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Preludes3,089 words
I Wear Midnight4,603 words
Frontiers2,424 words

Frontiers

The border between the revitalized Griffon empire and Prance was best described as overwhelming. It was a land of extremes and gratuity. The forests were dark and endless. The mountains jagged peaks ominously waiting in the distance. There were few roads or towns to break up the inhospitable wild, and few griffons or pegasi to mold the weather towards a more gentle sort. Storms raged for days, sometimes, feeding off of the excess natural magic that seeped from the ground. All things in this world were magic, in some way or fashion. Some things possessed magic that was simply more… usable. Exploitable.

Naturally forming gaxite deposits were lucrative, with the proper infrastructure and knowledge. A mage would pay handsomely for just a smidgen of the stuff, a few crystals, and to sit on top of a vast wealth of it would be to never worry about one’s treasury again.

Provided, of course, that the nation which controlled such deposits had the proper means of processing the raw gaxite. Neither Prance nor the griffons had that vital piece of the puzzle.

Wars are about something. Pride, perhaps. Resources, more likely. Living-room, that one was a novel expression, but in the end the old adages of purpose and money attached themselves quite readily to the business of war.

It was really amazing, Tribune Ice Storm thought as he sat atop his perch, what ponies and griffons would do to acquire simple things. Sometimes, he wondered if irony were reason enough.

Not that it was his place to reason out the ways and works of those far, far above his paygrade. At least, it wasn’t his place to do so where others could listen in. No, first and foremost, Ice Storm of the Solar Guard did the job that was in front of him with dedication and precision.

At the moment, that job meant waiting.

Ice Storm didn’t mind waiting. He was a patient stallion, after all. Service in the guard, eleven years of it, had taught him a stern and stoic patience. He’d learned in those years of guard duty, standing in front of important things and signing in important ponies who wished to enter important places, that waiting should never be wasted time. The brain is a marvelous, industrious thing, and in the time that others spent staring off into space wishing to be let go for the day, Ice Storm had learned how to think.

Thinking, really truly thinking, was harder than it seemed.

He’d had a lot of time to think on the Prench border, and what he’d seen to think on had not been encouraging in the slightest.

The mission could be simply, if deceptively, summarized as observation. He was to observe and report on everything. The quality of the Prench troops, their disposition, their armament. The conditions of the border, both in preparations for war and the topography.

It wasn’t only foreigners and foreign lands that he was tasked with keeping track of, but also unfamiliar compatriots: Lunar soldiers. Namely, a contingent of Nightshades, Princess Luna’s personal guard and elite force. He’d not worked with them before, and so far he was not terribly disappointed. Bewildered, yes, but they’d performed admirably.

He only wished he could say he felt as positively about the news they had brought.

Strategically, the entire situation could best be described as ridiculous. The border was long and half of it was barely inhabited, which meant that there were few if any roads for the maintaining of proper supply. Moving troops through thick forest and mountains? The republic’s attempts at mobilization so far had been frustrated, with what little in the way of a standing army that existed making truly abysmal progress in setting up a coherent front.

No fortifications that would last. Inexperienced commanders and inexperienced troops. The only things that the Prench had in their favor were vast reservoirs of money and the chaussers, rugged bands of frontier ponies who had been recuirted to serve as the local protection against monsters for these outlying areas.

He’d observed them himself a day before and left feeling impressed, but not overly so. They were determined and they were far more suited for the kind of fighting this front would see, if things went sour, but they couldn’t hope to hold territory. It wasn’t a question of skill or courage. It was a question of numbers and supply. It always was.

The griffons, at least, were in little better shape.

Ice felt an itch in his feathers and began to preen. Another thing he’d learned in the guard: take care of the basics, and soon enough the complex things unravel right in front of you.

The griffons weren’t much better off. In the pleasant haze of preening, his mind scanned over ghostly afterimages of hastily written reports. The standing army of Griffonia was certainly larger, but the Nightshades who had crossed the border had reported a distinct lack of cohesion and discipline. Their camps were, frankly, sloppy. Their soldiers slovenly, using equipment that seemed almost salvaged at times from the wreck of history.

In a way, it was insulting. He had spent most of his adult life in the service of crown and country, learning the art and the science of combat. A decade and more spent studying diligently from a dozen generals of old, keeping up with the changing theories on supply and the impact of industry on mobilization. He was ready.

It was always the idiots, the unready, the unwitting. It was always the only ones who couldn’t handle it who got thrown into the fire. Line upon line and row upon row, waiting with bated breath like schoolcolts for the—

A rush of air and the flapping of leathery wings distracted him. Their owner distracted him even further, but that was to be expected. It was, in a way, her job, and like Ice Storm, the mare who landed landed beside him was dedicated to her work.

She kissed his cheek and he snorted. “Amaranth, you’re on duty. Moreover, I’m on duty.”

“Actually, I believe that you’re officially on your honeymoon, dear. However, if you insist… Tribune, I do actually have my report.”

Ice Storm sighed. “Forgive me. I was—”

“Brooding.”

“Yes.”

“Usually I would tease you ‘bout it, but I’m really just not in the mood today, Cap.” Amaranth laid her head on his shoulder and sighed. “I’m assuming no good news has come through since yesterday.”

“No news at all, in fact. Which is not the worst outcome.”

“Yeah.”

“Chin up, my heart,” he said, admittedly only after his eyes darted from tree to tree, hoping that no one saw them. “All will come right. I have faith in my princess, and I have faith in yours.”

“I do too. I just don’t have faith in…” she threw a hoof up. “Them. You know.”

He nodded, for he did know. “It is hard to hope. I believe it was you who first said that to me.”

“And I’ll say it again. It’s one thing to know, and it’s another to feel the truth of it, I guess. I don’t know. I just… I’d like to go home.”

“As would I.”

Amaranth separated herself briefly and slouched her way out of her flight-friendly saddlebags. Ice Storm looked her over. She was beautiful as ever—dark gray coat, jet black mane, marigold eyes, leathery batlike wings which still perplexed him even now. But she was tired. He could see it, though Ice could see her attempts to hide that the stress of constant action was catching up to her.

They’d had little sleep for a week now. Nightshades left and returned at all hours of the night, and even if he had time for sleep, Ice found himself woken abruptly to receive and transmit further reports back to Canterlot by magic flame.

Every time he looked into that green flame, he thought about her. Where was she? How was she? He had seen her flying in his mind’s eye, her tufted ears up and alert, leathery wings spread and silent on the evening breeze. He had seen her roosting in tall, imposing pines, eyes like far off stars or lamplights or campfires, something, and the squabbling griffons below. He had seen her safe and in danger, pursued and pursuing. He had seen sometimes her hoofblades spring forward into readiness and seen her bare her fangs before the brief, horrible struggle.

But he did not see those things now. He simply saw her unceremoniously stuff her face into the saddlebags to root around for the crumpled scroll and return with it in her mouth. She smiled around it before Ice rolled his eyes and took it because of course she smiled.

“So, what am I passing on to Canterlot?” he asked after he had set the scroll on the sending plate. He fumbled around in his own pack, hastily set against the tree’s trunk, for the flint.

He could hear her lying down on the observation post’s flat deck and he was once again glad that they had been given permission to use it. It was a lot better than the alternative.

“More of the same. Griffons have moved another four thousand through the pass. The wings help.”

Ice nodded. He found the flint and carefully worked it with his hooves until a spark caught the message in the enchanted plate and it went up in green flame.

“Ice, do I have time to grab some sleep?”

The tribune nodded without turning, still staring at the plate. “Yes.”

He was knocked right out of his reverie when Amaranth draped herself over his back, right between his wings.

Flushed, he nevertheless refused to shake her off. “This is a bit… ah…”

“Lunar regs,” she said, and he stilled. Such weariness in that voice.

“Yes, once again I am amazed at the laxitude of your outfit,” he said, without heat and with a small smile. “I am not sure whether it was a good or bad thing that I was asked to be the liaison between the Nightshades and High Command, Amaranth.”

“Why’s that?”

He chuckled. “If you lie down and let me drag your bedroll out, I’ll tell you.”

She grudgingly detached herself and Ice Star pulled her bedroll over to her. It had been next to his own, half-open. His wife rolled into it and groaned softly.

“Wings hurt.”

“I figured they would.”

“So why’s it bad, Cap?” she asked.

“Having the two highest ranking officers married is a bit awkward, don’t you think?”

“Eh.”

“It’s the kind of thing Solar regulations were designed to avoid. Entanglements… they complicate things.” He sat next to her now, watching the way her chest moved with each breath. “I thought about you all day.”

“Liar. You ran numbers all day.”

“When I wasn’t thinking about logistics. Yes. You know what I meant.”

“Job first, Cap.”

“You’re part of my job, Amy.”

“Glad to…” she yawned and sighed. “Glad to hear it.”

He reached out and touched her mane for just a second, and then retracted his hoof. It was a strange sight, really. She laid in her bedroll, exhausted. He stood beside it, stiff and unhappy and waiting.

The flipside of thinking, of truly thinking, is that sometimes one’s mind turns in on itself and thoughts lose cohesion. This was also a lesson Ice Storm had learned. He was learning it again.

He wished to say many things, wished to do many more. Most of those things, while not impossible, were foolish. Knowing this didn’t take away the desire to act. It never did.

Amaranth was a mystery. She had always been a mystery, and the thoughts and the feelings burning in his chest that she’d prodded into sluggish, bewildered life were also a mystery. Never, until she had dug beneath his solid lines, had he once thought of leaving behind his service to Princess Celestia before it was his time, come old age or death. Never had he even dreamed of abandoning his post, or of playing favorites.

Yet he thought about such things all the time now. Sometimes, when he was alone in the stillness, he thought about what words might sway her away from her position in Luna’s personal guard. Between maps and charts and rumors of war, he thought about how easy it would be on this long frontier merely to vanish. One last report, and then take to the sky. He had wings, after all, did he not? What else were they for but for flying away when there was little left to be salvaged?

Not that he felt so bleak about serving. Not really. It was the assignment that brought out in him. The weather, too, though it had finally stopped raining. The distance from home. A lot of things.

“Know why it’s different?”

Ice blinked and looked down.

“Come again?”

“Why’s it different,” murmured Amaranth. “In the Lunar guard.”

“Fraternization?” He raised an eyebrow and was rewarded with a soft chuckle. “Why is it, then? Besides the general and dreadful lack of decorum your lot has.”

She tilted her head up to grin at him. “Why, thank you kindly, your sunshiney-ness. I’ll be sure… Mmm. Be sure to tell the princess herself.”

“I believe you, actually.”

“As you should. But… Was gonna tell you why the regulations are different.”

“You were, yes. I was glad for it at the time, but I confess I’m puzzled.”

“Luna figured a long time ago, back when the world was different, that it would make her first warriors fight better.” Amaranth yawned. “Y’know, when it was less a guard and more a rabble of Me-Firsts and Daredevils. Made them fight for something.”

“That so?” he asked.

“Mhm. ‘S what she told me, anyhow.”

“Seems a bit archaic, then.”

“I serve… Mm. I serve an archaic mare. Wouldn’t have it any other way.”

He smiled. “And a fine one. Rest up, and when you wake I’ll have food.” He paused, and then his smile turned a little pained. “And work, of course. I need eyes in the north.”

“Fun.”

“Oh, I doubt that.” He leaned in, kissed her forehead, and then went back to retrieve his charts.

Author's Note:

They're back.

Kind of.

Alternate universe them. Because Song/Nightverse is just one huge hall of fun house mirrors, if you haven't figured that out yet.

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