Silver strode into the room, tense but curious. "Hello?"
The door slapped shut behind him. "So, you think you can just move in, take things over?" A familiar figure emerged from the darkness, a lunar pegasus mare with a frown. "The Warlocks have had their eyes on you for a while now."
Silver blinked. Was this the force arrayed against him? He didn't want the Warlocks as enemies. "Nice to meet you again. It's been a while."
She smiled, exposing her fangs. "You remember me, good. I certainly remember you... You stopped chasing Princess Luna around, hmmph, a point in your favor." She spread her wings slowly. "Or did you? You've grasped royalty in your hooves. Do you plan to leverage that to secure her? Is she on your list of conquests?"
A thought flashed in Silver's mind. "Have you told her you love her?"
Perhaps the wrong thing to say. She was suddenly on him, fangs sinking into his throat and her weight bearing him to the ground. "Unlike some ponies, I can separate my lusts from my duties." She put a hoof on his chest as she released his throat. "So, no, I have not. Before you think to call for help, the others have silenced this room for us. It's just you and me. We either come to an accord... or only I'm walking out of this room."
Silver frowned even as his magic flared all around his assaulter. He grasped her from all directions and hurled her across the room as he sat up. "Not like this. Anything you get me to promise is meaningless. Talk to me like a peer, a friend I would prefer, but a peer works."
She hit the ground with all four hooves and easily danced closer, as if being hurled was a minor inconvenience at best. "We're not friends, or peers. We act without restraint, so don't consider court either." She licked over her blood-stained fangs. "You're not a pony."
"I look like one, smell like one, and act like one." Silver clopped a hoof on the ground. "I'm more pony than you're acting right now."
She bristled at the very idea. "More pony than me?! I come from untold generations of ponies. You? You weren't even born a pony. As if you were in any position to measure it."
Silver offered a hoof. "I don't want to fight. I want peace. Tell me what I've done wrong."
She raised a brow. "Huh, you certainly live up to Celestia's ideals of a pony, but they're hardly the only ones." She flared her wings out wide. "And you're going to become a prince and tip things more in her favor, a solar prince... You'll claim Luna, hop on top of her and convince her to embrace those same weak principles. Ponies need strength, the will to fight." She thrust a hoof at Silver so hard and close that it bruised his nose. "Not everything is willing to accept peace as an answer."
Silver tilted his head at that even as he rose a hoof to rub his sore nose. "Some might not, but most will. We'll lead from the front, with open hooves and a benevolent smile. Any that would declare war on us would have to face the censure and response of the whole world." He rose up to his hooves. "Besides, I didn't disagree. We should know how to fight."
"Should we?" She stalked in a slow half-circle around him. "And when would we have time for that while we whimper and hide from conflict?"
He sighed. "I'm not the best pony in the world. If I can figure out how to fight while pushing for peace, I'm sure others can too. Let me ask, why didn't you just try asking me a few questions. Why this?" He gestured around the dim room. "Did I seem that hard to approach?"
"I'm glad you realize that." She scowled at him. "You've thrown things out of balance... Our Princess was to create a lunar ascended, and here you are, solar as can be. Celestia must be so proud..."
He perked an ear at that. "Celestia didn't make me. I was created by..." His tongue became tied. Words refused to come.
"Who?" She stalked at him, violating his personal space. "Tell me! Who made you!?"
"I can't say."
"Can't, or won't?" She growled deep in her chest. "I'll make you if I have to."
Silver frowned. "Do what you want. I can't. I literally can not. Torturing me would do nothing but make you more clearly the bad guy in this."
She suddenly laughed. "Oh that morality... Still, there is a point there. I could work you over until you say whatever I want to hear, but I want the truth... Why? Why can't you say?"
Silver glanced away. "I would if I could. Celestia wanted to know too, but when I... I can't. Sorry."
She sank to her haunches. "Fine. I'll accept that as truth." She prodded him in the chest. "So, Stud. You followed a flash of tail nicely. Still looking to expand that filthy herd of yours?"
He sighed at that. "I figured it was another noble making a clumsy and blunt attempt at gaining my attention. I came to gently let them down."
She rolled a hoof. "Let's stick to simple things I need to know. Whoever made you, are they an enemy of the state, yes or no?"
"No!" Silver clopped a hoof. "If..." He couldn't say it. "You would recognize them..." Even referring to the gender of the pony that ascended him was impossible. "I love Equestria, and I think they do too."
"Fine." She narrowed her eyes a little. "What do you intend to do with your title?"
"First, claim it." He pointed vaguely off. "I need to talk to Celestia, schedule that coronation. I'll get my crown, and work to be worthy of wearing it. Look, this is pointless. I want your help, not to undermine Equestria."
"Help?" She hiked a brow at that. "What help would you want from the Warlocks?"
He smiled a little. "Well, you are good at what you do. If I were an enemy of the state, I'd be worried right now, but I'm not. I do craft spells, and I have a lot of questions. I think we could do more for Equestria, together, then as enemies or rivals." He offered a hoof towards her. "For the good of all ponykind."
She swatted his hoof aside. "As if you understand ponykind! You're not a pony. You're a damn naked ape with a pony suit, and a tacky one at that." Her face wrinkled. "Why do you insist on being what you are not?"
"Because..." He thought about it, hard and deep. "Because I made a choice. I was born a human, and you were born a pony, but I had a choice, and I made it. I decided to be a pony, and, damn it all, I'm going to be the best pony I can be." He rose to his full height. "Now, please, help me be a better pony, for myself and all the ponies relying on me."
Her expression became hard to read as she looked him up and down. "Huh... The zeal of the convert, in the flesh... Fine, I believe you." With a wave of her wing, the door to the hallway swung open. "Go. We'll be watching you. I'd keep a closer eye on your wife, by the way. She's delving into things that don't belong to lunar pegasi."
Silver blinked at the cryptic warning. "What's she doing? If you saw her getting into trouble, why didn't you stop her? Is she in danger?"
She suddenly lashed out, but Silver was faster that time. A sudden shield intercepted her incoming hoof, filling his vision with the bright magic of his effort repelling her attack. When it faded, she was gone. The room was empty, save himself.
He sighed softly. He didn't even remember her name. He remembered her, as a person, and as his trainer in reaching deeper with his reserves, but her name eluded him and he mentally kicked himself for forgetting such a thing. Why was he so bad with names?
He stepped out into the hallway, glancing left and right before starting to trot for his room, wondering what Night Watch was up to that would concern the Warlocks. "I'm coming, Night..." He didn't know what he'd protect her from, exactly, but he would be there for her and shield her from any danger that would dare to threaten her, that much he felt confident about.
Is it just me, or is Night Watch being accused of some kind of heresy for learning the voodoo?
7232303 To be fair, that pony accuses every being of heresy if they don't do what she wants.
7232330 as we are shown in the show is that there cosmology is compleatly different from ours and it is cannon that thy move the sun and the moon so i don't know what your going on about, its almost like you will only stick to the cannon when you like it and not use it at all when you don't,
here are some facts, discord is stronger than normal ponys and so strong the elements are needed, celestia do move the moon and sun, the day did change sarcastically without him using active magic which suggest that passively he is supper strong with reality breaking magic which we already know since he literally tore threw the 4th wall into our world out of anger and twilight can't evening make one portal and the one to the high school does not count because it has its own magic. yes some things are stretched and shortened to make ends meet like distants between places and time of day. what i know is that celestia only uses her magic for the sun two times a day.
now to the could breaking, no you are entirely wrong in that fact that clouds can only be broken that way, as it was told the ever free was 'unnatural' which suggest that the nature is actually natural with the rain clouds, as we see in the show. only things that can fly can sit on clouds excluding spells as seen when rarity falls threw the cloud. it is just moisture in the air and the sun does dissolve it which is how clouds evening get to the ever free, only reason thy do their cloud stuff is to make sure the crops happen right and everything is perfect. i do believe that some magic is put into clouds to make them more resistant but enough heat and thy will vaporize.
and with apple jack, she is the elite of the race and part of the very few farms, she has the most potent earth pony magic and specializes in plants specifically, apples but she does sell others.
with night mare moon, you need to remember that all of these ponys are the equivalent to super heroes and are the elite, she does have enough power to make night time eternal and survive because she did and we will have to suck it up that we will never know how, if i can't have the idea that there are other spells in this world, than you can't say the sequences like that are fake.
Wow, Night Wing (I think that's the name of that warlock, if I recall correctly) comes off as seriously having gone off the proverbial reservation here, to the point where she seems fanatical, if not deranged.
Needless to say, this is the problem with having a secret police force, particularly one that has 1) broad latitude in what they're allowed to do (if not outright setting their own agenda), 2) no particular degree of oversight performed on them, and 3) no accountability demanded of them. In essence, this entire group has been given free rein to pursue whatever actions they think are "right." Presumably they're trusted to act in the best interests of Equestria, but this entire chapter showcases what's wrong with that particular stance, since even reasonable individuals can disagree over questions of morality. It's far worse when one of them can effectively terrorize someone - even another alicorn! - in a fit of jealousy, particularly when she can dress it up in some quasi-racist sentiment.
In all honesty, this is all the evidence that anypony could need that this group needs to be disbanded, or at least heavily reformed. They might be great in covert operations, but that's no reason to give them such a wide berth to do whatever they want without having to answer to anyone. In fact, other than covert ops, I question the entire reason for keeping the group so clandestine. One could argue that that makes it easier for them to perform their duties, but that's easily countered by pointing out that giving them at least some degree of public profile (there can be a balance between this and telling everypony everything about them) can function as a deterrent.
Quite frankly, I think that Silver needs to talk to Luna about the fact that her private corps of ponies are going so far astray. It's one thing to take action against an imminent threat, or even an obvious-but-not-immediate threat. But there needs to be a hard line drawn between problems of physical violence and those of philosophical disagreement, and Silver falls squarely into the latter, which should put him completely beyond the warlock's jurisdiction...a concept that I suspect they know nothing of. With the way that Night Wing sounded, it wouldn't be out of character for her to want to assassinate Celestia and install Luna on the throne as the only princess...after all, that's what Luna wanted herself, until her recent return. The idea that Night Wing would lecture Silver on being a zealot would be laughable were she not so dangerous.
Celestia might have had a secret group of monster hunters (mentioned by "Agent Sweetie Drops" in Slice of Life), but even if we leave aside the fact that this group was specifically put together to hunt monsters, Celestia also disbanded the group. I think it's time for Luna to do the same. (For that matter, when did Luna put this organization together? I can't see them having operated autonomously for the last thousand years, but shouldn't Celestia have said something about Luna putting a covert group of violent fanatics together after she herself just got back from being from being imprisoned for being a violent fanatic?)
7232371
That's what I said. You're literally parroting me, and then claiming that you don't know what I'm saying.
This is your continued lack of understanding talking.
Okay, I think you're suggesting that when Discord used his magic to move the sun and the moon around, he was also using his magic to flagrantly ignore the tidal forces that you think would have gone with that. However, this ignores the similar lack of tidal activity when Twilight moved the heavens around as well, so that particular postulation doesn't seem very credible. Moreover, Discord did not tear open a wall into "our world." The portal to another dimension he opened in Make New Friends but Keep Discord was using live-action footage, but that doesn't mean that it's this world.
Citation needed...or at least it would be, except that what you're saying is flat-out contradicted by what we see in the show, where clouds are never shown to be dispersed except by physically breaking them apart (plus the issue with sending liquid water to Cloudsdale for them to be formed). If the Everfree Forest has "unnatural" weather, then it's unnatural in that it doesn't happen due to deliberate manipulation by ponies.
An unfounded presumption, since nothing in the show says that she's using "enough power" to prevent her eternally-dark kingdom from freezing, as opposed to that being the natural state of things.
But in all honesty, none of this matters, because I'm done talking to you. You honestly seem to have to struggle to put a coherent thought together, much less spell it out in any legible manner, and either cannot or will not engage in the most basic of critical thinking skills, let alone format your points in any sort of manner that is conducive to debate. Your theories are the worst kind of popular tripe, your methods are sloppy, and your conclusions are highly questionable. It's now come to the point where I'm not just repeating myself, but you're no longer even presenting any new ideas, let alone ones that survive even the most basic of rational inquiry.
As such, I'm no longer replying to any comment you make, and ask that you cease making any comments to me. I won't block you, in case you do make an effort to clean up your writing and your presentation, but I honestly don't believe that's ever going to happen. You'll waste no more of my time.
Whoever that Lunar guard is, if she came at me like that there would be blood. I don't put up with bullshit and her fanatical devotion to Luna has turned her to being a completely lunatic stalker who is blind to reason if it doesn't agree with her agenda. I wouldn't give 2 shits if my response turned to whole lunar tribe against me. If it did, then their devotion and loyalties would be just as skewed and misplaced. Their honor is messing with their reason. Step of the "higher than thou" honor plate and look at the real world. Shit doesn't always work the way you want it to. When those higher than you don't do things how you want them done but are still doing the right thing, that doesn't give an excuse to attack and try to force them to your viewpoint. That just makes you look like a judgmental hypocrite.
That mare needs to learn some tact, reason, and anger management. She also needs to quit being racist. Comments about "not a real pony", "filthy ape in pony skin", and such just make one look like a racist prick who doesn't care about the proper ideals and only about blood lines. That's low and petty. In this world where higher royalty is earned through actions, trying to claim purity as the way to go just makes one look bad. Royalty isn't just blood lines and noble births. Some of it comes from actions performed by those who have a good heart and the means to do something. Silver has done all that and then some. He is deserving of royalty. Saying he isn't because he started as a "filthy ape" is very demeaning and a very dishonorable thing to say.
That mare needs to take some chill pills and go think about her life.
7232377 You focused on the tone of the start of their meeting. What about the words was there anything interesting there?
7232440 I'm not sure what you mean. The most notable thing that comes to mind was Night Wing's (I'm still presuming that's her name) sophistry, particularly since she kept changing the accusations she leveled against Silver ("You're not good enough for Luna!" "You're not a real pony!" "Whomever made you an alicorn might be a threat!" "You're still just chasing tail!") whenever he pointed out how unreasonable she was being.
There was a bit in there where she mentioned "you live up to Celestia's pony ideals, but they're not the only ones," along with grumbling to the effect of "another damn solar alicorn." That would indicate a nod back towards lunar/solar ethnic tensions, but in all honesty it's hard to take that seriously, simply because she was all over the proverbial map in her complaints...and because Silver honestly seemed to pin down her real objection when he noted that she was in love with Luna. Quite the contrary, it made any protestations about "we lunar ponies are underrepresented/have no voice" seem like a fig leaf to cover up her pining for somepony she thinks she can't have.
7232462 Hmm. I thought the fact that, in the end, she accepted his words and sent him on his way with as close to a positive parting as she was going to get. She acceded to his arguments.
When someone lashes out violently on being called out on a point of relationships, thers something going wrong somewhere, and the more position of power they have, the more wrong things could be going.
As long as they black ops aint fallen as far as what grandad was doing, gun running to the rebels in the old conflict, while he worked behind lines for them.
7232483 She said that she believed him, but chalked that up to "the zeal of a convert," which isn't exactly the most ringing endorsement. She also said that she and her group would be monitoring his movements, which is her saying that they're going to continue spying on him, Night Watch, etc. I can only imagine how haunting that thought will be the next time Silver wants to make love to his wives.
In other words, he might have talked her down, but it doesn't feel like she acceded to his point of view. She didn't seem to acknowledge his counterarguments, and letting him walk out of there alive and unharmed isn't exactly a statement of "you've given me a lot to think about."
By the by, how are the warlocks spying on Nefertari without her knowing about it? Quite honestly, them trying to spy on her shamanism lessons, which seem sacred to her, should bring about immediate violence between her and them.
Next chapter: Nefertari (and Night Watch?) vs. the warlocks! Place your bets!
Is she on your list of conquests. - Is she on your list of conquests?
One eensy typo left over, it seems. I'm glad the food in Neigh-pon is so amazing, or I'd be going hungry,
*****
A solid chapter and excellent reading!
The warlocks are going to be a tough nut to crack. One wonders what their ultimate goal actually is if they somehow had a grasp of future events to the point that they know that Silver has bucked one possibility for another. One must also wonder how they had such a grasp of future possibilities and what their ultimate goal must be. Another Nightmare Moon?
Silver has quite the task ahead, but if the warlocks are moving as a rogue force then he has the resources of all the friends he has made thus far to aid him, while they have only what they have managed to secure within their little cadre. Moving in the shadows does limit logistics pretty severely. This is on the presumption that if they had the will and the power they would already have staged a coup and installed a military junta, so for now they must operate in secret.
Whoa Nightwing still has it bad for Luna.
Ok I get a feeling that she is gonna keep holding in her anger and blow up and find a way to blame it on silver just to look for a fight. I honestly don't understand why she is acting like this in the first place and in all honesty I feel like she is being unfair with silver especially now and is trying to force silver to do something that is wrong anyway that's just me rambling on, really awesome chapter.
But not jealousy, anger, desire, nor being a bitch.
Really, this is several accounts of assault on if not Royalty, at least a government official by a member of the armed forces. Grounds for being dishonorably discharged. And she does this based on feelings. And then she starts up some suprmecy shit. Silver being a black male before his conversion to pony, he takes racism very well, even being a pony by choice. Alot better than I handle racism as a black male.
7232350
She doesn't even have grounds to stand on.
7232377
A group of Monster Hunters would be a good idea to keep compared to a black ops secret group that it's only ponies, and how many countries have enough ponies to have a black ops group?
7232438
He says this, fights with Nef till Luna had to stop them, has killed in the alt world, but won't fight her? She possed more of a threat than Nef did and he fought less here. Discussing her racism is as follows, she's a bigot bitch that should swallow cyanide capsules.
7232563
7232589 Typos fixed!
Silver has something I, his human side, does not have. A few somethings, really. He has love, friendship, and even some magic (no friendship doesn't count, stop that!).
Like me, he would rather not fight if another option is available, but he's growing more and more comfortable in his skin and abilities. He feels he can fight, a skill I do not have, and will, if he has to.
Of course, Night Wing was also manipulating him. If she was really worried about what Night Watch was doing, would she not do something? She sent Silver scurrying off after her, leaving the area swiftly and helping to fuzzy the details of their meeting by a much more immediate concern.
I am betting this pony code change her name to screw ball.
Well, the mares are being much more aggressive. Is it that time again?
So the night guard knew there was supposed to be a lunar Prince?
Something sounds fishy...
Keep going! ;)
7232692
I'm sure Silver could have taken the time to repaint the walls red before checking on Night Watch.
7232692
And David, maybe I'm looking too deep into this, but this
Wouldn't that be calling Luna filthy cause she wants to join? Also, insulting your lovers should still be grounds for an ass kicking.
7234687 luna is not apart of it, she is just disgusted as she is racist.
ones (ideals)