The Birth of a New Kingdom

by Dranz_89

Twisted loyalties

Princess Platinum gracefully jumped from the window doing two… no! Three backflips on the air! The rope she took from one of the storerooms in the castle by outwitting the clever guard was perfect, stopping her fall right in front of the tower’s window. A simple teleport spell did the trick to get inside the tower again, she sneaked upon the castle’s hallways with a catlike stealth, no one in the castle noticed her presence.

“Oh, please! No way! You’re making it up!” Estrella said while she served some bowls of her ‘Slimy and Gluey Soup Special’ thing to the unicorn prisoners. “You did NOT jump from the tower! You have to be the craziest unicorn that’s ever lived to do that!”

Princess Platinum and Puddinghead were happily helping her. Arcana was also helping, though not happily, she tried so hard to stay put while serving the food to the prisoners but her body was trembling unceasingly and it was not because of the cold. Surrounded by earth ponies she feared for her life each time one walked next to her.

“That’s not exactly how it happened, but she totally did, yo!” The scout unicorn grabbed the bowl with his mouth and swigged it’s content as if he was drinking only water. “I saw her from the bailey, I was like: ‘Holy Cow! The princess is nuts!’ It was totally nuts! This stuff is delicious!”

“She jumped from where!?” Anyone could imagine Raystorm’s shocked eyes behind the cloth when he shouted.

“See? See? I got a witness! It was the only way out I could think of to save those earth ponies,” said Princess Platinum, “Not one of my smartest moves, I know. But I did make a difference that day! I did what I thought was impossible! I made the mighty King Lancer change his mind! I held a victory over my father! And more importantly I made a wonderful friend, that was the craziest day of my life. I think it beats jumping into the fire to save a mare that literally wants me dead.”

“Jumping into where!?” Raystorm almost choked himself with his ration.

“Ok, Estrella, it’s your turn. What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever done?” Puddinghead said, she served the bowl to the last unicorn and turned her sight to her with a curious smile.

“Ugh, fine… It’s not gonna top Platinum’s, though,” said Estrella, “And for the record, I don’t want you dead! I mean, I did before, but now I just really, really, REALLY don’t like you. Anyway, my craziest day was… ”

“Estrella, a fog is coming,” Seed Sower interrupted her, he was pulling a wagon filled with wooden boxes, “We need as many legs as we can to get the supplies in store. Miss Puddinghead, you stay here and make sure the prisoners stay where they are.”

Estrella hesitated for a second, glaring at Platinum’s eyes, she shifted her sight to Puddinghead, and after a short sigh she followed Seed Sower. Puddinghead just ignored her, served one last bowl of… soup, and grabbed another one for herself.

“Princess Platinum, we need to talk,” Arcana approached her, vigilantly watching over Puddinghead to make sure she couldn’t hear. She spoke lowly almost with a mere whisper, “This ponies, they might kill us any second, we need to get out of here!”

“What? No! We’re totally safe,” Platinum frowned and whispered back, her ears drooping to the sides, “I mean, Estrella still hates me but she knows my intentions are good… I think. Or at least, she won’t kill me unless Seed Sower wants her to.”

“B-But, Your Highness! Look at how they treat the others! They… ”

“Oh, please! Don’t ‘Highness’ me! I was treated like that, too, but I earned their trust. And besides, Raystorm deserves it! Look, once our ‘POP’ is finished, I’ll… ”

“The pop? What is that?” Arcana raised a brow, and suddenly, she heard another voice whispering to her ear from behind.

“The Peace Offering Present, is a gift from earth ponies to unicorns,” whispered Puddinghead, the grin in her face almost gave Arcana a heart attack, “It’s a wagon filled with a ton of food! Your princess is a genius when it comes to naming stuff! The unicorns are gonna be so happy that they won’t want to fight anymore and the war will finally end, we’ll become friends forever! We’re gonna have a great party with a great feast and live happily ever after!”

Even if Arcana’s ears drooped, she perfectly heard what Puddinghead said, but she just couldn’t believe it. Then Puddinghead changed her lively mood to a sinister one, her eyes grew colder, she calmly added, “How little do they know that the food is actually poisoned. They will suffer the slowest, most agonizing death of their nightmares.”

Arcana stood speechless and breathless, and the chill down her spine froze her whole body, she almost faints feeling like her mind was spinning inside her head trying to process that last piece of information.

The earth pony dropped on her back, laughing and kicking, “Oh, come on! Take it easy! It was a joke! Just a harmless joke! One of my best ones, if I do say so myself!”

Platinum lightly bumped her side to Arcana with a warm smile, and whispered to her ear while Puddinghead wallowed with her own laughter, “I know, I know, her jokes are terrible, but at least someone is having fun.”

---

The fog invaded town, and the earth pony villagers took refuge in their houses, locked the doors and the windows, and lit their fireplaces. Not a single soul was left outside, except Captain Raystorm and his followers, Seed had decided to let them just ‘chilling’.

Meanwhile, using the fog in their favor, four ponies sneaked in town, Private Hurricane and company traversed the empty streets, wearing white shawls, coats and scarves while Jewel used a spell to keep the four ponies warm, her leg still made her walk a bit awkwardly.

The glow on Clover’s horn was glowing with a dim light as she aimed it to the houses, one after another, until she stopped on one particular house, detecting a presence. ‘That weak and naive magic aura… it’s definitely her.’ Clover locked herself in her thoughts. Doubts invaded her mind, if she revealed the princess’ location, they will inform the king, and both pegasi and unicorns will attack.

“Do we have a winner?” Hurricane slowly said after a yawn, waking Clover from her thoughts.

“It’s… it’s nothing… ” Clover responded as calmly as she could, “She’s nowhere to be found, it seems that they moved her to another town… in the best case scenario.”

Hurricane yawned again and put her lazy smiled as she commanded to keep moving forward. That last comment brought hopelessness to Jewel’s heart, and rage to Pansy’s, she dashed to Hurricane’s side and talked to her in secret from the unicorns.

“She’s dead, right?” she said, “I think Clover also suspects it, I don’t see much hope from her or Jewel. What are we going to tell to Commander Cotton Cloud?”

However, Hurricane’s smile didn’t disappear, she just said “Act more natural, If you can’t be more optimistic, you’re depressing the mood. Besides, it’s not the commander what worries me. Our missions always have a danger far greater than being reprimanded by your commanding officer.”

Deep in town, they reached a wooden fence. It looked rather old and worn, but Clover gasped when she spotted what was beyond the fence. It was the prisoners, Raystorm among them. They felt the warm emanating from Jewel’s spell, and he spoke up.

“Who’s there? You’re a unicorn, right?”

“Raystorm!? You actually got here!?” Clover asked.

“Ha ha! Yo, captain! She didn’t think you could make it! And who can blame her? After trying over and over and over again, and failing over and over and over again, not even I would… ”

“Yeah, yeah, we get it, Scope! I’m terrible at tracking ponies! Just shut up!” Raystorm said, his patience was apparently running low, “Clover, it IS you, right?” He recognized her voice, he could almost see her through the cloth covering his eyes, “I knew you wouldn’t let the princess alone! She’s determined to stay here with the earth ponies, you have to talk some sense to her.”

“So she IS here, huh?” Hurricane asked while she and Pansy released the prisoners, “And she wants to stay? Why would she do that?”

Clover and Jewel knew the answer to that, and when Raystorm saw the two pegasi standing in front of him, “You are pegasi! You were with Commander Cotton Cloud! What is going on here?”

Hurricane was kind enough to tell everything to Raystorm, from the objective of their mission, the route they took to find the village, and she made a special emphasis mentioning several times the deal between the unicorn king and the pegasus commander and their plan of attack.

“I see… the king is that desperate. Then, allow us to join you in your mission, the safety of the princess is the sole reason why I came here,” Raystorm saluted Hurricane, and she gave a short nod to him.

“That’s not going to happen!” Clover jumped in front of the group, her eyes closed and her hooves nailed on the snow, her horn’s magic unleashed a gentle wave that pushed the mist away, exposing them to the earth ponies, “I’m sorry, but the safety of the earth ponies is the sole reason why I came here!”

Without the cover of the mist, the unicorns and pegasi were spotted, a squad of armed earth ponies surrounded them, decided to attack, but Princess Platinum was there to stop him.

“Clover?” Platinum was shocked.

“Platinum!” She shouted, jumped at her and hugged her tightly.

“Little one!” Arcana gasped, she almost dropped a pot of hot cocoa she was holding.

“Mom!?” Clover also gasped, and let go of the princess.

“Estrella!” Seed prepared his spear and his legs to charge at his enemies

“Seed!” Estrella also shouted, armed with a frying pan ready to attack at Seed’s command.

“Hurricane!” Private Hurricane shouted, waving her hoof in a friendly manner toward Seed with her usually relaxed smile, “What? Aren’t we introducing ourselves? Heh heh, well… it looks like our surprise attack went to hell, huh?”

“Clover, I told you NOT to come to my rescue! As you can see, I’m perfectly fine!” Princess Platinum glared at Clover with an uncommon anger.

“I know! And I’m sorry, ok?” said Clover, “But nothing is ‘perfectly fine’ back home, the king went insane, he plans to make an alliance with the pegasi and destroy the earth ponies with their help!”

“Whoa! And they weren’t supposed to know that!” Pansy intervened, she gave a small push to Clover, “Seriously! What is your deal? You’re compromising the mission!”

“Alliance with the what?” gasped Platinum, speechless upon gazing at the winged ponies.

“Oh no… it’s happening,” Estrella dropped the frying pan, her lips trembling, “They found us, Seed. They’re gonna kill us all, it’s over! We’re not safe anymore!”

“The alliance is not complete yet,” Clover explained, completely ignoring Pansy standing in her way, “King Lancer needs proof that you’re still alive, Platinum. No proof, no alliance.”

“First the unicorns, and now the pegasi too?” Seed turned the point of his spear to Private Hurricane, “You said this war didn’t concern the pegasi! Now you’re taking the unicorn’s side!?”

Hurricane yawned and took off her helmet, dropped it, and commanded Pansy to do the same, “And you didn’t say you were resorting to kidnapping. Put that thing away, please. Let’s all calm down before someone gets hurt, ok? Obviously, we all have some explaining to do. Let’s sort this out and I’m sure we’ll all be laughing about this one day.”

“I’m sorry if I don’t find it funny,” Jewel touched her necklace which began to shine with a radiant crimson glow, illuminating Princess Platinum, “Clover… please forgive me. The king named me his emissary, and my loyalty is with him. He placed his trust upon me with this mission, and after what he’s been through, I wouldn’t dare to betray that trust.”

“You… you… do you know the implications of this?” Clover glared at Jewel, hopelessness filled her eyes, “You just triggered the war! Thousands of ponies will die! Earth ponies, unicorns, pegasi, no one will be safe! Families will be torn apart, cities destroyed… but that’s fine because the king will be happy with you, right?”

---

King Lancer was sitted in his throne while a red glow was formed before him, Commander Cotton Cloud gave a few steps backwards on alert as the glow slowly took the shape of an hologram looking exactly like Princess Platinum. The king stood from his throne and got closer, the image of his daughter right before him, and still he could not touch her.

“My dear daughter… she’s alive!” The hologram slowly faded in thin air, and King Lancer turned his sight to Commander Cotton Cloud, “It is done, the unicorns and pegasi will work together.”

Commander Cotton Cloud nodded with a satisfactory smile on her face and quickly left the castle.

An hour later, a group of odd looking clouds floated above King Lancer’s Castle, their shadows covered the streets of the city and the unicorns took a moment to look up to the sky and contemplate the parade of clouds passing above their heads.

The clouds were shaped with like hills and gardens decorated with tree shaped clouds and several ‘statues’ of winged ponies wearing armors. Bridges connected each cloud as if the sky was a river. On the cloud hills, there were house shaped clouds, with several tall pillars that surrounded a house and held a wide triangular roof. The pillars were beautifully decorated with vertical canals in their structure.

Just directly above the city, the cloud stopped its movement and floated perfectly still. After a short while a swarm of pegasi jumped glided from the clouds, descending to the castle in a well organized formation. On the top of the castle’s keep, King Lancer and Commander Cotton Cloud watched the pegasi land on the bailey, without breaking formation.

In the center of the cloud archipelago, there was a colossal cloud sharing the same designs of their houses. A pegasus appeared from it, she spread her wings and glided gracefully until she landed right in front of King Lancer, and Commander Cotton Cloud stood firm, took her helmet off and saluted “My General, SIR!”

Her closed helmet covered her face but the king spotted her bright blue eyes through the visor of her helmet. Her black armor was adorned with a golden gorget and golden faulds contrasted with the mustard yellow of her coat. Once she removed her helmet, the king stared right into her sky blue gentle eyes, almost as gentle as her smile, and her tail danced along with each step she gave, and her crimson mane cascaded to the left side of her head.

“Why, hello there, ‘Your Majesty’ ” she spoke with a soft and kind voice, “My name is General Spades Ace… Allow me to give you my condolences for your deceased wife.” She bowed to him for a short time and then raised her face to give him a concerned look, “The fact that now your daughter has fallen victim to those wicked Earth Ponies… I just can’t stand it anymore! We pegasi are a race of warriors. We honor strength above anything else! Only the weak who can’t trust in their strength would rely on such barbarian tactics! King Lancer, It will be my pleasure to lend you my strength, and it will be an honor if you lend us yours.”

“The Earth Ponies have become a fatal threat to us unicorns” the king offered his hoof to her, “I accept your help with great pride, General Spades Ace. The pegasi are welcome in my city. Come, let us trace the details of our strategy with a great feast.”

General Spades Ace accepted his hoof with a grin, and together they walked into the castle, and Commander Cotton Cloud followed silently.

---

The earth ponies formed up, spears sharpened, and torches lit. Seed Sower reunited his stallions as Chief Puddinghooves brought his own soldiers ready to do battle until their last breath. Proud and adamant, the Chief stood before his troops, sharing his courage with the old, the young, and the scared.

“My earth ponies! The moment that we all feared has come, as we all knew it would. The winged ones have aligned themselves with the enemy, seeking nothing but our demise. Our odds are slim, and maybe a new chieftain will have to be chosen after this day, or the next one. But know this, we will march onward, to face whatever the fate bring us, from air or from land, we will… ”

“NO!”

The chief stopped when he felt Platinum’s hoof touching his shoulder, “You don’t have to. You say that you fight for your lives, but if you just go and fight you’ll find only death. It doesn’t have to end like this. You must retreat and live!”

He was about to object, but she didn’t gave him a chance to talk, “Chief, please… This is what I was trying to avoid, I didn’t want it to end in a fight… but I guess it’s too late for that. Please don’t do anything reckless, don’t let the hate guide your actions, be smart about this.”

Her pleading eyes, it was always her pleading eyes that made falter the will of Chief Puddinghooves. What was it in her eyes that he just couldn’t deny her?

“Dad! Let’s listen to her… I trust her! Princess Platinum is our friend!” Puddinghead hooked her trembling hoof to her father’s. Puddinghooves stood silent looking at his soldiers, brave ponies ready to fight until the end, but the mares and kids, even her own daughter only showed fear.

Chief Puddinghead inhaled and let go of a long and regretful sigh. “We march north! Send the messengers! We will retreat and regroup in the northern hills, wait for our chance to attack!”

“Oh, thank you, thank you!” Platinum hugged Chief Puddinghead, and he stood as if paralyzed until she let go of him, “I promise I will find a way to stop this, just give me some time.”

Platinum turned her back to them, sniffed, cleaned some tears, and snorted her sorrow away, she walked directly at Hurricane, ashamed and slightly annoyed, and without looking at her, she said with a hidden anger, “I’m ready to be rescued.”

Luna and Celestia both hugged Platinum, “No!” they both wept as Estrella tried to pull them with all her might, but their arms were firmly hooked around Platinum’s neck. “Come with us! You are an earth pony now! You’re part of the family!”

These words traveled all the way to Platinum’s chest, she put her arms around the fillies too. Estrella let go of her daughters, not knowing how to react.

“They’re right! Why don’t you come with us?” Puddinghead said, “We-we can find a new land to live, you can be one of us! Is that possible, Cookie? It might work, right?”

Smart Cookie looked at Platinum’s eyes, finding in them fear but also determination. Princess Platinum let go of Luna and Celestia, a long sigh escaping her chest, and pulling away the fillies with her magic.

“I could go with you, I could go with you,” she said, “But doing that will not solve anything. I want to end this war, and to do so I have to face my father sooner or later. When I came here, I thought I’d find kind hearts, but I mistook kindness with weakness. What I really found were strong and proud hearts. I tried to represent the unicorns in front of earth ponies, but this time I will represent earth ponies in front of my father! I will stop this war!”

Suddenly the earth ponies started stomping the ground, cheering and neighing anywhere. Princess Platinum looked around her, the fear and anger of earth ponies turned into courage and pride, all caused by her speech, a faint red formed in her cheeks, as she turned around and walked to Private Hurricane.

“So you’re the famous Princess Platinum, huh?” Hurricane took off her helmet smiling at her, “Now I understand why all this fuss about you.”