The doors closed behind her and I felt my wings droop slightly as I relaxed slightly, my ears going to the side..
I should not have said that. Any of that.
“...I’m sorry,” I said as I returned onto the dais of the thrones, “...I should not have done that.”
Celestia shook her head with a frown, “No, you shouldn’t. It’s not...,” she started before she sighed and her ears drooped slightly and she shifted her wings, “But I do think might have needed to be said.”
She didn’t know what I told her with the whisper..
“We have done worse in the past,” Luna agreed and moved off her throne to join me. She moved up next to me and put her wing gently across my back, “That was one of the reasons we both wanted you here for this.”
“Takes a monkey to know a monkey?” I asked, one eyebrow raised.
Luna smiled briefly and gave me a quick nuzzle, “Not quite, but close.”
“Exactly that,” Celestia agreed and then sighed, “Do you really think it’ll work?”
“...I bloody hope so,” I sighed and sat down, leaning against Luna softly, my head just about reaching her neck, “Because a lot of that was a bluff.”
Luna blinked down at me, “Truly?”
“...Well, not the part about you guys,” I admitted, “I’m fairly sure you two and the Sparkles can kick some serious tail when you don’t need to worry about ponies being in the way. Cadance is a lot less direct, but potentially a lot more scary. I’m not any better. Sure, one on one I might be okay, but I’m not going to be much use in an actual battle.”
Celestia shifted her wings and moved off her throne to join us, “I seem to remember differently in the assault on Canterlot.”
“That was Luna,” I said, “I may have cast the spell, but the power behind it belonged to My Sky. I could maybe have put ten of them to sleep without her.”
Luna gave my ear a nuzzle, “Don’t sell yourself short, My Page,” she said softly, “You still cast the spell and there is a lot in a war that don’t involve strength,” before she raised her head and looked to Celestia, “Do you believe it will work?”
“I don’t know,” Celestia admitted and sat down, looking towards the closest glass window of Twilight and the other elements, “It depends on the Storm King, if he takes our warning to heart or not.”
“Should we go to his dreams again?” I asked, looking up at Luna.
She looked thoughtful for a moment before she looked down at me, “Do you think it would help?”
“I don’t know.”
Celestia shook her head, “Leave him. Let him think about things.”
I nodded and leaned against Luna. It was one thing for somebody like that to send you soilders to die for your cause, another when it was your own tail on the line.
“I don’t know about you,” Celestia then added with a small smile, “But I need a drink. Would you two like to join me, sister?”
Luna nodded, “Yes please. Page?”
I hesitated, “...I’d love to get drunk with a pair of beautiful girls, but I think I should check on my guard,” I said and reluctantly pulled back from Lunas warmth, “If there is a risk that we’re at war in a week, then I want them to be as ready as they can possibly be.”
Luna gave me a nuzzle at the ear, “You’re a good colt.”
“Yeah, if I didn’t just draw Equestria into open warfare…” I sighed and leaned into it for a second before I headed towards the side door. It didn’t take long until I left the cool interior of the castle. The sky outside was a clear blue, the sun burning high above.
I glanced up towards it for a second, suddenly feeling somepony moving next to me before I saw them.
“How did it go, sir?” Skitter asked as she joined in next to me.
“You already know how it went,” I said and stretched my rings for a second, “What do you think about this entire thing?”
“The Swarm stand with Equestria, sir,” she said, “I have discussed the matter with Mother.”
“She think Equestria is going to win then?” I asked, looking to her for the first time. Skitter nodded,
“There is no real question about that,” she admitted, “but it will look for for the changelings if we were seen supporting Equestrian troops in a conflict.”
“You may lose changelings.”
Skitter sighed and her wings buzzed for a second, “More than in the long term if we did nothing?”
I shook my head with a frown, “I don’t think you guys are best for a battle anyway,” I admitted, “not unless it’s in a jungle or something. You do what you do best, infiltrate and spy. How long would it take for you to infiltrate the Storm Kings court?”
Skitter just smiled at me a bit, managing to look slightly smug about it.
I looked at her for a long second, “...You already did, didn’t you?”
“With the return of his ambassador, he is going to get some extra guests.”
I slowly nodded and shifted my wings with a small sigh, “Just don’t get caught. That could cause even larger problems.”
She just gave me a look. If she had eyebrows, one of them would have been raised.
“...Yeah, fair enough,” I chuckled and then shook my head, “I’m about to inspect my guard. Would you like to join me, your highness?”
“Of course, sir.”
I hardly think it’d matter much if she did. It would be a shock if mind-rape were a tactic Luna had never employed. Then again, maybe that’s why they would be worried; they fear the Nightmare Page.
It would surprise me if the Changelings hadn't already infiltraited them before the Canterlot Wedding. They would not ignore such a threat.
Nice
Blank Page may have just won them this fight and they don't even realize it...after all sleep is vital to function of the mind, and when that mind is in charge of a military power well, the storm king didn't send an ambassador to demand they stop, he sent her to beg them to stop.
9942911
The changelings would have to have been aware of the Storm King's chain of conquests first. Given that his territory, as well as each of the previously conquered territories, are all south of the Bone Dry Desert, and that even Princess Celestia (who is apparently good friends with Queen Novo) had been completely unaware that the hippogriffs had gone into hiding, I rather doubt that the changelings knew that the Storm King even existed, let alone posed a threat.
9942919
The problem is how much damage can the Storm King do during his decent into madness before his brain finally shuts down due to insufficient sleep?
As far as alternate specie names go, I'm gonna have to go with Insectihides.
9942907
Nightmare Page. Not bad, but a bit to generic. how about Blank Horror
Chrysalis: I want to remind you, that we are your allies, not subjects, so we don't need to ask you for permision for setting and completing our operations, my dear monkey. Neither this one and the others ones.
Page: There are some "others ones" already?
Chrysalis: I will leave answer for this solely to your imagination, my little prince. Khe khe khe...
9942941
I refuse to beleive that rumours of the Storm King would have ended up in Equestria enough for the Changlings to investigate and unlike Celestia who likely ignored such rumours Chyrsalis would have invesrigated them.
God I love changelings.
9942971
Page Burner
Get it? Like page turner, only implying one is burning the book; like what Page is threatening to do to his enemies minds.
9942990
What rumors? The Storm King basically blitzed his way through at least two kingdoms (Ornithia and Abyssinia) before they could even consider sending out messengers with pleas for aid and leaving them unable to do so after gutting their kingdoms of their wealth and magic items. The hippogriffs of Seaquestria apparently had only just enough time to retreat under the waves where Queen Novo kept them all for their own safety, apparently not even sending any to warn their nominal allies, such as Equestria. And Kludgetown shows all signs of being a quasi-legitimate freeport full of scum and villainy that nopony would believe anyway.
On top of that, all of this occurred on the far side of several major geographical inferences to communication: The Hayseed Swamp, the Badlands, two jungles, and the biggest obstacle of them all: the Bone Dry Desert.
Barring an extremely few examples of radios being a thing and a grand total of ONE rotary telephone being seen throughout the entire show (in Manehattan, by the way), the only means of actual long distance communication we've seen have been mail couriers, living messengers, and the occasional spell-like effect such as Spike's dragon-mail breath.
Sure, both the changelings and the Storm King had some sort of enchanted devices that permitted instantaneous visual communication over vast distances, but in both cases depicted it was evident that both ends of the communication method involved had to be active. And apparently the spell service for such effects is spotty on Mount Canterhorn (where Canterlot is located).
Given that Chrysalis' hive didn't even know about the threat of the Jungle Hive, despite the Jungle Hive being much closer than either the Storm King or any of the nations he had previously attacked, why would her spies know anything at all about the Storm King?
9943038
I find it incredibly hard to beleive that he took over two kingdoms without there beings anyone who escaped somewhere. Even rumours from an odd runaway from Klugetown or even some bandits. Chrysalis is the kind of changling who any rumour of something so dangerous no matter how crazy it sounds is worthy of investigation, after all capturing sme bandits and replacing them with changelings will be easy.
9943042
Considering that, according to the promotional map, Kludgetown is located in the southern quarter of the Bone Dry Desert, anycreature running away from there is most likely to head south rather than north, even if they have to circle around to do so. In the movie, the Mane Six headed into the Bone Dry Desert because they had to, not because it was safe or easy to do so. We're talking about a desert as big as Equestria itself, so it's rather remarkable that the Mane Six made it across at all considering that they had no supplies.
And that's heading into the Bone Dry Desert from the north, where they would have had to come out through either the Badlands trail or the pass to the west that the railway uses. Anycreature heading to the north either has to hope that they come out of the Bone Dry Desert in either of those spots, or they are going to end up having to deal with either the Hayseed Swamp or one of the two jungles on either side of the Badlands.
I'm not saying that it's not possible for the rumors to have reached Equestria (and thus Chrysalis). I'm saying that by the time that they do, Tempest Shadow's attack on Canterlot would have already been over and done with.
9942969
BOOOOO
If the war will happen/continue and it depends if Equestria will want to conquer Storm Kingdom or just defeat it, Page will probably rule as a new king
*MEANWHILE...SOME TIME LATER*
Changeling Spy: ...Mission Day 2. I believe I have made a horrible mistake. Good news is my cover isn't blown. Bad news? I may have picked too attractive of a form to blend in. The Storm King guards are constantly trying to engage me for...favors and shout...suggestions at me. It is hard to focus on info-gathering and recon when everyone around is trying to overload me with junk-food love energy. However I will conquer this...
Guard: *yells* Hey sweet snowflake! Let me keep you warm tonight and melt that heart of yours!
Changeling Spy: ....somehow...
Ten, not then.
It will look...?
Page needs to stop underselling himself...yes he isn't a magical artillery like the Twilights or some dues ex like Celestia but he is perhaps the most terrifying of the allicorns...he is the MASTER OF DREAMS...and most likely the other mind arts like Illusions and Telepathy...THAT IS NOT A WEAK CHARACTER! if he wanted he could lock Stormy in a wake-less eternal nightmare from the other side of the globe...and there is NOTHING anyone could do to stop him(MAYBE Luna but even then i think it's iffy). as to armies? how effective is a army that can't sleep or rest? that suffers endless nightmares? that can't think straight or well? that even when awake can't trust their senses? that can be made to see fellow soldiers as the enemy? that threat to burn the minds of his foes? probably wasn't as much of a bluff as he thought.
9942258
Ok cuz I got a little confused at the other comments... ugh my head... thx!
TYPO
TYPO, i think i'm not really sure here
The conversation over, his mood sullen Page moves to see to his troops. Soon a war would break o ur, and he would want to them to be as ready as-
Just then a portal opens up in front of him, Sunset jumps to his side as a figure steps forward. A stallion, copper coat with a strangely familiar mane of rusty red and gold steps forward.
“Mother! Father!” He says happily. “My name is Day Dreamer and I’ve come from the future.”
“To warn us?” Sunset says after overcoming her shock at seeing her future son.
“No, to drink with you! It’s my 21st birthday and I wanted to be apart of this moment in history!”
“...sounds like your kid Page.”
I wonder why Page is that worried when he can just lock every event general and supply officer in perpetual nightmares. I'd very much like to see how the heck would they wage war with their entire leadership sleep deprived. Not to mention how many battle plans he could extract like that.
For an ex human he really undersells his powers when they matter the most.
So where's that armada of bat ponies? Page could duplicate a little something from Batman, and suddenly swarms of bat ponies.
Then again... maybe Fluttershy will call the bats.
unleashthefanboy.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/bats.png
9943099
I really see the Ponies as being serious isolationists. They could easily have heard rumors and ignored them. And then there are the airships crossing Equestrian airspace and no runners or pegasi were sent to warn Canterlot of the invasion. Were they stoped, or did they just tell themselves we've got a princess that can move the sun and the moon, no one would dare?
As for the Changelings, they've always focused on Canterlot and were likely blind to events outside of Equestria.
Might want to look back at this part. It's repetitive and doesn't seem to complete the sentence.
9942943
With his defeat in Canterlot he has lost the advantage of surprise, had a military commander with vital intel captured, effectively pissed off a well connected nation with a metric shit ton of allies, and now his diplomatic envoy has been infiltrated by a race of shapeshifters who will be able to easily subdue him in his current mental state.
THIS FIGHT IS ALREADY OVER GENIUS ALL PAGE HAS TO DO SAY A FEW WORDS TO SKITTER AND HE'LL BE KING OF THE GODAMN APES.
9943038
The Storm King was out and invading when Tempest was still a filly. That's over twenty years and not a single rumour got to Equestria, that is hard to believe.
9943781
I've read the prequel comics, and I don't recall a specific timeframe being mentioned in relation to Tempest's life and when the Storm King started his chain of conquests. In fact, all indications are that the Storm King had started his conquests not too long before Tempest first reached Kludgetown - maybe up to five years before, tops, but possibly only months or even weeks before. Remember, he wasn't interested in actually ruling any of the territory he captured so much as stripping the nations he raided of their wealth and magic items and deliberately leaving them economically devastated so that they could neither strike back nor warn anybody else.
What I do "know" is that:
This is NOT a world with easy methods of either travel or communication. Rather it is a world similar to are own early industrial era where news and rumor could take weeks, months, or even years to cross borders of even neighboring nations, let alone make it all the way across massive natural barriers such as the Bone Dry Desert.
9944125
How I know their won’t be a war: We are on chapter 43 and these stories typically end at around 50.
Could throw us for a loop and declare War but have it on going to the next story. If there will be a next story.
9944125
Tempest was still a foal so it had to happen several years back and at unless Tempest was some prodigy soldier she would have taken several years to become Commander.
9944581
Tempest may have left her village as a foal, but by the time she met the Storm King, she was fully adult.
And, as near as I can tell, she was given the rank of commander and command of an air fleet battle group almost immediately upon informing the Storm King of a way of empowering the Staff of Sarcanus by using it to steal the power of at least four alicorns.
In other words, they bribed each other.
And no, they did not explain how Tempest came across information about the Staff of Sarcanus other than it being something she had heard about in old rumors and stories. Which is damn odd, because when she was a filly, there would have been only one known Alicorn, maybe two depending on when Cadence ascended, meaning that she either cam across that information recently or whoever made the Staff of Sarcanus gave it some real high power requirements.
Anyway, as it looks like we're just going to continue disagreeing with each other on the point of whether or not the changelings would have heard rumors of the Storm King in the context of this particular story, I'm going to bow out of this discussion, right or wrong, before it becomes even more of a derail than it already is.
This chapters highlight is undesputet the comment section
9944802
I agree with tangent here
9958238
True, the comment section is a whole story on it’s own.
Could always make it worse for him. His 8 hours of nightmares has become 10 hours of night terrors.
Equestria has weapon of mass annihilation, but they really need a defensive army.
Pretty sure the Yeti economy is down the drain and they are bored. War is for that purpose perhaps their only incoming in the long run.
He really doesn't understand the power he holds. He could bring nightmares to every single one of the opponent's soldiers. Or just the officers if he wished.
An army that has no sleep for a week is not an army that can fight. Hallucinations set in after a few days or a week from sleep deprivation if I remember correctly?
11705259
3-4 days for hallucinations
Most likely terminating the Storm King, the power struggle might be dreaming any of their efforts.
Further is invasion often used to reduce population or gain missing ressources.
Makes sense that they are already near starvation and economy collapse.