’ll all see her again soon enough. Let the child have her sleep. She’s going to need it.”

As Greenleaf stepped to the side, Clover and Platinum both approached Diadem. Clover gently rubbed her mane and smiled. “Goodbye, Diadem. It was great to get to spend time with you, and I’m so happy to have met you. Take care of my father, okay? He’ll need you to get through the day, you little bundle of energy.” Her face darkened, and she slightly lowered her head. “I’ll be praying that you find your brother someday. One way or another, I hope that you do. But know that you’ll always be loved, no matter who it may be.”

Placing a kiss on Diadem’s forehead, Clover stepped back. Princess Platinum then took her place and knelt beside the aqua unicorn.

“I never really had the chance to speak properly with you, darling, but it’s been fun. Take care of yourself out there. Hone your magic, and I’m sure one day you’ll be a fair and just princess… more so than I have been.” With a soft smile, she levitated her silver and amethyst crown from her head and set it by Diadem’s tiny hoof. “Take good care of this for me, okay? It’s a princess’ crown. You don’t want to lose that.”

When Platinum backed away and stood by Clover’s side, Greenleaf chuckled once before beginning to walk to the west. “That was very generous of you, Platinum. I know she’ll love it. And she’ll be telling me how much she loves it for the next month.” He paused and shook his head as a mischievous smile crept across his muzzle. “Actually, I take that back. That wasn’t very generous of you on my behalf.”

They laughed quickly before setting into a comfortable silence. After a few short miles, the trio came to a sheet of ice stretching far across what used to be the Narrow Strait. They paused on a bluff overlooking the glacier, letting the little gusts of wind pull through their manes.

“I guess this is goodbye, then,” Clover said, her soft words barely getting any distance.

Greenleaf wasted no time walking towards his daughter and embracing her in a heartfelt hug. “I’m going to miss you.”

Clover returned the embrace with all the feeling she had. “I’m going to miss you too. Promise me you’ll stay safe?”

“And I thought I’d be the one asking that of you.” Greenleaf replied. “Of course I will. Make the Diamond Kingdom proud, and maybe make yourself a little proud in the process, eh?”

“I will.”

With that the two ponies separated, and Clover stepped onto the sheet of ice with Platinum. Before her was ice and eternity, but somewhere beyond that eternity was her home.

She looked over her shoulder and saw the silent figure of her father watch her walk away until the fog and mists finally obscured his outline.

There was only a crescent moon obscured by a thick blanket of snowy clouds, but even then the little light that did manage to filter through lit up the snow and ice below as well as the sun. The hills and valleys caught and reflected the light like a ruined mirror, scattering the sad rays of moonlight across the countryside. The icy wind roared, but the snow on the ground had all frozen over. The only things that moved were two shadows.

Imperators Cyclone and Typhoon sliced through the stream of air high above the ground on their way to River Rock. Between the light reflected off of the ground and low level clouds, the two pegasi needed no lanterns to see each other. They only carried the bare minimum; their armor, weapons, and a small saddlebag stuffed with a few snippets of lettuce and parsley for the journey.

A powerful blast of wind caught Typhoon in the side and destabilized her flight, snapping her out of the trance she had been falling into. The mare grumbled and angled her wings, spinning out of the current and aligning herself in Cyclone’s slipstream.

“Wind’s starting to rip my feathers out!” she shouted towards her brother. “We close to the city yet?”

“A few more minutes!” Cyclone shouted back. “I’m just starting to see the spire of Burning Hearth! We should start trimming altitude now, fly in low so the Diamond Guard can’t see us!”

“And here I thought this would be a leisurely flight through the cold,” Typhoon muttered. With a slight twist of her shoulders she pointed her wing crests downwards and followed Cyclone towards River Rock.

Typhoon had only been to River Rock once in all her years in the Legion, as the city usually fell under her brother’s domain, but what she saw looked nothing like the splendor of the city she used to know. Instead of tall buildings of expertly crafted masonry, a city of ragged and crumbling towers filled their spots. Instead of vibrant banners and facades the color of every known gemstone and then some more, there was wet fabric and the sidings of gray stone. Instead of crowds and noise, there were icy streets and silence. Where there was once life, there was nothing. River Rock looked like a ghost town.

“Fly between the buildings,” Cyclone commanded as they lowered themselves towards the ground. “There’s probably Diamond Guards along the walls and rooftops.”

Typhoon scoffed. “Like there would be. The Diamond Guard isn’t a military force at all. It’s a bunch of nobles in glorified suits of armor, like any other unicorn. You know how much the unicorns love four walls and a roof.”

“They’d be an impressive fighting force if we put them through Cirran military training,” Cyclone countered. “I’d love to have access to magic when fighting an enemy. Especially griffons.”

“Since when have you ever fought a griffon?”

Cyclone drew out the silence. “There’s a first time for everything.”

Typhoon bit her lip, but ultimately decided to shake her head and focus on staying in the stream of her brother’s larger wingspan. Whatever Cyclone meant by that, now wasn’t the time to think about it. The Legionnaire’s creed demanded that she separate personal life from service. Right now, she was on active service.

They followed the wide clearing of Mane Street from the southern approach, taking care to stick towards the shadows as they did so. A few candle-lit rooms cast oblong shadows on the ice beside them, but luckily the curtains were all drawn against the dark of night. There was not a soul to be seen in the street, and that suited the two Praetorians just fine.

“I don’t like this,” Typhoon muttered. “Where’s the life? Where’s the noise? Isn’t River Rock supposed to be the largest city in Compact lands?”

Cyclone grunted and paused at a street corner. “Maybe the famine killed them off. To that I say good riddance. It’s not like we needed the unicorns anyway.”

“They build most of our fine trinkets and machinery.”

“Bah.” The stallion waved a hoof before decisively slamming it back into the ground. “Earth pony carpenters can take care of the woodwork, and our smiths can pick up the rest. Like I said, we don’t need the unicorns. The only thing they’d be good for is lending their magic to a fight. Nothing more.”

“Yeah…” Typhoon droned. “Unicorn wizards and researchers have found new ways to treat diseases and fashion new weapons, like the crossbow. We’d be missing a lot if they weren’t around.”

“They didn’t invent skysteel,” Cyclone maintained, “and that’s the only weapon I need.”

They walked for a few more blocks until they came to a quaint residence embedded into the cliff just adjacent to Burning Hearth Castle. Framed in iron and made of birch wood with intricate runes carved into the surface, Star Swirl the Bearded’s house seemed strangely more grand than the castle it stood next to.

“Guards,” Cyclone whispered, pointing with his wing towards an alley two houses down from Star Swirl’s. Typhoon crept to his side and watched as the two unicorns spoke in shivering words to each other. “Told you there would be some.”

“So how do we get rid of them?” Typhoon asked.

“Easy.” Bending down, the stallion scooped up a sizable chunk of ice in his wing and held it before him, testing the weight. Bouncing the ice in the air a few times, he finally propelled it skyward and pivoted on his front hooves. With a solid thwack! he shattered the ice and launched dozens of razor-sharp shards in the direction of the two guards.

Typhoon cringed as she heard the sound of flesh being ripped apart and the cracking of ice against armor. When she looked again, she saw one unicorn slump over and the second struggle with a six inch shard of ice lodged in his throat before he too went limp.

“Not bad for a fire empath,” Typhoon remarked.

“And what would you do, miss ice queen? Freeze their hooves to the ground?”

“I would have frozen them over entirely.” Slinking out from the corner, she scurried to Star Swirl’s door and knocked.

There was a tense silence as she waited for an answer. After thirty seconds, she knocked again, louder, and was rewarded when she was the white glow of a manalight activating.

“Who is it?” grumbled an elderly voice from behind the closed door. “Some of us are actually trying to get some sleep on what little food we have left.”

“Imperators Typhoon and Cyclone of the Cirran Legion,” Typhoon answered. “We have important business we need to discuss with you.”

“Humph,” the voice grumbled as deadbolts began to slide away. “If you’re just some thugs or charlatans pretending to be such powerful ponies, I should warn you, just because I’m old, doesn’t mean I can’t fight.”

With the grinding of one massive bar of iron, the door finally opened, revealing Star Swirl the Bearded. The old unicorn’s tired eyes were even more tired this late at night, and his white beard seemed awfully frazzled and chaotic. He wore nothing but a simple silk nightgown decorated with the constellations of the universe.

“Oh!” the old unicorn exclaimed as his eyes finally finished their examination of Typhoon. “You are—my apologies, Imperators, I had no idea. If I had known—”

“Relax, Star Swirl,” Cyclone commanded as he walked towards the door. “If you had known, the Diamond Guard would have invariably found out. Not that we don’t trust you, but we don’t trust the rest of your nobles. Especially your princess, Platinum.”

“Platinum hasn’t been in River Rock for a week,” Star Swirl spoke. “She left to head west and find a new land for the unicorns to settle. It’s not like we can live here much longer.”

“Wait,” Typhoon interjected, running a hoof along the strands of red and yellow hair that had teased their way out of her helmet. “You’re moving west, too?”

“Yes… why?”

“Nothing,” the mare quickly answered. “It’s just that my father also went west to find a new land.”

“Well, I hope for their sakes that the two don’t cross into each other.” Star Swirl laughed, then smiled and bowed his head. “I’m sorry, where are my manners? I didn’t mean to leave you out there in the cold. Come in, come in, I’d by more than happy to have you.”

As the unicorn stepped away from the door he quickly located his signature hat and positioned it on his head with a small flare of magic. Typhoon and Cyclone both followed him in, with Typhoon taking the time to wipe her hooves on the worn welcome mat before walking towards a table. Pots, pans, dishes, and silverware of all kinds littered the kitchen, and reams of papers and dusty books covered the single couch in front of the fireplace. This was definitely the home of a wizard.

“So, what is it I can help you kids with?” Star Swirl chirped as he struck a flint against the stone of the fireplace to set the logs ablaze. “Considering you took the time to fly into River Rock when the King established a no-fly zone over the city, it must be pretty important.”

“We came to ask you to translate a book for us,” Typhoon answered as Cyclone withdrew the text from his saddlebag. “And we aren’t kids, we are soldiers of the Praetorian Guard.”

“When I’m seventy-something and you’re barely in your twenties, you’re kids to me, Praetorian,” Star Swirl gently teased. “Let me see this thing.” With an aura of green magic, he grabbed hold of the book and brought it towards his table where a quill and parchment were waiting.

As Star Swirl began to flip through the pages, Cyclone began to hover over his shoulder while he worked. “I’m pretty sure it’s draconic, from what I can tell. I don’t know what a gang leader would be doing with a journal written in draconic.”

“Hmmm… this is indeed draconic,” Star Swirl mumbled as he sifted through page after page. “It’s not really that surprising, considering who you’re dealing with.”

“What? A unicorn gang leader operating at a two-bit town like Amber Field?” Typhoon scoffed. “Seems likely.”

“The problem with you two is that you underestimate ponies who aren’t pegasi,” Star Swirl retorted. “The fact that he’s a unicorn is important. Let me ask you, what kind of ponies know draconic?”

“Well,” Cyclone began, placing a hoof to his chin as he thought. “Wizards like yourself, obviously, because most of your spells come from the dragons.”

“Yes.” Star Swirl’s response was almost an exasperated sigh. “Think harder.”

“Well there’s…” Typhoon began, before shaking her head. “No, it couldn’t be.”

“They spend a lot of time along the fringes of the dragon border, am I correct?”

“Yeah, but… that would explain a lot, actually.”

Cyclone shifted his hooves. “Somepony tell me what’s going on.”

Just then the house shook, sending Star Swirl, Typhoon, and Cyclone to the ground. Pottery and china fell off of shelves and counters, slamming into the ground and shattering into millions of pieces. The fireplace flared briefly, then was out.

“You have to go!” Star Swirl shouted as he slowly rose to his hooves. “I’ll try to meet up with you at the southern gate tomorrow!”

“Who is it?!” Cyclone shouted back, drawing his sword.

Typhoon scrambled into a sitting position and drew her own skysteel as well.

“Diamond Guards.”

Chapter 13: The Wind Turns

“By the Gods! Hurricane, sir, come look at this!”

Hurricane grunted and sat up from the rock he was resting on. Pan Sea had gone off to scout a little while ago, leaving the Commander to sit and rest in the meantime. Now the private was barely keeping himself from bouncing in place as his wings fluttered in excitement on a distant hilltop.

“I swear, Pansy, if it’s another bird nest like last time…”

Just then he stopped and took the time to adjust his slackened jaw. There, stretching before him for innumerous miles was the verdant and rolling green hills of a fresh land untouched by the wintry strife of home. The ground rose and dipped in gentle fashion for as far as the eye could see, until it finally met with the sapphire blue sky at the base of an incredibly tall and solitary spire far, far to the west.

“Gods above,” Hurricane breathed, “I think we found it.”

“Isn’t it great, sir?!” Pan Sea exclaimed. Without any further delay, the Legionnaire jumped into the air and began to fly in circles over the landscape. Hurricane only shook his head and followed from below, absolutely stunned.

There were few conceptions of beauty the Commander held on par with that of the countryside around Zephyrus or the impressive skyline of Stratopolis, but this land was something else entirely. The grass was the greenest he had ever seen, and flowers seemed to hardly be able to control their blossoms as they burst forth in blinding vibrance. Trees stood tall and proud against the wind that gently but firmly swept over one hill and down the gullies between.

Not only that, but there was warmth and energy to the land as well. Hurricane closed his eyes and stretched his wings into the morning sun. His feathers told him that it was a pleasant sixty-seven degrees, even though it felt much warmer outside. Hurricane supposed it was the effects of having lived in the cold for so long. Even before the Blizzard, the Compact lands rarely got into the upper seventies in the summer. It reminded him of the heat Nimbus was subjected to in the summer months.

“Can you believe this?!” Pan Sea called down from above Hurricane’s head. The yellow pegasus was resting on a soft cloud of cumulus that he had clipped from some high-flying body. “It’s so warm! So green! So full of life!”

Hurricane laughed and began to trot forward. “You seem to be enjoying yourself, Pansy.”

Pan Sea took up a sheepish grin. “Heh… yeah…”

“There’s nothing wrong with it,” Hurricane assured him. “It’s just that I’ve never seen you this… excited, before.” Squinting into the distance, Hurricane took a deep breath and fluttered his wings several times. The pain in his chest was finally starting to dull away. Raincloud always said he was a fast healer. Perhaps in a day or two he could fly again.

“See any good spots to plant a flag from up there?” Hurricane asked.

Pan Sea raised a hoof to his forehead and scanned the distance. “I’d love to get something on top of that huge mountain over there, but it’s a little too far of a walk. Erm, sorry, Commander.”

Hurricane rolled his eyes. “Anything else closer by?”

“Mmmm… Aha!” Emphatically waving his hoof, Pan Sea pointed towards the north west. “There’s a fairly large hill about a two hour’s walk from here in that direction. Looks like it’s got good windage to keep the flag fluttering.”

Hurricane smiled and started to walk in that direction. “Well, how about we get started then? The first step towards acquiring any new territory is to stake a claim.”

Pan Sea saluted from his cloud before hopping off to walk by Hurricane’s side. “Sir, yes sir!”

Princess Platinum and Clover the Clever happily trotted along a small stream that split off from the delta at the edge of the strait. The feeling of mud beneath their hooves, originally a revolting thought to Platinum, was a welcome change from the snow and ice they had plodded through for over a week.

“Can you believe this, Clover?” Platinum called back from her position in the lead. “It’s been ages since I’ve seen anything other than snow and ice and rock! Why, this is simply wonderful!”

Clover only had a cheerful and awestruck smile on her face as she tilted her head to peer through the tops of trees. “Imagine how many new species of plants and animals there are here! I can’t even begin to fathom it all! Why, it will take the best unicorn taxonomists years to even begin to scratch the surface!”

Platinum lightly shook her head with a soft laugh. “Of course that would be the first thing you think about. I’m much more interested in the greenness of it all! Trees, bushes, berries…” she bent down and took a ladylike nibble of the grass, “oh, even the grass tastes divine! Perhaps we stumbled into the afterlife and didn’t even notice? I certainly don’t remember dying at Onyx Ridge!”

“Technically you wouldn’t remember dying if you were dead, because your brain shuts down when you die and can’t form any new memories—”

“Hush, Clover dear,” Platinum interrupted. “Just sit back and enjoy all this majesty! Blue sky, green plants, birds chirping overhead, cool and clear water—this is simply too good to be true!”

Clover didn’t deny that it was beautiful. In all her years she had never seen paradise such as this. It certainly beat the choking town that the Blizzard had reduced River Rock to, but even before then the city hadn’t looked as magnificent as this on its best of days. River Rock (and the Diamond Kingdom as a whole) was known for being a series of mountains and valleys, and the natural coloration associated with that terrain was gray. Sure there were trees and grasses aplenty in the summer, but it was always windy and cool around the mountains. It hardly compared to the warmth and vibrancy here.

“Oh, I can’t wait to show this place to my father!” Platinum shouted, trotting from tree to tree. She bent over and took a long whiff of a patch of flowers before leaning back with a dazed smile across her face. “The sights, the smells, everything about this place is perfect!”

Clover smiled and trotted further through the undergrowth, eventually finding a point where the stream twisted across her path. Rather than step around it, however, she simply waded through the water. As she did so she felt dirt and aches from years of servitude in Burning Heart wash away. She emerged on the other side, feeling like she had somehow contaminated the purity of the water.

“Come on through!” she shouted to Platinum. “The water feels great!”

With only a short pause at the edge of the bank to test her hoof in the running water, Platinum levitated her robes across the stream and set them down on the other side. Then, with a small breath, she began to wade across. She soon let out the air in a relaxed sigh as she felt her limbs cleaned of all the filth she had accumulated on her journey. When she arrived on the opposite bank, it was all she could do not to step back into the stream.

“Mmmm,” Platinum hummed. “Divine.”

As the two unicorns walked further into the forest, they stopped several times to observe some new creature, enjoy the sights, or browse some of the local berries and plants until their stomachs ached from overconsumption. Compared to the pangs of hunger that had plagued them for the past month, it was an amazing change.

After they had waited several minutes in the sun to let their stomachs digest, Clover rolled onto her hooves and stood, facing west. There the midday sun bathed a distant and rocky hill in light and warmth, and only the gentlest of breezes caressed the branches of the trees along its crest.

Platinum stood up next to her and saw it as well. After a few minutes of contemplation, she dug through a small saddlebag until she found a bundle of cloth. With her Arcana, she unfurled the cloth until it formed a fluttering banner. The sigil of the Diamond Kingdom, a white unicorn’s head angled to the side and surrounded by gold diamonds set in royal purple, flowed with the breeze.

“What do you say we place a flag on that distant hill, Clover?”

Clover softly smiled and nodded her head. “That sounds like an excellent idea, Princess. Then we can gather food and water and prepare for the return trip to River Rock.”

Platinum shook her head as she descended into the valley that opened up into a wide field. “One thing at a time, Clover. I’d like to savor this warmth and grandeur while it lasts. The cold will be waiting for us when we get back.”

As Platinum walked away, Clover trotted at a distance behind her. The Princess was right. They could spend a day here in paradise. She didn’t see any harm in that.

Hay, it was much better than freezing to death back in Compact lands.

It was around noon when Chancellor Puddinghead and Representative Smart Cookie made their way out of the nearby forest and onto a stretch of wide, flat ground around a looming stony hill. Smart Cookie realized that with the events of the past few days he should have been tired as hay, but for some reason the sheer beauty and magnificence of the new land he found himself in rejuvenated his aching body.

Leaving Jade behind had been hard; in all his years, Smart Cookie felt like he had never been as close to another pony, let alone another mare, as her. He had wanted nothing more than to stay by her side as she went through the arduous task of trying to consolidate her victory into the true realization of her dream, but even that much was impossible. Puddinghead was determined to head west, and even though the Chancellor’s general bluntness had grated Smart Cookie’s nerves, he couldn’t deny that Puddinghead had a point. True, the Low Valleys controlled most of the food going to the tribes, but even what they had was bound to be running out at some point. The longer they dilly-dallied out west, the closer the earth ponies would get towards extinction, either from famine or through war with the pegasi and the unicorns.

“This land! This land, Smart Cookie, this land!” Puddinghead exclaimed as he hopped from rock to rock and sprinted from grassy knoll to grassy knoll. “Would you look at this land?!”

“I see it alright, Chancellor,” Smart Cookie assured him. “You’ve only been saying the same thing for about an hour now.”

“I know, but would you look at this land?!”

“It certainly is nice. There’s lots of life to be found. Plenty of land for farming as well. Why, in no time we’ll turn these green fields into rolling hills of amber grain!”

Puddinghead bounced up much higher than what should be possible. “It’s a whole lot greener and livelier than our lands back home! Why did we have to settle there anyway? Couldn’t the original settlers have just come to this amazing place and found the Low Valleys here?”

“They didn’t know what was beyond the Narrow Strait, Chancellor,” Smart Cookie reminded him. “We’re probably the first to cross it in Sun knows how many years. The Founders didn’t see any need to go farther west, the fields around Amber Field were healthy and fertile. Besides,” he added as he adjusted his hat, “it wouldn’t be called ‘The Low Valleys’ anyway. Do you see any valleys around here?”

Puddinghead took the time to make a complete revolution before shrugging his shoulders. “It’s all a matter of perspective, Smart Cookie. I mean, look there.” His brown hoof pointed in the direction of the rocky hill to the west. “That could be considered one-half of a valley!”

“Then it would be ‘The Low Half-Valleys.’”

“Shhhhhhh,” Puddinghead shushed as he held a hoof to his muzzle. “They don’t need to know that!”

Smart Cookie looked around. “Who doesn’t…? What?”

Puddinghead squinted into the foreground and scowled before his usual quirkiness returned to his face. “Doesn’t matter! They got the message clear enough. Now, what was I saying? Oh yes, my logic of why this place should be called the Low Valleys being sound as a rock.”

“It’s not really—”

“Ah ah ah, not now, Smart Cookie.” Raising a hoof to his forehead, Puddinghead looked towards the west before beginning to happily bounce away. “This way! We must find the perfect mound of dirt to plant our flag in!”

Smart Cookie rolled his eyes as he cantered to Puddinghead’s pace. “There’s no need to stoop to unicorn stereotypes, Chancellor.”

“What’s a stereotype?”

“For the love of—!” Smart Cookie groaned. “I love you, Chancellor, but sometimes you’re just a little too far out there.”

Puddinghead came to an abrupt stop and faced Smart Cookie. “What are you talking about? I’m like, barely more than twenty feet ahead of you.”

“Yeah. Right,” Smart Cookie muttered as he passed Puddinghead. “Well, take a look around. I’m sure we can find someplace to claim and be on our way back home.”

“Hmm… Alright, but first it’s gotta be the bestest, greatest spot there could be! Are you with me, Representative?!”

Smart Cookie gave a noncommittal shrug of his shoulders which Puddinghead mistook for actually giving a buck.

“That settles it! We shall not leave until we’ve found the perfect place to plant our flag!”

True to his word, Puddinghead didn’t give up until he had searched and evaluated every potential candidate for receiving the honor of holding the flag of the Low Valleys. When he finally found a suitable spot a few hours later, it was all Smart Cookie could do to maintain a level of professionalism and not jump for joy.

Puddinghead had no problem with that last stipulation. “This place is perfect! I can feel it in my hooves! The air! The trees! The dirt!” With a ceremonious belly flop, the Chancellor plunged into a mound of mud and rolled around several times to evaluate its consistency and texture. After several painstaking calculations he came to a simple conclusion: “This dirt is the dirtiest dirt in the whole dirt world!”

Smart Cookie trotted over and scooped up a hoofful of soil. At the touch of his earth pony Endura, a small seedling suddenly sprung to life out of the pile he held aloft. “Fertile, too. I thought Amber Field had some great land, but this place is perfect for growing food.”

With a squelch of mud, Puddinghead rolled onto his back and sighed. His formal attire was smeared and stained from shoulder to tail with dirt, but he didn’t care. “It’s been ages since I’ve felt good, solid dirt beneath my hooves. Seriously, all that ice and snow? Totally cramping my style. That’s more of unicorn weather anyway.”

Smart Cookie took the time to nibble on some grass before slacking back on his haunches expectantly. “Hey, Chancellor, now that we found this place, you wanna stake a claim so we can load up on food and skedaddle? Maybe with any luck we’ll cross paths with Jade again at Onyx Ridge.”

“Right!” Puddinghead exclaimed. “But first we need to give this place a name!”

“’The Low Half-Valleys’ wasn’t enough for you, Chancellor?”

“Of course not! In the name of the earth ponies, I’m going to call this place… uh…” Puddinghead scratched his chin. Thinking up names on the spot was awfully hard. Wait! Best. Name. Ever.

“Dirtville!”

Smart Cookie’s facehoof almost gave himself a black eye. “Sir, if you can’t think of anything else, how about we leave it as ‘Earth’ for now until the Board can think of a better town name?”

“Right-o!” Puddinghead chirped. “Now and forever, on the hats of all my ancestors and of my future children, this land shall be called Earth until somepony thinks of a better name!”

With a cheer, Puddinghead pulled a flag out of his hat and harshly speared it into the ground. “We found our new home!”

It took several hours of walking and climbing, but neither Clover nor Platinum seemed to mind as they simply enjoyed their time in paradise. As the sun reached its climax over their heads and began its descent, they finally reached the foot of the hilltop. The two ponies stopped and craned their necks upwards to admire its majesty.

“Very solid granite this is,” Platinum remarked as she ran a hoof along the stone. “This would be the perfect place to set up a new castle when we move here—at least, until we can get to that impressive spire another few hundred miles inland.”

Clover trotted up beside her and admired the rocks as well. “I didn’t take you for a geologist, Princess.”

“There are things that you learn if you’re bored enough in a town surrounded on all sides by impressive cliffs and valley walls, Clover dear. While you spent your days following Star Swirl around and learning from his impressive mind, I would sometimes take a walk around River Rock with my father. He taught me a lot about the city then. It’s a shame he doesn’t get out much anymore with the Scourge.”

“Well, I’ll be,” Clover remarked. “I’ll have to take a good look around River Rock when we get back. In the meantime, what do you say we climb this slope?”

“Splendid idea. Come, I see a path that isn’t so steep.” Then the Princess began to climb up a craggy cut into the side of the mesa, her hooves making careful and minute adjustments to the rocks beneath them as they shifted with her weight.

Clover followed her, and together the two mares made slow but steady progress towards the top. When they were about three quarters of the way to the top, the cut into the hillside became something resembling a path, and that path soon widened into a natural balcony over the fields below.

“Ooh!” Platinum exclaimed, galloping towards the balcony and leaving Clover behind in her wake. “Beautiful! I haven’t seen anything like this in years!”

Clover accelerated and stopped at the edge of the balcony, letting the gentle breeze toss strands of her dark green mane into her face. “You’re right! It’s absolutely stunning!”

When she realized that the Princess wasn’t facing in the same direction as she was, Clover turned around and raised an eyebrow. Instead of seeing Platinum taking in the sights of the surrounding countryside, she saw the white mare huddled against the side of the cliff, pawing through some of the loose rocks around its base.

“Come look at this! Look!” she exclaimed. With a small strobe of blue Arcana, Platinum lifted up a rather large rock and slammed it against the ground. As it cracked and split in two, Clover only expected to see more of the gray stone. Instead, an army of bedazzling colors assaulted her eyes with their brilliance. Hundreds of tiny gems every color of the rainbow simply scattered onto the ground like common stones.

“Stars above!” Clover exclaimed as she bent down to pick one up. “That shouldn’t be possible! Gemstones aren’t naturally cut, and neither are they in so shallow a ground… or in such a magnitude, either!” To try and prove it was some fluke, Clover charged a bolt of Arcana and released it at the stone wall of the hillside. As the stone shattered and crumbled, several large rubies and sapphires clattered onto the ground. Each one was perfectly cut and, aside from dirt and dust, shiny and lustrous.

“This is simply too great of a find to pass up!” Platinum asserted as she gathered a few of the larger gems into a pouch. “Just look at this! I’ve never seen such jewels! Think of how valuable of a find this is! Look here,” she began as she singled out an impressively sized cut ruby. “This ruby is something special. This ruby is dazzling This whole land is dazzling! Why, I’m… I’m double dazzled!”

Clover picked up a few gems that caught her own fancy as well and set them aside. “That I can agree with. This would do wonders for our economy if all we have to do to get cut gemstones is stick a spade in the ground.”

“Who cares about the economy?!” Platinum exclaimed as she finished rolling in the gemstones. “I can have all the jewelry I want, when I want it!”

“Shall we raise the flag?” Clover asked as she walked over to a tree and began to strip a suitable branch from it as a makeshift flagpole.

Platinum wasted no time pulling the banner from her saddlebag. “Of course, Clover! Then I can get back to gathering gems!”

As Clover wedged the flagpole into the ground with her magic, Platinum carefully fashioned the banner to one end of the branch until it could flutter freely in the wind. Taking a step back to admire it beside Clover, the Princess proudly proclaimed to the world:

“In the name of King Lapis, fourth of name of House Azurite, and in the presence of the Great Kings of Old, especially the Wise Five who founded the mighty Diamond Kingdom, I hereby proclaim this to be the province of Unicornia! May it serve the Diamond Kingdom well and offer up many gems to the crown, now and forever!”

The ceremonial ritual complete, Platinum and Clover bowed before the flag. When they arose, it was with smiles on their faces.

“We did it, Princess!” Clover proclaimed. “We found our new land!”

“Indeed we did, Clover. Indeed we did.” Shaking a few granules of dirt from her hoof, Platinum’s eyes suddenly squinted as she looked towards the sky. “I do say… what on Earth is that?”

“Alright, pause, Pansy,” Hurricane breathed as he clutched at his chest. The hours of marching had taken their toll on the Commander, but he had refused to be bested by mere pain. Instead, he scooted towards the side of the steep hill and leaned against the wall.

Pan Sea fluttered down to Hurricane. “You okay, sir? It’s just another thousand feet from here.”

“I’ll live,” Hurricane grunted back. As his breath slowly came back to him, the pegasus glanced across his surroundings. He was facing south and was able to clearly see the fields and hills for miles. The greenness gently undulated over hills, the blades of grass contributing to a cascading sheen with every dip and turn. Beyond that, the countryside quickly gave way to humid swampland.

“Impressive; I can only imagine it’s more so from the sky,” Hurricane said.

Pan Sea nodded. “You’d have to see it to believe it, sir. That swamp down there,” he said as he gestured with a wing, “it runs on for miles, and thick as could be, too. After about ten or so leagues it begins to thin out with the change in elevation. The dampness of the swamp looks to change into arid highlands. Lovely shade of orange. One day I think I’ll take a flight out there.”

The soldier glanced at his officer and coughed lightly, mumbling some sort of apology. Hurricane only waved it off with a hoof. “Go on, talk is better than silence.”

“Right,” Pan Sea replied. “Anyway, eventually a series of mesas blocks out the horizon to the south without flying any higher. To the west, there’s a wide forest that ends at the feet of those mountains over there. I tell you, that one spire, though, it pierces the skyline. I couldn’t see another mountain anywhere near as tall as that one. I think it’s higher up than even Stratopolis—or, how high it used to be.”

“One day we’ll outdo it, Pansy,” Hurricane assured him. “One day we’ll build a city that’s higher and grander than that mountain. We’re Cirrans; we don’t give up, and even if it takes a thousand years, the Empire will be reborn. After that, who knows? Perhaps even one day we’ll take back Dioda from the griffon bastards that drove us out.”

Pan Sea sat down next to Hurricane. “Sometimes I still dream of the war.”

“Sometimes I don’t dream of the war. It’s hard to forget what we’ve been through.” Hurricane sighed and wiped the handle of his sword with a fetlock. “I close my eyes and I still see Zephyrus burning. Every time I even blink, I can see Silver Sword’s face. I always thought I would be the one to die first, but he beat me to it.”

“You know he’s still watching us from the Great Skies.”

“Aye, that he is.” Hurricane stood up and shook a hoof at the sky. “I bet you’re banging Celeste up there, aren’t you? I should have figured as much.” The black pegasus took two steps back and shook his head, chuckling. “Soon enough I’ll be up there with him. Hopefully he doesn’t get in too deep of shit with the Gods while I’m not there to watch his back.”

“I only met him once during training, but he seemed like a great guy,” Pan Sea offered.

“Yeah, you were the only one to actually beat him during sparring practice, weren’t you?” When Pan Sea blushed, Hurricane guffawed and struck the ground. “I remember it all! He was sore for weeks about that! The look on his face when he walked off the field? Priceless.” Ending with a few light chuckles, Hurricane smirked and looked further up the side of the hill. “Ironic that some of my fondest memories of Silver came in the worst of times. If the Gods are going to make your life shit, at least there’s usually a silver lining to it, right?”

“I would say that missing the entire war because you get wounded in the first battle certainly seems to follow that theme.”

“Be grateful that you never had to go to Nimbus or Feathertop.” Hurricane slowly blew air out the corner of his mouth. “Anyways, let’s get back to it, shall we?”

With that, Hurricane began to scale the remaining height of the hillside while Pan Sea hovered nearby and assisted the wounded pegasus whenever he could. Slippery slopes of gravel, twisted and gnarled undergrowth, and spindly trees were soon overcome. After the arduous climb, Hurricane found himself standing atop the mountain.

The view was all that Pan Sea had made it out to be. There was the swamp and the highlands to the south; there was the forest and the massive mountain to the east; forest and plains stretched onwards on the opposite side of a rather large river to the north; and, far more interesting, was the view to the east.

Verdant fields and hills abruptly came to a halt against a wall of ice. Even from there the popping and cracking of the glaciers was audible. Clear skies clashed with thick, gray clouds that hung over the opposite shore of the strait. From there, the land was only visible for a few additional miles before a cocktail of snow and hail obscured its features behind grayness.

Pan Sea joined Commander Hurricane on the hilltop and gently folded his wings against his sides. “Looks even worse from the outside.”

Hurricane shrugged. “Looks worse, but I’d prefer looking at it over feeling it any day. Come on, let’s just plant the flag and go. It’s about time Cirra came out of the snow and shadows and into the light and warmth.”

Turning around, the Commander walked closer to the western edge of the hill, looking for a good spot to place the flag. Most of the hilltop was rocky and barren, but eventually he found a patch of dirt deep enough to plant a flagpole in. With a few sweeps of his wing, Hurricane cleared out the immediate area and began to unfold the Cirran standard.

“Pansy, break me off a branch of that tree there, would you?” he asked. The private nodded and, drawing his sword, began to hack away at a thin limb that would make a good pole. Holding the banner with his teeth, Hurricane quickly unpacked Cirra’s flag and spread it on a rock in front of him. The familiar blue horsehead flanked by a pair of wings and set against a sea of stars greeted him. There were a few splotches of blood on the flag from his battle with Streak Wing, but that was better than most Cirran flags after about a month of service.

There was a solid thump as Pan Sea split the branch from the tree, and the Legionnaire sheathed his sword and began to drag the branch over to Hurricane. The black pegasus grabbed onto one end of the pole and managed to secure the standard to the end before hoisting it onto his shoulders and ramming the branch into the ground. With a little bit of force the makeshift pole stuck, and Hurricane stood back to admire his work.

“We did it,” Pan Sea breathed, wiping some sweat from his brow. “We found a new land.”

Hurricane nodded and saluted to the flag. “Whenever the might of Cirra is contested,” he began, reciting the words of the ancient Cirran oath, “Whenever those who would seek to cause harm to my friends, family, and emperor strike us; whenever the thick clouds of war cover my land, I will stand in the face of such terror. And together, a million strong, we will fight the enemy hoof and feather, ceasing only when it has been driven back into the abyss, or my blood stains the skies of my homeland red.”

Lowering his hoof, Hurricane bowed to the ground and spread his wings, an action which Pan Sea copied. “In the name of the Gods, I offer this piece of land to the Empire of Cirra. May our soldiers, now and forevermore, keep it safe and keep it beautiful. For there can be no war without the home front, and no conquest without a place to start from.”

“Well spoken, sir,” Pan Sea congratulated. “I wish I could have been around when Roamulus himself spoke those words so many years ago.”

“He probably said it better than I,” Hurricane stated. After watching the flag for a little while longer, he slackened his wings and began to trot around the edge of the hilltop. “Let’s take a little rest, then gather some food and begin the journey back home. It’s a long flight back to Cloudsdale, and we’ll probably have a strong headwind the whole time.”

“Sounds good,” Pan Sea replied as he leaned over the edge of the hill. “Perhaps we should—” He stopped suddenly, frozen in place.

“Should what, Pansy?” Hurricane demanded, turning to spot the Legionnaire. Pan Sea held one hoof in front of him with his wings splayed open in shock. Hurricane made to move over to him when he heard the distinct sound of an unwelcome voice:

“I do say… what on Earth is that?”

“Get the fuck down!”

Typhoon slammed herself against the wall of the nearest building as another volley of arcane bolts skittered across the grounds around her. Cyclone crouched next to her, shielding his face with a wing as he peered through his feathers at the unicorns along the rooftops. The moment the firing let up for just a second, the two pegasi sprinted out of cover and into the shadow of the next building.

“You just had to kill the freaking guards, didn’t you?!” Typhoon screamed at her brother. “You just had to catch the attention of the entirety of the Diamond Guards!”

Cyclone shoved her to the ground as more manabursts came their way. “By the Gods, just shut up, Typhoon! We’ll argue about who screwed over who when we get the fuck out of here!” With a whirl of his wings, Cyclone hauled Typhoon to her hooves and dove into cover across the street.

Typhoon leaned out of cover and glared at the dozens of unicorns along River Rock’s rooftops. “How did they manage to organize that quickly? We were talking with Star Swirl for not even five minutes before they began to attack! Did they know we were coming?!”

Cyclone picked up a chunk of ice and bucked it at the guards along the rooftops, forcing them to retreat from the shower of deadly shards sailing their way. With that side of the street barely suppressed, Typhoon and Cyclone streaked down the road as they flew only a few inches off the ground.

“If we can just get to the town square, we can get the hell out of here!” Cyclone shouted as he skidded to a stop behind a wagon. “The rooftops will be too far away for them to be able to shoot us out of the sky! We just have to dodge their fire until we do get there!”

The wagon rocked as a blast of mana hit its side, causing Typhoon and Cyclone to lean away from each other and cover their heads with their hooves as it passed through. When they looked back, a smoldering hole had been blown through the cart between the both of them. In the meantime, smaller Arcana bolts peppered the street and building facing them.

“I knew I should have put reinforcements on standby!” Cyclone spat as he drew his sword. “We may be Praetorians, but we can’t take on the whole damn Diamond Guard by ourselves!”

Typhoon leaned out of cover just enough to see a company of Diamond Guards advancing down the street towards them. “Cyclone, we’ve got a problem!”

“Yeah we fucking do!” he shouted back around his sword. “When I get back to Cloudsdale, I’m so getting a damn bow!”

“More Diamond Guards coming down the street!” Typhoon yelled around her sword. “We have to get out of here, now!”

Cyclone looked both ways down the street but ducked back under cover as an arcane bolt struck the skysteel of his helmet. Taking a deep breath, he gritted his teeth around his sword and began to channel fury into his Empatha. “On the count of three, we go opposite ways. We’ll regroup at the town square and escape from there. Got it?!”

“Sir!” Typhoon answered as she opened her wings. The calming effect of her adrenaline had begun to pour into her veins, muting the environment around her to all but Cyclone’s voice.

“One! Two! THREE!”

Typhoon kicked off of the cobblestone road so hard she nearly snapped her neck as she accelerated. The company of Diamond Guards advancing her way suddenly broke ranks in fright as she sailed over their heads. With a quick twist of her wings, she was able to roll her way out and around the various halberds and pikes that the guards angled towards her until she was on the other side of their formation. Now past the guards, she quickly landed and turned to catch a quick glimpse of Cyclone.

The Imperator had turned himself into a ball of fire that was terrorizing the unicorns along the rooftops. Typhoon could see and hear soldiers screaming in pain and fear as Cyclone’s wingblades ripped into their flesh with fire, sending them tumbling from the rooftops. Even then, he was unable to stay in the sky long as soldiers in the entire city block began to fire upon him with their magic. Looping once in the air, Cyclone dove straight through the wall of the nearest building. The explosion of fire and debris rocked the entirety of River Rock and lit up the night sky brighter than the sun.

“There she is!”

“Damned Cirran, get her!”

Typhoon’s thoughts were brought back to her surroundings as several of the guards she had bypassed turned and began to charge her. With a cocky smile and a salute of her wing, the Praetorian kicked up snow and ice and launched the projectiles at the nearest guards. As the ice hit, her Empatha took over and froze several soldiers in place. The advance of the Diamond Guard stalled, she flapped her wings and began to wind and twist through streets and alleyways.

As she flew beneath rooftops and bounced off walls between buildings, Typhoon could still hear the carnage her brother was wreaking on the city. Every few seconds there was another explosion and a burst of fire that spiked the night with light, and she could hear several desperate screams. She smiled as she left an alleyway that opened onto a wide street. At least Cyclone’s destructive nature was taking the majority of the Guard’s attention off of herself.

Or that was what she thought until she saw a brigade of unicorns aligned against her on both sides of the street. Upon seeing her, both sides filled the air with mana. Typhoon’s flight was nimble and quick, but it wasn’t quite agile enough. She felt a searing pain in her left wing that sent her tumbling out of the sky and through the window of a rather large craftsponies’ guild house. Her heavily armored body smashed several small wooden tables and scattered artisan’s supplies everywhere.

Clambering to her hooves, Typhoon had just enough time to take cover behind a bookcase as the unicorns began to pile in and fire on her. In response, Typhoon located the chains to a chandelier and split them with her skysteel sword, sending the thousand pound iron construction slamming into the floor the Diamond Guards occupied. There were several cries of pain and crunches of bone and flesh, but the explosion of her cover from manafire informed Typhoon that she wasn’t out of the woods yet.

Cursing under her breath, Typhoon flipped over a railing at the edge of an elevated platform that divided the room into two. Sliding left and right around arcane bolts, she managed to scramble over the platform and put something solid between herself and her pursuers. That was when the building exploded in fire.

She couldn’t see which window Cyclone had flown through with all the smoke, but before she even realized what was happening the entire building was filled with flames and exploding painters’ oils. Raising her wings to shield herself from the blasts of nearby glass bottles, Typhoon began to force her way towards the end of the building.

The doors had been blown open from Cyclone’s entrance, and the mare could see the fountain of city square through the smoky haze. The heat was escalating, quickly becoming unbearable for the ice Empath. Her hooves began to stagger as the smog stole her breath, and she had to struggle to not slip on broken glass around her. After a long and agonizing minute of stumbling, Typhoon made it to the doorway.

Then the entire wall of the building suddenly detonated in fire and ash.

Typhoon tried to roll out of the way of the falling stone and mortar, but there was simply too much of it to dodge. She barely managed to scoot across the threshold of the doorway before a sizeable chunk of stone slammed into the ground in front of her. She immediately jumped to the left to avoid it, but then a heavy wooden beam dropped on her back and pinned her to the ground. She tried with all her might to stand up, but a stone fell from the wall and slammed into her wing, turning her struggle to escape into a cry of pain.

Gritting her teeth and looking around, she could see unicorns beginning to enter the town square from the various side streets. She kicked once or twice at the wood pinning her to the ground, but it refused to budge even under the harshest of her kicks.

“Cyclone!” Typhoon shouted as she squirmed beneath the wood. “Cyclone, where are you?!”

She looked up, and there she could see her brother circling wide around the clearing. Seeing his sister trapped beneath the smoldering wood, he quickly accelerated and fluttered down to her side.

“Get this thing off of me, Cyclone!” Typhoon shouted as she pushed against the ground.

Cyclone blinked.

“Cyclone, what the hell are you waiting for?!” Typhoon growled.

The red stallion only looked over his shoulder at the approaching unicorns. He lowered his head towards Typhoon, but instead of reaching for the wood he brought his mouth to her ear.

“The Legion will honor your sacrifice for the coming empire, dear sister.”

Typhoon couldn’t even process what she just heard. She struggled even harder before looking up at her brother with pleading eyes. “What do you mean?” she asked as desperation began to seep into her voice. “Brother!!”

Cyclone bit down on his lip as he pulled away from Typhoon. With a curt nod, he spread his wings and shot into the air. He circled the square once or twice before disappearing into the northern night sky.

“Cyclone! Cyclone, damn it!!” she screamed up at him. When he didn’t return, she lowered her head onto the ground. “Cyclone…” With that short whimper, she gave up trying to force her way out of the rubble and simply sprawled herself out across the ground. Her body hurt, yes, but some bitter hollowness had devoured her heart.

Her brother, her own brother and closest friend, had left her to die.

The broken mare barely moved as she saw a blue hoof step into her line of vision. Instead she slowly angled her sad eyes upwards to see the figure standing over her.

Jewel, clad in Diamond Guard armor, simply sneered back and lit his horn.

Chapter 14: A Trial of Ice

Twilight had no real idea at exactly what time the sun had dawned. It was simply impossible to see the yellow orb beneath the curtain of gray clouds and white snow. All she knew was that the world had inched its way out of the dark and into marginal brightness at some point, technically qualifying for what most considered a ‘day’.

She yawned quietly and looked around, still struggling to blink out the drowsiness that the frigid cold and her lack of sleep had bestowed upon her. Rainbow Dash shambled along by her side, obviously suffering from sleeplessness more so than herself. Ahead of them, Safe Haven scouted through the snow and ice, the hilt of his sword just ever so slightly drawn against his side.

Twilight grumbled and reluctantly accelerated her pace to come within a few feet of the stallion. Most of his cocoa fur was hidden underneath layers and layers of coats and jackets, but his neck and jawline were barren and exposed to the harsh elements. A peculiar beard of frozen alcohol and spittle had attached itself to his chin, and Haven occasionally ran a numb hoof over the irritating appendage.

“How’s that working out for you?!” she asked, probably louder than she needed to, but the hood she wore over her ears muffled most of her own voice.

“Funny,” he replied without turning his head. “At least if the vargr come back I’ll be ready to grab my sword and fight, instead of having to undress first.”

Somewhere behind them, Rainbow Dash giggled. Safe Haven only rolled his eyes and huddled down at the top of a hill.

“I still don’t understand why we couldn’t have just gone south,” Twilight insisted as she huddled down next to him. “Why do we have to go away from civilization? I mean, sure, you’re with the rebels, but I didn’t see any wanted posters with your name on them in Saraneighvo.”

“This isn’t like in those westerns about San Palomino with the cowponies and such. I do my best to keep my outlaw status a secret.” He sighed and scratched at his chin again. “Of course, that’s a little harder now that I came face to face with Serp and swung a sword at him. I reckon any Black Cloak that sees me is bound to know who I am now.”

Twilight gently pushed an errant strand of her mane from her eyes, wishing for the hundredth time that she had taken the effort to properly tuck it behind her hood when she first put it on. “Right, but couldn’t you have just brought us to the city limits and then left to go galumphing through the snow with the rest of your rebel buddies?”

“Tell me; would you rather or rather not be interrogated by Serp and then held in a cell in Stalliongrad for a week before the Princess can get you passage home?”

“They wouldn’t do that!” Twilight protested. “They’re the Domain’s police force! They’re sworn to protect the weak and helpless!”

Safe Haven laughed quietly. “You really believe that… I thought you would. I can’t blame you; Canterlot’s quite a deal safer than Stalliongrad.”

“Whadda ya mean by that?” Rainbow Dash piped up as she reclined her back on a snow bank opposite the two unicorns. “Don’t the Princesses make sure that life’s all cheery and safe across all of Equestria?”

“Tell me, Rainbow Dash,” Haven calmly replied, “did life seem cheery and happy to you in Saraneighvo?”

“Well…” She paused and massaged one of her wings with a protected hoof. “They could’ve been just a little more chill.”

Haven groaned and placed a hoof to his brow.

Rainbow Dash rose an eyebrow, obviously not understanding what she had just said. “What? I’m pretty sure if you guys just removed the sticks up your asses and worked together, you’d be fine.”

“The problem is, it’s hard to do that when Saraneighvo is the poorest, most oppressed city in the Domain, not to mention all of Equestria.”

Twilight shifted her haunches slightly. “It would probably be a whole lot better if you ponies just obeyed the law and lived in harmony with each other.”

“Easy enough for you two to say when you’re both Bearers.” Gently pulling his sword out of its sheath with his Arcana, Haven slowly looked the blade up and down. “You know how the rebellion began, and why ponies continue to fight to this day?”

Both Bearers shook their heads.

Stretching himself out into a little hollow against a snow bank, Safe Haven let out a breath. “Well, it’s only another hour’s walk to where we’re getting to, so I suppose there’s time for a history lesson. So, where to begin? I suppose we should probably start with the Blizzard Revolution.

“The Revolution was around five years ago. I was twenty-five then. Baron Frostbite ruled the Domain like a proper noble; keeping himself rich and well-fed while the rest of us commoners suffered and starved. My family was slightly better off. My father was the head farmer at a little village outside of Saraneighvo. The farmer bastard who married a unicorn. He sure was lucky for being a commoner under Frostbite, especially considering Saraneighvo was even more of a smear of poverty on the northern shoreline then.

“I loved my father. My mother too. She was the one who taught me my Equiish.” He smiled and shook his head, gazing into the distance. “How a proper Trottingham mare ever fell in love with a poor Stalliongradi farmer, I have no idea. But she wasn’t going to let a little cold have the best of her.”

Haven coughed and tapped a hoof on the snow bank. “Right. Eventually, ponies started getting tired of Frostbite’s rule. Those on the fringe territories began to take up arms against him; nothing too major or organized, but most of the farmers stopped sending food to Stalliongrad in protest. My father was one of them. Things got… complicated, fast.”

Haven looked off to the distance and took a deep breath before continuing. “Frostbite was determined to hold onto his rule. When the fringe territories revolted, he crushed them in a bloody massacre. Dozens, if not hundreds of ponies died. My father was one of them. They came in the middle of the night and executed him and my mother and burned down everything. I was lucky enough to escape, and I found myself in with a bunch of ponies who were just like me. They too had lost family and loved ones to Frostbite, and we were all looking to make them pay.

“Even so, us backcountry farmers had no chance against Frostbite’s trained army. Uprising after uprising was crushed and silenced. Eventually, when things got bad enough, ponies from Frostbite’s government turned against him and came to our aid. Now, we had a real revolution on our hooves.

“I remember my first real battle. I was terrified, scared beyond belief, but I knew how to use a sword.” With that, he held up the sword and slid it back into its scabbard. “I won’t get into the details of the fighting, but in the course of two years, the revolution found strong leaders in the ponies Stoikaja and Roscherk Krovyu. I don’t know their Equiish names, but they gave the revolutionaries training and tactics that helped us defeat Baron Frostbite. In the wake of the baron, Tsar Watchful Eye, the alicorn ruler of the Domain, and his sons took over. His sons, Roscherk and Polnoch, as well as Stoikaja, became commandants of the military. Roscherk was the one that was trained by the Honor Guard captain.”

“Yes, I’ve read about all this in the Canterlot libraries,” Twilight interrupted, “but if you finally overthrew Frostbite, why would you then turn your back on the new rulers and rebel against them?”

“Remember how I said things got complicated, fast?”

Twilight nodded.

Haven exhaled through his nostrils. “It only got even more so when the Revolution was finished. There were those who wanted to split off the spoils of war to the soldiers who did the most fighting. Commandant Roscherk Krovyu was particularly emphatic about this. Others, however, did not see it his way. They wanted the Baron’s land and wealth to go to those who needed it most—simple farmers and refugees who had their lives destroyed by Frostbite’s rule. I fell into the latter camp.

“I had nothing after the war; I didn’t particularly like serving with the police, and all I wanted to do was return to Saraneighvo and try to scrape some sort of living back together on what was left of my parents’ farm. Money came for a little while from the capital. Those who opposed Roscherk were more numerous and powerful than he. Then their leaders “died”. One of them was Roscherk’s brother, Polnoch, or ‘Midnight’ in Equiish. Suddenly, I and several thousand other farmers across the Domain had nothing, and Roscherk had the entire police force under his hoof. It adopted the name ‘Black Cloaks’ shortly thereafter in honor of the jacket the commandant always wears. ”

The stallion stared off into the distance before climbing to his hooves. “With a little funding from ponies who particularly didn’t like this change in dynamic, I signed on with the rebellion, opened a tavern in Saraneighvo, and gave my fellow brothers in arms some much needed shelter and information. Well, until it got burnt down, that is.”

“Hey, I told you about a hundred times that I’m sorry for that,” Rainbow grumbled as she began to walk after him.

“Actually, it was more like seven.”

“Yeah, well, I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, Rainbow,” Haven assured her. “I doubt the inn would have been left standing after the coup anyways. It’s just unfortunate that Serp interrupted us on the night that it was planned to happen. Otherwise, we would have had his head and a sizeable chunk of land to work with. It would have tied down the Commandant’s Black Cloaks in the north, allowing us to go after Trotsylvania in the south.”

Twilight up to this point had been uncharacteristically silent, her unease tying her lips shut. On the one hoof, she was consorting with an outlaw of the state, and was allowing said criminal to lead her to someplace she had never heard of before. On the other, Haven was her friend, and that knowledge outdated knowing he was a rebel by several days.

Rainbow Dash seemed to have no qualms about their current relationship with Haven. He promised them food, safety and shelter; what was there to complain about? Instead, she walked happily by his side, rambling about the Wonderbolts or her grandfather. Safe Haven returned her comments and conversation, but he kept glancing over his shoulder to where Twilight trotted behind them, concern written across his face.

After Rainbow had worn her voice out with chatter, the stallion slowed his pace until Twilight caught up with him. The two unicorns walked in silence with nothing but the wind to speak for them.

Eventually, Haven decided to try and break the ice with a painfully blunt observation: “You don’t trust me.”

“Trust you?” Twilight replied as she subconsciously took a step away. “You’re an outlaw! How do I know you’re not taking me someplace away from civilization so you can ransom me to the Princess?”

Haven cringed as if Twilight’s words had physically struck him. “Because you’re my friend, Twilight. At least, I consider you to be a friend. I hope you do as well.”

The wind filled the silence with its jeering.

“I understand why you don’t trust me,” Haven continued. “Especially considering what you saw back in Saraneighvo. But I also think you’re being naïve. Life isn’t a book, Twilight. Morals are a lot grayer outside of Canterlot. Just because I’m aligned against my government does not mean that I’m an evil pony. And just because a pony works for the law doesn’t mean that they’re righteous.”

“It’s just…” Twilight shook her head, sending a hundred tiny snowflakes scattering from her hood. “This is all more than I bargained for. I just came to Saraneighvo to do a little research, not get caught up in a bloody, gruesome rebellion.”

Haven sidestepped a little closer to Twilight and breathed a small sigh of relief when she didn’t draw away. “I know, and I’m doing all I can to make sure that you don’t have to get any more tangled in it than you already are. We’ll get you out of here before the month’s end.”

Rainbow Dash had apparently become unsure of where to go, and she quietly dropped back to let Haven retake the lead. Together, the three ponies trotted on in a small wedge formation.

“Haven?” Twilight began. “Can I ask you a question?”

The stallion lightly bit on his tongue and steeled himself for one of the many lethal daggers mares preceded with that statement. “Of course.”

“Where exactly are we going, if we’re not heading south to Stalliongrad?”

Haven released his breath in one relived sigh. “We’re heading west to Coltpenhagen.”

“Coltpenhagen? I thought that town was burnt down in the Revolution.”

“I wasn’t there, but I can tell you that it wasn’t the first time the town’s been burnt down.” As the ponies ascended a rather steep hill, Haven began to separate his words into pairs denoted with a huff between each. “Us rebels kind of made it a base of operations after the Revolution. We should be coming across it any minute now.”

With several last agonizing strides, the trio of ponies climbed the snowy slope and looked out across a shallow valley in front of them. While most of the surrounding countryside was as bleak and as white as ever, one particular smear of inky black ash stood out in stark contrast to the snowy land around it.

Every building was at least half razed, and there wasn’t a wall that had virgin paint unmarred by gray ash. Gnarled and twisted trees and brush added to the dreary landscape as a testament to failed life. On the remains of several charcoal buildings were simple banners worn ragged by the wind and ice and snow. At this distance, it was impossible to see any sort of movement that signified life.

One landmark in particular stood out from the rest of its charred brethren. In the very center of the remains of the town was a looming castle of black stone, even darker than coal. Its ramparts were rounded and withered from age and fire, and the walls were blanketed in thick and heavy lichens. Small piles of rubble lining the base of its walls testified to siege after siege that had plagued the behemoth throughout its life.

“Is that… Onyx Ridge?” Twilight breathed, her eyes growing wider the longer she stared.

Haven shook his head. “I’m afraid not. This is simply called Castle Black. If this ‘Onyx Ridge’ is what I think you’re referring to, we’re about a hundred or so miles east of it. It’s overrun with feral beasts and vargr; both us and the Black Cloaks try to stay away from it.”

“Hey, wait a minute,” Rainbow Dash chimed in. “Coltpenhagen? That sounds a lot like a town from Hurricane mentioned in his journal.”

“You’re right,” Twilight breathed as she pulled out the book. With a quick flutter of pages she located the appropriate chapter. “He mentioned a town called Coal Hagen that the deserter Streak Wing burnt down long ago.”

“Is that so?” Haven asked. “I always wondered why Coltpenhagen was called the Thrice-Burnt City when as far as anypony could tell it had only been burned twice; once during the Dragon Wars and again by Roscherk’s doing in the Revolution. Anyhow, come. There are warm meals and beds waiting for you all in town.”

The trio of ponies began to descend the slope of the hill into the bowl that held Coltpenhagen. As they did so, the air only became colder and the winds fiercer. Even Rainbow Dash seemed to be having trouble resisting the cold despite her pegasus blood. Eventually, they came to a point where Twilight could hardly think with the pounding headache she was getting.

“What… is this?” she asked, raising a hoof to her head. As she did so, she accidentally dropped one of her notebooks onto the snow. She tried to pick it up with her Arcana, but instead of responding to her wishes her horn only spiked her skull with pain that quickly resided into a dull ache.

Even Haven was grimacing as he turned to face Twilight. “It’s something to do with the land. Coltpenhagen’s been a mining town for as long as its been around. They used to just extract coal and shale, but then Frostbite found something else in the ground. I don’t know what it is, but it absolutely thrives off of devouring magic.”

“Void crystals, perhaps?” Twilight suggested. “The Crystal warlords that used to inhabit this land apparently had easy access to them.”

“Sombra’s crystals?” Haven replied with skepticism. “I don’t know about that, and I certainly haven’t ever heard of Crystal ponies living in the Domain before, but Frostbite stockpiled these rocks around town. For what reason we’ll never know why. Roscherk destroyed those stockpiles when he burnt down the town to drive out Frostbite’s soldiers. They say the crystals detonated and scattered ash into the air that leeches off of any creature’s magic. Don’t worry; the pain goes away after a day as your body becomes acclimated to the poison.”

They eventually found their way into what was once a main street. Guiding them past building after abandoned building, Haven wound through the sideroads to a rather large tavern about two streets away from Castle Black. There Twilight could see the soft yellows of muted oil lamps spilling through the windows onto the road around them. She could also hear drunken laughter, something she hadn’t heard for several days straight.

With a knock on the door, Haven unlatched the heavy oak and pushed it open. Warm air and aromatic smells instantly assaulted the weary Equestrians as he ushered them inside. Only after he walked in as well and shut the door did he turn and offer them a smile.

“Welcome to the rebellion.”

“It can’t be,” Hurricane snarled under his breath. Leaving the flag pole behind, he quickly galloped to Pan Sea’s side and peered over the edge. At first, all he saw was gray stone and green fields rolling in the midday breeze. Gritting his teeth, he leaned further over the edge and looked straight down.

Princess Platinum and Clover the Clever were staring back at him with hostility and surprise, respectively. As soon as Platinum saw Hurricane’s face, her features contorted into hate, and she took several steps backwards to try and distance herself from the Commander.

“Commander Hurricane!” Platinum spat as she came to a stop. “What in the blazes of Tartarus are you doing here on sovereign unicorn land?!”

“Unicorn lands?” Hurricane began, his wing crests dangerously pulling away from his shoulders. Although the body language was distinctly pegasus, it carried enough intimidation to accurately convey the threat to the Princess. “By what right?”

Platinum raised a dainty hoof off of the ground and dangled it as some sort of shield in front of her chest as she backpedaled once more. Both her and Clover had started to tremble under Hurricane’s stare, and it took the nervous princess several seconds to steady her voice. “By right of royal decree, in the name of King Lapis and all the great kings before him, these lands are exclusive domain of the Diamond Kingdom and all its citizens. We—”

“You invoke the name of your father as right to claim land?” Hurricane harshly interrupted. “By the divine blessings of the gods, this land and the skies above belong to the Cirran Empire. From now until the end of time, the Legion is sworn to protect this piece of territory as part of its own through blood and steel. And there is no greater Legionnaire than I.” With a shower of sparks from his wingtips, Hurricane accentuated his claim with a threatening display of Empatha.

Platinum took another step back, and a sudden gust of wind alerted her to just how close to the edge of the hill she was walking. Gulping down fear and just a little bit of air, she quickly placed Clover in front of herself with her Arcana. “You mean to attack royalty? How barbaric! Clover, please, discipline this pegasus hothead.”

Clover took one look at Commander Hurricane’s fierce figure and bit down on her lip. “Uh… Princess? I don’t think fighting is the best way to go about it.”

“Clover the Clever!” Platinum exclaimed, her expression turning to one of abject horror. “You mean to abandon this new land we found to the pegasi just to avoid a fight?!”

“Whadda ya mean, your land?!”

All four ponies on the hillside turned to locate the obnoxious voice rising up from the field below. There, awfully tiny from the distance, Hurricane could see two ponies standing next to a flag planted firmly in the mud. Both of them wore earth pony garb, and the larger of the two had the dumbest looking hat Hurricane had ever seen affixed to his head.

“Chancellor Puddinghead?” he murmured to himself. When a second look confirmed his suspicions, Hurricane simply pinched his hoof to his brow and sighed. This was exactly the last thing he wanted to deal with right now.

Ever quick to the point, Platinum turned her attention from Hurricane and Pan Sea to Puddinghead and Smart Cookie. “Chancellor, Representative, just what exactly are you doing here in the sovereign territory of the Diamond Kingdom?”

“The Diamond Kingdom?! More like… uh…” Puddinghead’s eyes searched the horizon for his answer before resettling on the Princess’ regal figure. “More like Shmiamond Shmingdom! Yeah! These fields are all part of the Low Nine-and-Three-Quarters Valleys! No unicorns or pegasi allowed!”

Smart Cookie groaned and buried his face in his hat.

“You can’t make laws in territory you don’t own!” Platinum protested. “You have to have authority and a well-defined nobility to make and uphold laws!”

“Believe me, it takes a lot less than that,” Hurricane countered. With a few slow flaps of his wings, the pegasus fluttered down to Platinum’s level. “Laws are no different from Kingdoms and Empires; without force to back them up, nopony cares what you say or do.” With a very blunt nod to the hilt of his sword, he advanced another step towards the annoying unicorn. “As far as I can tell, I’m the only one here with any means of showing force. Now, I’m going to be reasonable and ask you to go elsewhere and find your own damn land. The pegasi have travelled far enough. This land is ours.”

Although somewhat fazed by Hurricane’s words, Platinum nevertheless trotted right up to him and stood nose to nose with the pegasus commander. “Now you listen here, Hurricane, I am a princess. I answer to nopony except for my father. When I say something is mine, that thing is mine.” Withdrawing with a small smirk to her face, she leered back at Hurricane. “Of course, I wouldn’t understand you barbaric pegasi to understand nobility and royalty. All you know is war and killing each other. Great will be the day when your kind kills itself off with your bloodlust, while us, the unicorns, sit and watch it all from our comfy castles built onto little hilltops like this one.”

“Tell me,” Hurricane replied softly, his words dripping venom. “Do you recall what happened at Coal Hagen? Do you recall what happens if you piss on the honor of pegasi less restrained than I am?”

Down below, Puddinghead had been simmering the whole time. Finally, after being ignored for far too long, his anger boiled over and quite literally launched his hat skywards. “Hey! Stop arguing up there and come down here where I can join in! The earth ponies will not be left out like every other time before!!”

Both Hurricane and Platinum paused their argument to glare at Puddinghead before returning to trying to shout louder than their opponent.

Meanwhile, Clover the Clever, Pan Sea, and Smart Cookie all stood awkwardly in the background by their respective leaders. As the shouting only continued to increase in volume, Clover took a deep breath and forced her way between Hurricane and Platinum.

“Enough!” she shouted as she pushed Platinum away and (attempted to) shove Hurricane back. “Stop bickering like foals! Perhaps if we just calmed down…”

Smart Cookie took a step closer towards the hill, pointedly placing himself between Puddinghead and the rest of the leaders. “I agree. Let’s all just take a deep breath and relax.”

Pan Sea looked at all the ponies separately before meekly chiming in: “I vote for calm.”

Hurricane turned to glare at Pan Sea, causing the pegasus to cower, before returning his steely gaze towards Platinum. “There can be no calm while she’s around.”

Thunder rumbled in the distance, accompanied by a rush of wind.

Platinum hardly seemed to notice as she leaned back into Hurricane’s face. “You’re the one causing all the problems, pegasus. You’re so anxious to take your daily bath in blood that you’ve lost all reasonable thought. Things would be so much easier if you just sat back and bowed to true royalty like you’re supposed to!”

“Hey!” Puddinghead shouted from below. “You’re not MY princess! You’re only the princess of the unicorns! I’m the leader of the earth ponies, fairly elected with absolutely no voter fraud whatsoever!”

“Is that why there was only one name on the ballot?” Smart Cookie mumbled.

“Exactly! Now, if we’re gonna be talking about real authority here, you should just look to me! See? I’ve got the biggest hat out of all of you!”

“Gods save me,” Hurricane whispered before pushing Platinum and Clover aside to walk to the edge of the rocky outcrop. “Chancellor Puddinghead, for the last time, hat size has nothing to do with political prowess!”

“That’s what royal blood is for!” Platinum called out over his shoulder.

“That’s what demonstrating you’re a worthy leader is for!” Hurricane retorted.

“Guys, seriously!” Clover shouted. “None of you are acting like worthy leaders! Just stop and calm down! Maybe we can think this through—”

Clover’s words were lost to her shock as a solid wad of cold ice and snow promptly smacked her across the muzzle. After a few stunned seconds, she shook the snow off of her face and glared towards the ground where Puddinghead was gathering another snowball.

“Ha! About time she shut up!” Puddinghead cheered to Smart Cookie, who was sharing none of the Chancellor’s enthusiasm. Instead the Representative was looking around wildly at the sudden appearance of snow.

“What in the name of…” Pan Sea began as he too looked around him. With a nervous gulp, he, Hurricane, and the rest of the ponies on the hill tilted their heads back to see the sky above them.

Instead of clear blue and cheery sunshine, swirling and angry clouds of gray and black hovered over their heads, spewing snow and sleet onto the ground below. Somewhere, the howling of some sort of demon spilled out across the land.

All six ponies quickly abandoned their arguments to look up in fear at the suddenly gray and dying world around them. In but a few short seconds, the paradise they had been so happy to find had been stolen from them. Now it was swiftly becoming just like the Compact lands. Gray. Bleak. Cold.

As they quickly scrambled for shelter, each one asked their gods why. Nopony received an answer.

Swift Spear started in her bed, a cold sweat running down her face. Her breathing was hyperventilated, and her limbs trembled as she rose up from under the heavy covers. Stumbling out of bed, she managed to make her way to the washroom, where she splashed cold water on her face. It was just a nightmare. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Except this one was out of the ordinary. Whenever she had nightmares, Swift dreamt of the Red Cloud war. Nimbus, Feathertop, the time she was pursued by griffons, all were regular guests in her subconscious mind. Sometimes, even Fire Star would make his way into her head and haunt her dreams. Those intrusions were thankfully few and far between, but even they would have been much more welcoming than what she had just seen.

“Just a dream,” she muttered to herself as she made her way back to bed. Her right wing brushed against the wall as she leaned on it for support. “Just a dream. Just a dream, just a dream, just a dream. It’s not real.”

Even as she settled back into the covers, some maternal instinct kept her awake. She would not find sleep again as she stared at the ceiling while the room gradually brightened in miniscule increments. When the gray light that was supposedly the sun finally pierced through her bedroom window, she blinked for the first time in what felt like hours.

There was a knock on the door, and Swift’s wings propelled her off of the mattress and nearly a foot into the air before she landed uncomfortably on her side. Gathering her frayed wits about her, she spoke to the cloudstone portal with firm authority. “What is it?”

The soldier’s voice on the other side carried no emotion with it. “Imperator Swift Spear, ma’am, Imperator Secundus Cyclone has returned from his mission in River Rock.”

Swift’s wings tensed up. “And Typhoon?”

The noticeable pause felt like an eternity. Eventually the soldier responded noncommittally: “Imperator Secundus Cyclone wishes to meet with you in the throne room.”

Swift Spear wanted to growl at the Praetorian but her worry suppressed it. With a weak grunt, she slid out of bed and walked over to her armor stand. Taking the cuirass off of the mannequin, she carefully slid her wings through the holes in the skysteel and draped the armor over her body. After that, she slid her legs into the shin guards and fastened them down. Next, she stripped the wingblades from the mannequin’s sides and placed the assembly over each wing, taking extra care to fasten down the skysteel scales as tight as she could manage. When that was done, she walked towards a rack hanging on the wall.

The simple wood held several weapons, from swords and wingblades to spears both long and short. With a forlorn sigh, Swift passed her eyes over her husband’s swords on the right until she settled them on a long spear hanging on the extreme left of the carpentry. Lifting the weapon off of its rack, Swift’s neck almost dropped to the floor with the sudden weight of the pure nimbus skysteel in her jaws. With a careful twirl, she tucked the weapon under her left wing and opened the door.

The Praetorian standing outside of her door saluted and stood aside so she could pass. Still troubling, however, was how his eyes followed her as she walked. They watched her every step and read all of her subconscious body language until Swift was finally able to put the corner of the hall between herself and the officer. As she passed more guards on her way to the throne room, Swift took a deep breath and swallowed sharply. The Praetorian was getting restless. Cirra needed Hurricane back now.

The doors to the throne room were already ajar when she approached them, and the Legionnaires standing outside had worried looks on their faces. The steady pacing of angry hooves and the occasional crack of cloudstone from within gave Swift a good idea of what they were afraid of.

“Cyclone!” she shouted. Her voice was commanding, but it did little to stop the raging pegasus inside.

“Damn them!” Cyclone spat as he made his way to another column. With a single punch from his foreleg, he put a crack into the cloudstone. Bits of white vapor escaped as the fiery Empatha running across his wings and limbs melted the mortar. As soon as the column yielded and acknowledged his superiority, Cyclone tore off his helmet and flung it at another column. “Damn them all to hell!!”

Swift winced as the helmet struck the pillar and then stayed there, lodged about two inches into the cloudstone. “Cyclone! Cyclone, what happened?!”

Cyclone turned to look at Swift. There was an incredible amount of hatred in his eyes, but Swift could tell that it wasn’t for her. Furthermore, there was a tinge of hurt behind the flames of his rage that showed through, no matter how much he tried to cover it.

“Typhoon!” he shouted back. His voice wavered ever so slightly at the end, and it sent a chill through Swift’s spine. Her nightmare suddenly came back to her.

“No…” she whispered. With a flutter of her wings, she galloped over to Cyclone and placed her hooves on his shoulders. “No… she isn’t… she’s not…”

“Dead?” Cyclone breathed. Lowering his head, he gave it a few shakes before focusing his attention on his hooves. “No. She’s not dead.”

Swift nearly collapsed. A smile came to her face, but along with it was an empire’s worth of apprehension. “Then what happened? Tell me.”

Cyclone took a deep breath and stepped away. With a few angry shakes of his wings he was able to flick most of the sparks and tongues of fire out of his feathers. Only when he stopped in front of the massive panoramic window and placed his hooves on the sill did he begin to speak.

“We were in River Rock. We went to Star Swirl’s house, no problem. We gave him the book, which he said he could translate for us. He asked for us to stay while he went upstairs to get some notes to work on the language.”

There was a pause, and in that time, Cyclone’s wings suddenly stiffened against his sides. “We sat there for five, maybe ten minutes, waiting for him to return. Just as we were starting to get impatient…” He stopped and lowered his head.

Swift Spear took a step closer to him. “What happened? Cyclone, please, tell me everything.”

Cyclone took a breath and raised his head. Steam began to swirl from his wingtips as his Empatha returned to them. “The bastard betrayed us. The street was absolutely swarming with Diamond Guards. We fought our way out. Tried to fly off, but a unicorn clipped Typhoon’s wing with some magic. I was airborne at the time, and I saw her fall. I… I tried to go after her. I landed and immediately began cutting apart every last one of the horned bastards in my way.” He paused to wet his lips and grit his teeth against each other. “There were too many. I couldn’t get to her. Couldn’t save her. It’s my fault. All my fault.”

Swift bit down on her hoof and looked off to the side. “Star Swirl… he would never… he’s been friends with Hurricane for as long as we’ve been here. I can’t believe—”

Cyclone spun around, his entire body igniting into an inferno. “If he didn’t, why isn’t Typhoon standing here with me?! If he didn’t, how did the Diamond Guard find us and attack us?!” He took several fiery steps towards his mother and spat on the ground. “I don’t care if Star Swirl was father’s friend or his Gods damned uncle! He’s a horn, and when the horns aligned against us, I should have known he was going to as well!”

“Cyclone!” Swift commanded. The fireball of a pegasus turned to glare at her before finally cutting off his Empatha. With a reassuring wing, she touched her son’s shoulder. “I’ll have Twister go and visit King Lapis tomorrow. With any luck, she’ll get this whole mess sorted out, and we’ll get Typhoon back.”

The stallion’s next words were uncharacteristically soft. “Diplomacy is dead, Imperator. We need to get Typhoon back now. There’s only one way that a true Legionnaire does that.”

Swift Spear stepped back and steeled her gaze against Cyclone’s. “No. We will not.”

Cyclone met Swift’s gaze with as much resolve. “They will kill her. If we don’t act now, she will die.”

“No. She will not.”

Cyclone bared his teeth against Swift. When the mare remained unmoved, he closed his lips and gave her a short nod. “Her death is on your hooves.”

Without so much as a second glance, Cyclone pushed Swift Spear aside and walked straight out of the door. The heavy wood closed with a resounding thud, leaving the mare alone inside the throne room.

She finally gave in and collapsed onto the floor, tears streaming down her face.

Outside, Cyclone stopped next to a pair of Praetorians. With a single nod, he turned and pulled two red feathers out of his wing. He handed one to each soldier, and as the pegasi took them they saluted their donor.

“Gather the others,” he commanded. “No more games. If we wait much longer we lose our window.”

The Praetorian Guards saluted with their wings before splitting in opposite directions away from Cyclone. The red pegasus waited until they had gone before taking a deep breath and throwing open the doors to the palace. With a snap of his wings, he lit himself on fire and began to fly towards the south.

As he did so, dark shadows all across Cloudsdale flew up from the buildings to meet him and began to follow.

“Are you sure there isn’t something else around here?!”

Hurricane chomped down on the end of his words and raised a wing across his face in a desperate struggle to keep the sleet out of his eyes. Around him stood the four leaders of the other nations, while Pan Sea hovered in front of a gaping cave entrance.

“Yes sir, I checked everywhere, sir,” Pan Sea shouted through the wind. “There’s nothing for miles other than this cave, and it’s getting awfully cold. I say we just wait it out until the front of the storm has passed, and then we can go looking for new land… sir.”

The Commander cursed and spat at the ground. There was a loud crackling sound and a large clump of ice embedded itself in the snow by his hoof. It was so cold that spittle was freezing over before it hit the ground. Around him, the leaders of the Low Valleys and the Diamond Kingdom were shaking in their outfits.

“Alright,” he called into the wind. “Everypony pile in if you don’t want to freeze to death! We’ll wait out the storm and then I’ll be on my way back to Cloudsdale.”

“And for what reason would you do that, Commander?” Platinum challenged as she stood in front of him. “Don’t you still have to find a new land?”

Puddinghead literally burst up from the ground between the two leaders, sending both stumbling backwards. “Hey! I don’t know what you’re implying, but stop implying that the Low Lakes are yours! They’re sovereign territory of ME!”

Smart Cookie simply walked past the leaders along with Clover and Pan Sea into the cave. “There aren’t even any lakes around here, Chancellor,” he called over his shoulder.

“I don’t care! These fjords are mine! All mine!”

With a glare, Hurricane separated himself from the other leaders and began to walk into the cave. “If either of you survive the night, I must have done something to piss off the Gods.”

“I already know the Gods are punishing me for not raising taxes last year,” Platinum grumbled. “It was a hard decision, but I caved under the pressure and kept them where they were at. I knew that three percent hike would have made all the difference in the world!”

“Heck, I don’t know what the Gods have against me!” Puddinghead chirped as he bounded into the cave ahead of Platinum. “I must not have thrown enough parties for their liking! Do you think I can pull off a ‘This is a cave’ party? Oh, wait, why am I asking you? Unicorns never have fun!”

Platinum growled and briefly bared her teeth before deciding to simply abandon the argument with Puddinghead.

The three leaders entered the cave to find their subordinates clustered awkwardly in the center, each one reluctantly avoiding the gaze of their compatriots. With pointed purpose, each of the three found a side of the cave as far away as possible from the other two and beckoned their companions over.

Not a word was spoken for at least a good five minutes. The only sounds were the howling of the winds through the cave mouth and the breathing of the ponies inside, with the occasional grumble or squeak from the Princess.

After ten minutes, Hurricane stood up and began to walk the length of the cave. His hooves made a steady clop clop clop against the stone to counter the roaring of the wind outside. All the other ponies in the room simply watched him, silent.

A few chunks of hail skittered across the stone floor.

Hurricane slowly made his way to the open maw of the cave and stared into the storm. The blizzard had struck so fast that visibility had dropped to just a matter of feet in little more than fifteen minutes. As he stood there, a chilly gust washed over his body. His feathers made an odd crinkling sound as they brushed over each other in an effort to conserve heat.

After fifteen minutes, Hurricane left the cave entrance and continued to traverse the length of the entire room. His journey took him past Chancellor Puddinghead, who simply glared at the Commander and stuck his tongue out. Hurricane, in response, didn’t respond. He continued onwards, his hooves still etching out the clop clop clop that echoed throughout the cave.

When he neared Platinum, however, the Princess made it a point to recline against the wall and block his path. Hurricane’s lip twitched, and he began to move around Platinum, making sure to cross directly over her legs as he passed.

“Please, Commander Hothead.”

Hurricane paused less than a foot away from Platinum and responded without turning his head. “It’s Commander Hurricane.”

Platinum sneered and placed extra emphasis on clearing her throat. “Please, Commander, could you just stand back and give me my royal space?”

Hurricane twisted one hoof a fraction of an inch away from the Princess. “You mean like this, your highness?”

The venom dripping from the last two words almost melted the stone underneath Hurricane’s hooves.

“Indeed not!” Platinum exclaimed as she jumped to her hooves. With a rough shove, she pushed Hurricane a step back and scowled. “You see this invisible line? This,” she gestured with flailing hooves, “This land belongs exclusively to the Diamond Kingdom! In fact, this very second, you are currently renting unicorn lands for your own safety. And if you continue to irritate me, Commander, I shall have you thrown out!”

Hurricane stepped three paces away and turned to face Platinum. Extending both of his wings, he gestured across the entirety of the cave in one smooth motion. “Do you see all of this? These stone walls are already part of Cirra. If you think differently, then I welcome you to try and take them from me.”

Puddinghead flopped up from the ground and quickly readjusted his hat. “Hey! By the Law of the Hats, I already claimed this entire continent as part of the Puddinghead Confederacy! So how about you all skedaddle!”

“Your ‘Law of the Hats’ is absolutely ridiculous!” Platinum exclaimed. “Unlike earth pony customs, the ways of the unicorns are steeped in thousands of years of rich history and tradition! When a noble makes claim to the land, it is held as true in the omnipotent light of the sun and the moon and stars. No opposing claim can be made against it, for it has already been blessed by Celestis and Lunis themselves.”

Hurricane slowly drew his sword and rested the tip against the ground. With practiced measure, he slowly placed his hooves on either side of the skysteel cross that made up the crossguard of the hilt. “This is not a civilized nation. In Cirra, if you wanted land, you damn well better have been ready to defend it.”

Even before he finished speaking, however, Puddinghead was busy drawing a line into the dirt. As his hoof reached the stone wall, he boldly stepped on the half of the cave he had carved out. “Ya see this?! This is Earth Ponytropolisville! No flying-types or magic-types allowed!”

Platinum growled and sparked her horn to life. With a powerful burst of Arcana, she enveloped Puddinghead’s body in a light blue aura and flung him against the far cave wall. “How dare you try to carve up my lands like a filthy barbarian! If you want a place to stay, how about you let the sovereign leader of these lands lay out lines for you!” Turning to look behind her, she spotted Clover sitting near Smart Cookie and Pan Sea against the far way. “Clover the Clever! Grant the serfs small parcels of land for which the Diamond Kingdom has rented to them in its overflowing generosity.”

With a flick of his tail, Hurricane summoned Pan Sea to his side. “If you even think about trying to silence me with a scrap of stone and soil, we’ll find out if unicorn horns bleed magic or not. I personally think they do.”

“What you’re all forgetting is that earth ponies are the masters of the dirt!” Puddinghead proudly exclaimed. “My representative Smart Cookie of the Mundane Mountains will be happy to find you seating outside of this cave!”

“For the love of…” Smart Cookie muttered. “Chancellor, what is with all the names?!”

Puddinghead cocked his head. “What do you mean, Smart Cookie? I’ve been calling them the Dry Dikes this entire time!”

“Stupidity or not, I think we can all agree that earth ponies shouldn’t be in charge of this new land!” Platinum asserted. “And neither should a group of flying barbarians that will burn it all to the ground in less than a year!”

Hurricane placed a hoof towards Platinum and began to advance. “Careful, Princess. You don’t realize how easy it would be to kill you right now and be done with it. Your father would never know either. He’d simply think it was a bandit or the cold that got you. It’s not like he actually cares whether or not you make it back alive.”

“What do you mean?!” Platinum hissed as she took a trembling step backwards. “Father has only my best interests at heart!”

“Then why didn’t he send some soldiers to accompany you on this journey? I think he knew very well that the princess of the Diamond Kingdoms has quite a bit of coin on her head, and that you’d be going straight through Crystal barbarian territory.”

Platinum clenched her teeth and took two steps towards Hurricane. “He knew I could handle myself! We broke out of Onyx Ridge and tore it apart from the inside!”

Smart Cookie sputtered and spun his head towards the princess. “WHAT?! You were at Onyx Ridge?!”

“Yes,” Platinum answered as nonchalantly as possible. “What of it?”

The Representative stumbled over his words several times before finally making a coherent sentence. “I was at Onyx Ridge too! I was with the Union armies that attacked the fortress and climbed the walls! I opened the gatehouses and let the rest of the army tear the place apart from inside!”

Clover excitedly stepped closer to Smart Cookie. “That was you?! I knew I saw an earth pony on those walls! You were fighting alongside Commander Jade!”

Smart Cookie nodded. “Aye, I was. And then the Chancellor and I helped her kill warlord Halite.”

Puddinghead butted in between the two. “And it was awesome!”

Hurricane raised an eyebrow. “And you all somehow survived that? How in the blazes…”

“Yeah!” Puddinghead exclaimed before invading Hurricane’s personal space and putting his nose within inches of the Commander’s. “And just what exactly did you do, hmm?”

“I killed a traitor.”

“That hardly sounds quite so glorious,” Platinum muttered off to the side.

“Streak Wing killed nearly a hundred soldiers by himself. He could have killed your ‘Commander Jade’ if he had wanted to.”

The conversation stalled and fell flat.

“…Pegasuses are stupid anyway.”

Puddinghead’s comment was enough to resurrect the arguing.

While the three leaders bickered and fought, their respective subordinates sat off to the side, watching. They glanced nervously between each other, waiting for the pivotal moment when blows would be exchanged, and the only armed one amongst them drew his sword.

Before that could happen, a loud cracking noise drew their attention towards the exit of the cave. With a collective gasp, they scrambled away in shock.

A solid wall of ice stretched and twisted across the entrance until it sealed the cave shut.

Clover ran in between the bickering leaders and broke them up, desperately pointing towards the ice. “Look! Everypony, look! The entrance!”

The leaders turned to look at the ice penetrating deeper into the cave from the frozen entrance. With shocked backtrotting, each one separated themselves from the others and came to stand near the edge of the cave wall.

“Damn it!” Hurricane cursed as he slammed his sword back into its scabbard. “Gods above! We’re trapped!”

“You two deserve this horrible fate!” Platinum wailed from across the room. “You’ve done nothing but argue and fight with each other!”

“You’re one to talk!” Hurricane countered, leering at her. “Most of the errant screeching in this cave has come from your mouth!”

“Yeah!” Puddinghead chimed in. “I haven’t been fighting nearly as much as you!”

None of the three leaders noticed as the ice began to climb around their hooves. All they saw was a red haze of hatred, and no matter how much they tried they couldn’t shake it away.

“How ridiculous! A unicorn never stoops to fighting!”

“That’s just because your Diamond Guard is absolutely pathetic! In a real world military engagement, it could never stand up on its own!” Hurricane’s eyes slid towards Puddinghead, not seeing the ice beginning to cover the Chancellor’s body. “Even the idiot Chancellor could raise an army that would make a mockery of it!”

“We don’t need an army to rule!” Platinum shouted back at him. “We aren’t totalitarian, power-hungry barbarians! The noble unicorns have no reason to stoop down to the brutish ways of the pegasi!”

“Yeah, well,” Puddinghead began, “um… unicorns are snobs!”

The three leaders growled at each other until, with a final cracking of ice, they were trapped as still as statues.

Clover, Pan Sea, and Smart Cookie all scrambled away from the ice until they found their backs pressed against each other in the center of the cave. With hideous hissing and popping, the frozen glass only continued to slither its way closer and closer towards them.

“We’re so dead!” Smart Cookie screamed. “So dead! We’re going to get all frozen over just like they did!”

Pan Sea held his hooves together and gestured towards the sky. “Garuda, keeper of the Great Skies, please have mercy on my soul, for I gave my life for the Empire to ensure its safety. Garuda, keeper of the Great Skies…”

Clover meanwhile tried to summon enough mana to her horn to break through the ice at the door. She squeezed her eyes shut and concentrated, her horn growing brighter and brighter with each passing second. She was just about to release it when a torrent of wind inside the cave blew her green mane into her face and broke her focus. Mana dissipated into the air along with hope.

“How in the world…” she began. Her eyes followed the swirling clouds above her up, up, up, until they came to rest on a circuit of thunderheads upon which three ethereal horses raced.

With a collective howl, the horses began to gallop faster, and the storm only worsened.

Pan Sea broke off of his prayers long enough to see the creatures spiraling above him. “What… are those… demons?”

“No,” Clover responded with a breath. “They’re windigos.”

“Windigos?” both Pan Sea and Smart Cookie replied in worried unison.

Clover nodded. “Star Swirl the Bearded taught me about them. They’re spirits of the winter that feed off of fighting and hatred. The more hate the spirit feels, the colder things become!”

“Then… this is our fault,” Smart Cookie murmured. “We three tribes… we brought this blizzard to our home by fighting and not trusting each other. Now… now it’s going to destroy this land, too.”

“B-but that doesn’t make s-sense!” Pan Sea stammered. “The tribes have been at each other’s throats for the past five years! Why now?! What do Grabacr’s minions want with us now?!”

“Perhaps our hate was so powerful and for so long that it woke the windigos from whatever plane they slumber in,” Clover said. She flinched as the ice made contact with her hoof, and she broke it free only for its polished sheets to ensnare her other hooves. “And now our bodies will become as cold as our hearts… all because we were foolish enough to hate.”

Around her, Pan Sea and Smart Cookie both stiffened as the ice fastened their hooves to the ground. They struggled briefly, but at the roaring of the demons above, it only continued to strengthen. Soon it had frozen their flanks to the ground, and a chilling numbness swept over their bodies as it began to climb their spines.

After a small sigh, Pan Sea turned to look over his shoulder at Clover and Smart Cookie. “Well… I can say that I don’t hate you two. You’ve done nothing to deserve it. I think you’re both admirable ponies.”

“I don’t hate you guys either,” Smart Cookie said as he pulled his chin away from the ice beginning to wrap around his neck. “It’s a shame; I would have loved to give you all a proper tour of Amber Field someday.”

“And I would have liked to have shown you Castle Burning Hearth.” With a small smile, Clover tried to twist her shoulders against the ice to frame Pan Sea and Smart Cookie in her sight. “But it’ll never be. We’ll never leave this cave to see our homes again.”

“But we’re all friends here, together,” Pan Sea said.

“Right,” Smart Cookie affirmed. “No matter what our differences, we’re all ponies.”

With sad smiles on their faces, each of the three ponies closed their eyes. The ice overcame them, crawling past chins, noses, eyes, and ears. It climbed to the tops of their skulls, finally ending just around Clover the Clever’s horn. With a final few pops and squeaks, another three immortal statues were added to the frozen wastes of the cave.

And all was quiet for a long, long time.

Chapter 15: A Trial of Fire