A Bloody Beginning
Banners streamed from the castle ramparts as the celebrations began to wind down. It had been a long day, and Princess Celestia, the eldest of the reigning monarchs of Equestria, looked over the celebratory processions with a small smile. To see her ponies so happy, full of life and celebrating the love between them all brought great feelings of warmth to her heart.
National Herding Day was a most joyous occasion for her little ponies. Since their lives were so short, compared to hers and that of her sister, ponies everywhere would gather with their loved ones and celebrate the joys of love and family. It was a bit like a unique combination of Hearts and Hooves Day, the Equestria Games and Hearth’s Warming Eve.
But the reason for the celebration was rather obscure to the ponies who celebrated it, though one of the princesses remembered the reason well. Luna did not recall the events leading up it, as her "Nightmare Moon episode", as it was being called, had occurred several years before it all took place. It was not all fun and games when it had started, but as time went on, a somber celebratory charade became a truly rousing occasion. The same had proven to be true for Heart's and Hooves Day, which was originally a cautionary tale about the dangers of false love and administering love potions to potential spouses.
When the light of the sun grew dim as it disappeared behind the horizon, Celestia retired to her quarters. For once, she had no notes to read, no documents to sign, and she had already received Twilight’s letter of friendship the night before. No, this night, she was alone, with just her bed, a cup of tea, and the memories of the past to keep her company. A long list of memories, some she’d rather forget, some she couldn’t help but smile at in remembrance, and some she had long thought gone but surfacing without her intention at the most random of times.
It had been a day like any other to one so long-lived as her, but as the trappings of the celebration were cleaned up by the combined use of magic and good old-fashioned tools, Celestia couldn’t help but think back on her life. Her long, long life, and the very events leading up to the creation of this celebratory day. It was so long ago, and yet she still remembered it clearly, as she did with most of her life.
It all began a little over one thousand years ago...
The door to the throne room burst open, with a guard rushing into the room with a frenzied haste that was undoubtedly caused by a matter of great urgency. One did not just barge into the throne room to converse with the princess, and this elderly captain of the guard was no exception to the unwritten rule. The only difference was that urgency took precedence over courtly mannerisms.
“What news do you bring, Captain Overbarrel?” Celestia asked, looking down at the guard. He had rushed in during a signing of the Treaty of Co-Prosperity, securing the futures of Equestria and the lands of the Griffins from the old ways of dealing with trade. Now goods and services could be sold or bought where somepony or somegriffin chose to sell them, without the mercantile restrictions that had led to stagflation within both economies. Even now both lands were expelling the cartels that had put such severe restrictions on goods that some ponies and griffins had starved to death for want of affordable food.
“The captains of the northern brigade have encountered a small group of Changeling Druids, your highness,” Overbarrel said, bowing low before his princess. “No blows were exchanged, thankfully, but the atmosphere wasn’t exactly a cheerful one, from what I have heard.” Quick and to the point: all captains of the guard were trained in such mannerisms so as to avoid wasting time with pointless courtly doublespeak.
To those ponies who didn’t know, the Changeling Druids were cousins to the Changelings of the wastelands far to the east. Whereas those Changelings fed off of love and other such emotions, their Druid relatives fed off of food as normal ponies did, though they were stronger when in groups due to a more collective mindset. This, coupled with their tolerance for colder temperatures and aversion to violence, meant the Druids were highly anti-confrontational with regular ponies, which was why Celestia had let a massive number of hives settle high in the northern highlands. Relations had never been great, but overall there had been peace and even some good trade to be had between the species.
“We are at peace with them, are we not?” the princess asked. “Our treaty with them is well over five centuries old, concluded not long after the overthrowing of Discord. Have they broken it in some way?”
“They might not have, milady, but some of their kind must have,” the captain replied, surveying the room as a captain of the royal guard was wont to do. “We have found several outlying villages entirely destroyed: we found no survivors of the attack, but the evidence suggests arcane magic.”
“Arcane magic?” Celestia asked, surprised by this information. “How do you know this?” While the Druids were indeed skilled with magic of all kinds, the arcane side of the art was something long forbidden amongst all the races of ponykind. Even the Changelings to the east, usually troublemakers and occasionally evil conquerors, felt arcane magic too dark, too evil even for their tastes. Plus, it had been outlawed and the ban had been strictly enforced by all of the nations.
It seemed somepony, or someponies, had decided to ignore such laws. “There were blood markers scattered over the unscathed houses, my princess,” Overbarrel said, removing his helmet to wipe a bead of sweat from his brow with his hoof. “Strange symbols, like those we have been trained to detect, were scattered amidst the burnt buildings. Pentagrams of words, likely ancient Ponillian, were inscribed in the very stones making up the fireplaces of many houses.”
Blood markers and similar symbols were the definitive marks of arcane mages, but the inclusion of ancient Ponillian was a more alarming aspect to the whole thing. Pentagrams were frowned upon in the world of magic, as it was often used as gateways to other worlds or wells of power. Time and time again entire countries had been laid to waste by forces released beyond the control of their masters, and only alliances of many folk had driven back the shadows time and time again.
The reason arcane magic was so reviled was that it violated a undeniable fact: magic is in the blood of all creatures. Whereas more "civilized" creatures would revere this, the wielders of arcane magic heeded neither warning nor held within them a sense of decency or good. To spill blood to perform all sorts of outlawed and highly dangerous magic was beyond reproach, and many arcane wielders throughout the centuries often met death at the hooves of the very ponies they sought to rule or control.
“This is indeed troubling, captain,” the princess said, snapping out of her historical reverie. “Send the northern defense brigade to investigate these findings further. No more harm must come to my citizens.” Ever since her poor sister had been consumed by her emotions and banished to the moon, Celestia had taken on all of her responsibilities, which not only included raising the moon at night, but trying to keep an eye on her subjects all the time. Many times she would sleep little more than a few hours, as there was always something to do, always a problem in need of fixing. Hopefully those responsible for these crimes would be apprehended quickly.
“Yes, my princess,” the captain replied, bowing low before his monarch. “What of the Druids?”
“I will send an emissary to their council: surely they must know of this, or least be told of such crimes.” The princess paused for a second, a thought crossing her mind. “There may be more players in this than we realize: the Druids themselves could be a target to these arcane wielders. Go at once, Captain Overbarrel.” It was important that she convene with the Druids as soon as she could, but the princess was far too busy to go in pony: her emissary would have to accomplish what she could not at the moment.
“Yes, my princess,” the stallion replied. With that, the captain turned and rushed out of the room, brushing past an emissary from the Minotaur Confederation.
“Ah, Senator Grassus,” the princess said, dipping her head slightly before the minotaur. “I trust your journey was pleasant?” As always, she had to be the voice of serenity and peacefulness in a room, as her position entitled her to more scrutiny by other species than any other pony in Equestria. Whatever she did reflected upon her ponies, and she had to be as polite and humble as possible in order to never cross another species.
“Indubitably, your highness,” the minotaur replied, seating himself beside the heir to the Griffin Kingdom, one Prince Highfeather. “Shall we proceed with the signing?”
As was tradition, all treaties needed to have a neutral third party witness the proceedings, and the Minotaurs had a long history of such neutrality. “Of course,” the alicorn princess said, nodding to the several scribes gathered amongst them. “Let us begin.”
It had been three weeks later that the matter of Druid Changelings was brought before the attention of Celestia once more. She was meeting with her general and discussing progress reports when two guards brought a third pony before her. In an instant she realized it was her emissary to the Druids, Lance Wellspring.
And yet, it wasn’t him, or at least not how she remembered him. The Lance she had sent to the Druids had not been so heavily scarred, or so emaciated-looking. His mane, normally so well-groomed, was long and unkempt, with patches missing here and there. His will seemed broken, and judging from the way the guards carried him, it was as if he had given up on everything.
“My princess, I am sorry I could not find you sooner,” the emissary said as the guards gently lay him down near Celestia’s throne. His voice was weak and rather strained, as if the very action of speaking was rather difficult.
“What happened, Lance?” Celestia asked. She had always had a soft spot for those of a scholarly position, likely due to her own fascination of books and scrolls. Perhaps that was why Lance's father had been her personal assistant, even though he had been an earth pony and not a unicorn as some would assume her assistant would be.
“We were attacked not long after we left the Druidic Council, milady,” the earth pony said. “The Druids had no knowledge of the attacks I was sent to inform them of, and when presented with the evidence, there was revulsion, hatred even. They said they would look into it, but that feels so long ago...”
“Who attacked you?” Celestia said, stepping off her throne and gently walking over to her emissary. It took gall to attack a royal emissary and his escorting party, even in the wildest of lands. Most ponies preferred peace to violence, and those that did not still usually stuck to a guideline of engagement.
“It was the rogues who attacked those villages, your highness,” Lance said. “They were Druids: their appearance matched that of their kind.”
“You are certain of this?” the alicorn asked, transfiguring the small rug under the stallion into a cushion. "It would no bode well for us if we were to make a move against the Druids as a whole, lest we spark a war."
“They... bragged about it, after they had rounded us up,” Lance said, his hooves looking like somepony, or something, had ground them on a hard, grating surface. “They bragged how they had set the buildings ablaze with poies still inside, on how the unnatural fire they conjured consumed them as if it were alive. Then they talked about what they did to the remaining ones, and what they were going to do with us. The survivors, anyway: the lucky ones had died first, princess.”
“Survivors?” the princess asked, her rage spiking inside her. She did not tolerate the deaths of her subjects, but hearing the "lucky ones" died first was something that made her blood boil. “There are more of your party still alive?”
“N-no, my princess: I am the last,” Lance replied, tears forming in his eyes. “They... these rogues, they were Druids all right. But they were monsters, savages... the arcane magic they used... It was horrible.”
“What did they do, Lance?” Celestia asked softly, struggling to keep her cool.
“The... the blood magic... some of the ponies melted before our eyes into piles of... of... of... organs,” Lance said, starting to sob after he managed to say the word. “They... they ate their remains like... like beasts! Roasted them over spits!”
The princess felt her rage jump not one, not two, but twenty notches. Cannibalism was something abhorred by all the sentient species of creatures, even more so by the herbivorous kind. They could of course survive off the flesh of their own kind, due to the inherent magic in them all, but such a thing was beyond reviled in the eyes of the civilized world, and even the uncivilized saw it as an abomination.
“What of the others?” Celestia asked, her face darkening as her rage leaked through her calm visage. "What became of them?"
“They... they were twisted by the arcane magic into... things,” the stallion said, his sobbing intensifying: it was obvious whatever he had seen had scarred the poor pony for life. “They... they were forced to turn on each other. They were made to fight, to die at the hooves of each other, for the amusement of our captors. I escaped after one of the guards, drunk on who-knows-what, accidentally sliced one of my bonds free.” He started to openly sob, his words becoming rambles of a mind shattered by horrors nopony should ever have to witness.
He kept repeating the word "blood" over and over, so much so that Celestia gently touched him with her horn. With a small burst of magic she soothed the stallion's nerves, causing him to fall into a deep slumber. Still he cried in his sleep, a sad cry that would have made any with a weaker constitution break down as well.
“Take him to the hospital: see if the doctors can help him,” Celestia said to the two guards. With curt nods, the two ponies hoisted their fellow stallion onto their shoulders and trotted off with him, the echoes of the sobbing pony fading away none too soon.
Celestia whirled in place, her mind a frenzy of activity. Such disrespect for life could not go unpunished. Her northern defense force had been searching for these monsters for weeks, with only scraps of information that lead to nowhere.
But the rogues had made a mistake: they had attacked a personal representative of Equestria, which was a direct attack on the princess herself.
“General High-Hoof, ready my guard,” she said to her general, who had a tear running down his snout. The general was one of Celestia's oldest advisors and had needed to hear Lance's testimony as much as anypony. His eldest son, a proud colt, had been with that emissary as his personal bodyguard: now that the news of Lance's survival was made known, High-Hoof knew his son was gone. He had left behind a widowed mare and two fatherless foals. How was he going to tell his daughter-in-law and grandfoals that their husband and father was gone?
“Yes, your majesty,” the general said, a determined and angry look in his eyes. He now had a stake in this retribution as well, something few other ponies could attest to. He had lost his eldest son to these monsters, and any pony in their right mind would want swift and terrible vengeance. “Shall I have the royal squires retrieve your armor?”
“Yes, general,” Princess Celestia said, her voice taking a deadly note that sent a chill up the general’s spine. “No more will my ponies be slaughtered by such cretins.” She turned to the general, her eyes ablaze in a fiery glow. “The rules of war do not apply to those who slaughter innocents and break the laws all sentient creatures hold dear. We shall comb every valley, leave no cave unexplored, no stone unturned. When we find a Druid responsible for these crimes, we destroy them on the spot. No mercy, no parlay, no prisoners: understand?”
Celestia was never like this, but time and time again, her personal feelings were overridden by the desire to see her ponies safe. If she had to go to war with a sect of a race that they had been having relatively good dealings with for centuries, she would not hesitate. First she would meet with the Druidic Council and see if they had any say in the matter. Whether or not they would help the alicorn made no difference to her: she would see these monsters brought to justice.
“Y-yes, your highness,” General High-Hoof, slowly backing away before running off, the sound of his hoof-steps disappearing as he ran down the corridors.
Celestia turned to face a window, her mane glowing brightly in the sun of the day. “For the first time in centuries, we go to war to have peace,” she said softly, knowing fully what lay ahead. Arcane mages had never been much of a problem before, but she remembered the dark times, during the time of Discord. They had flourished in the midst of all that chaos, and now it seemed after centuries of absence, some had returned to continue their nefarious work.
This would not stand: she would not let any more ponies die. She could not: every death ate away at her conscience like a parasite, a parasite that could only be removed when no more of her citizens died.
It was time to show these barbarians what it meant to declare war on Equestria.
