The Three Sisters: Like Fudge

by Wanderer D

Subversions

Shining Armor marched next to his wife at the front of the army, but his attention wasn't on the road that would take them to the intersection where the Balrogs and the Deer would meet. No. It was instead focused on a single changeling, who currently was pretending to be a pony.

Green Darner had the same goofy smile that had carried him through impersonating Shining Armor, inviting hostile parties for dinner, potentially starting another war, being choked by Shining Armor himself, threatened by Princess Cadence, and other incidents. All within the last twenty four hours. Oh, and he had sent Flash Sentry to his death. That was another thing to add to the list, which left Shining conflicted.

'On the one hoof, he was a young, promising officer under my command…' Shining Armor reasoned as they marched. 'On the other, Flash has been trying to hit on my sister and she caught him once in her room, not only going through the panties Sunset Shimmer had gifted her, but also apparently he had tried them out and stretched them beyond any help. Which is inexcusable for any soldier! Especially those under my command! Despicable! Unforgivable!'

"What the hay are panties anyway?" he muttered.

"Did you say something, my lord?" one of the guards asked.

"No," Shining responded, shaking his head. "Nothing important." He studiously ignored Cadance's raised eyebrow. "I see the intersection just ahead, right next to the forest's edge. Let's stop here."

The soldier nodded and barked orders as the troops slowed down and spread out. The Equestrian troops that had emigrated with him to the Crystal Empire were tense and ready, while the Crystal Empire ones looked more confused than anything, and Shining once again questioned just what kind of training they had received.

Soon enough, those thoughts fled from his mind as one of the scouts shouted: "The deer! The deer are coming!" 

Shining stared at them in awe, taking every detail into his very soul.

The deer delegation came with the chimes of crystal bells, mixed with a rattle of some sort, maybe created by wooden instruments. A slight chorus of birds, wind and leaves followed each careful step as a radiant halo of white light seemed to palpitate with wholesome goodness in between the deer troops. Each deer was decorated with green cloth straps, embossed with silver and gold in the shape of leaves or symbols of water and air and their antlers reflected the light in away that twisted it just so to create slight moments of pure rainbow-like effects.

In front of them, a whole shoulder, head and antlers taller and stronger-looking than all the deer behind him, was another deer. But this was no common deerfolk. 

His chest and shoulders were wide and strong, decorated with a dark-green cape held in place with a golden clasp, intricately etched to the exact image of The Triple Leaves, symbol of the Free Nations of the Forest. Few knew, in this day and age the true value and significance of that clasp, for it was indeed the fabled Laurië Tangwa, forged with only three strikes, deep in the forest under the roots of the Home Tree, at the exact moment that both the rays of the Sun and the Moon had reflected on the Sacred Lake at the top of the tree and the water dripping from above had been used to quench it.

A green belt crossed his chest, engraved with ancient runes, each representing one of the stars that blessed the Deerfolk with their light, with a larger one, symbolic of I NénarYönder, the star that shone the day the first deer had grazed on the grass of the world. And from this belt hung the mighty Melca Ecet, the mighty curved sword, rumored to have cut the hoof of Grogar. His front hooves wore pure Silver Tál Telmes, which were rumored to give him running stamina beyond the ken of mortal understanding, and finally above steely-grey eyes, his velvety antlers were decorated with what could only be the Cor Lamime Hithlain, a string of bells enchanted to guide their owner through any darkness and any illusion that might stand in their way. 

This was the legendary Cúthalion Autumleaf, the great leader of the deer people for over a thousand years. A deer that—rumor had it—once taught the secrets of the stars to Celestia after Luna was exiled, and to be known as an enemy to Cúthalion Autumleaf, was to know despair.

Shining sniffled and wiped the tears from his eyes.

"Shiny, if you keep staring like that I might have to divorce you."

"Oh, right!" Shining coughed at the voice of his wife. "Of course, dear. Let's—"

"The Balrogs! The Balrogs come!"

Shining and Cadance turned to the other side of the road, where the Balrogs now appeared. 

Shining noted that each step they took scorched the earth under them, and they all wore a simple lioncloth, leaving the rest of their muscular bodies exposed. At the front, there was a bigger one, and if you stared too long you could sort of hear the ending strands of a guitar riff.

"Hubba…" 

Frowning he turned to raise an eyebrow at Cadance, who was openly drooling. He smirked, leaning in for his own jab, "Love, if you keep staring like that I—"

"Shut up and let me have this!"

"...yes dear."

The Alpha howled, allowing the rush of energy to seep into him as he and his pack of fifty wolves jumped out of the forest, fangs bared and eyes glinting with bloodlust, smelling the scent of pony just beyond their borders.

"DIE PONIES!" he roared, just as it registered in his mind that it wasn't just a couple of ponies… but a whole army.

Time seemed to slow down as he turned his face to look at the army of deer to his left, all of the visible ones already casting spells. As his time-slowed perception caught up with that and he braced himself for impact, he instinctively tried to turn in the other direction, only to see the biggest, meanest demons he had ever seen. The biggest of them was already grinning.

It was then that he thought it might have been a good idea to listen to that wolf merchant that had told him to just make peace with the ponies.

"Okay." Cadance kept her eyes carefully focused on Shining Armor, and not on the cleaning crew that was removing the last bits of wolf from the area next to the forest. "You have thirty seconds to explain exactly why this slave thing is a good thing."

Bloodborn Aleguzzler and Cúthalion Autumleaf exchanged glances. "Well," the Balrog King started, "it goes back to when Sombra decided to extend diplomatic relations with us and the Deer."

"Of course, neither of us wanted anything to do with that megalomaniac," Cúthalion stated with a snort. "He was an uncouth idiot who had taken over the Crystal Empire and brainwashed his citizens, manipulating everything so that even those that were not directly influenced by his spells, were subject to his lies and paranoia… and he had such little understanding of the world outside his immediate sphere of influence, that he tried to manipulate us into turning against each other."

"How does an idiot come into power like that?" Shining asked. "Our impression of him was different. All we really knew was that Sombra was powerful and magically very competent."

Cúthalion snorted. "He stole power. He controlled some things by breaking the ones he couldn't understand. He claimed threats existed where there weren't, that other rulers such as Celestia loved and admired him when they didn't, and threatened the world economy for his ego. It doesn't make him smart, it makes him an opportunistic liar. Since he was a 'king' the only way to remove him was the traditional way, otherwise he would have been voted out the moment he opened his mouth."

"History is full of fools that have obtained station and power through luck or betrayal. They don't tend to last long, although the damage that they do lasts much longer." Bloodborn Aleguzzler snorted. "Since we are the leaders of our people, we couldn't just ignore how our neighboring nation was growing increasingly isolated. Sombra was not fond of non-ponies, but he was still more hungry for power and recognition than he was xenophobic. His spells were effective only on ponies, so he wanted us to either exterminate each other, or declare our allegiance to him."

"Of course the idiot did not understand the true nature of our ancient conflict," Cúthalion said with a roll of his eyes. "He assumed that our war would end up in blood spilled. But, with things as they were, he figured that that would not happen unless he got involved directly. So he made a choice and asked the Balrogs to come visit him, in order to seduce them to his side."

Bloodborn grinned a surprisingly vicious smile. "And of course, I accepted! No balrog worth his ash would ignore a party invitation! But I also wanted to mock this pretender. He was no leader, and he thought himself smarter than he was, so Cúthalion and I discussed the matter in secret. We could not simply insult him to his face. Starting a war would only end in the ponies being massacred."

"So we decided to make his so-called power into a mockery," Cúthalion explained. "Sombra's power over his people was born of lies, secrets and slavery. So I suggested—"

"Hold on, it wasn't your idea!" Bloodborn countered. "I'm the one that came with the plan!"

"Yes, yes," Cúthalion groaned, rolling his eyes and glancing with half-lidded annoyance at his fellow ruler. "But the original idea came from me. If you recall I was the one that said: 'What if we somehow let his subjects experience freedom for as long as we're there?"

Cadance and Shining Armor blinked. "What."

"But you demanded slaves!" Cadance said, pointing her hoof accusingly at the balrog.

Cúthalion's smile became almost as vicious as Bloodborn's. "Quite."

Letting out a guffaw, Bloodborn shook his head. "When Cúthalion suggested that, I sort of threw out there that it would be very amusing to completely subvert his false status by distorting the meaning of the word 'slaves' when it came to us balrogs visiting, and demanded that whenever we sent a delegation of balrogs to the Crystal Empire, he was to provide us with a list of slaves for our underlings to toy with."

"I fail to see what is so amusing about that."

The Balrog King raised an eyebrow. "What you forget, princess, is that we Balrogs take more amusement on twisting things for fun than for evil. What good are a bunch of morose ponies tending to our every whim, when what we want is to feast on positive energy and beer?"

Cúthalion nodded knowingly. "That is the same reason we have three thousand years of so-called war between our people."

"So…"

"So," Bloodborn continued, "while I was drinking beer and Sombra's best wine. While I was demanding the best of his food, and complimenting him on that stupidly ridiculous getup of his… my entourage was celebrating with the 'slaves'. They ate the best food in the kingdom, drank the best alcohol, played to their heart's content, brought their children to ride on our backs as we flew around, showed off their art, their poems and their songs."

Cúthalion nodded, grinning at the dawning understanding in the face of the two ponies. "We subverted the meaning of the word… we couldn't free them immediately, but we turned his mocking word into a festival of sorts whenever the balrogs were there."

"And with Celestia and Luna making their moves, we had plenty of visits to the Empire," Bloodborn added. "Not only were the ponies in the parties able to enjoy themselves, but we also slowly broke the spells cast on the Crystal Empire guards, until only a few remained loyal to Sombra through his magic."

"In the meantime," Cúthalion continued, "I engaged Princesses Luna and Celestia, first through dream magic, then personally. I made them aware of our little game… without explaining too much, lest a spy get word to Sombra, but the three of us devised a plan to have him confront the princesses on his own, while allowing the Crystal Ponies to take a word with horrible connotations, and make it their own, using it to mock the system that oppressed them."

"We conspired with the captains and generals of the Crystal Empire," Bloodborn said, "so that his army would ever so slowly lag behind him. When he fought the Princesses, we never aided him, his army was on its way back to the empire, and he found that—despite his boasting—he was no match for them."

"So, Shining Light of my Eyes, Most Exalted Sensual Entity of Love, Mistress Whose Hoof The Empire Bows To, Princess Cadance…" Quartz Quill whispered reverently. "May we still—"

"Look," Cadance interrupted, raising a hoof. "First of all, I've told you before to stop calling me those many titles. Second of all, if Shining is okay with it, you can stay tonight. Third of all, as much as I understand the nature of what happened now, I am still not comfortable with using the title of 'slaves' in some sort of twisted positive sense." She took took a deep breath, glancing at the deer and balrog. "I understand why you did what you did, and what it meant to them…"

Bloodborne and Cúthalion looked at each other, then back at Cadance.

"But that is a time that is past, and I think that while it served its purpose a thousand years ago to mock that despot, it only makes sense when you're doing that to his face. Now that he's gone back to pompadour hell, there is no need for anypony to call themselves 'slave', mockery or not."

"But…" Quartz Quill shifted in place. "My queen, the ponies will be very disappointed if this doesn't happen…"

Shining smiled, placing a hoof on her shoulder. "I don't think my wife is planning to cancel that."

"Of course not," Cadance said, smiling at her secretary. "I just think it's time to twist again, into something better."

"Oh?" Bloodborne asked, standing a bit straighter. "How so?"

"We make it a city-wide holiday," Cadance said, smiling as she faced the others. "And those ponies who offer to work with Balrogs during this holiday will just be called something different. I can think of no better way to spit in the face of the memory of a tyrant like Sombra, than having a festival celebrating every time that he was fooled."

The gathered monarchs grinned at each other. 

"Then let the celebrations begin!" Cúthalion declared.

"Yes!" Bloodborne laughed. "I have plenty of new fur pelts to show off!"

As they started to move out, Quartz Quill blinked. "Wait, my queen, I think I misheard, when you were listing the things you wanted—"

Cadance cupped her chin in her hoof, leaning forth until she could whisper in her secretary's ear. making it twitch. "I know everything you have been saying about me and Shining. So let's find out if you have the stamina for it." She straightened. "But first… we should get this party started."

It took surprisingly little time to get all three armies marching together, and it was then that a thought crossed Shining Armor's mind. "So… I've always heard that you both had a long-standing rivalry going on… in fact the wars we've heard of are legendary, if a bit obscure on the details."

Cúthalion glanced at Bloodborne before looking forward a bit frostily. "You mean the battles between the Golden Leafs and the Hellriser Maces."

Bloodborne laughed. "Still sore about that last one?"

Cúthalion grumbled noncommittally. 

"I'm sorry, what was that?" Cadence asked.

"..."

"I'm afraid I didn't catch it," she repeated narrowing her eyes at the deer.

"Those are our… hoofball teams."