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// Act 1 : Scene 5 : Promise of the Empress 
// Story: Twilight of Iron : Act 1 
// by BackroundVoice 
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Being marched through the high palace wasn't always so frightening.  But when faced with reporting failure to their beloved ruler in person, changed that. The captain and her only remaining samurai were guided by the palace guard. They looked as if the armor they wore moved like skin. Not a single opening for movement, or cracks to get under, and large ruby bows hung from their backs. The captain looked around her, seeing only royalty and foreigners, chatting and discussing of business over seas. All of which the captain wished to not associate with.  As she didn't take to strangers all too well.
Her fellow samurai couldn't seem to keep a level head. He constantly looked over his shoulder, scared an assassin would come up and kill him for dishonoring the royal empire, and muttered some old family saying of himself. The captain, clearly was the only one calmly sweating at the thought of dying by the Empress' blade.
And when they finally came to their destination, the two royal guards moved up to open the double wide doors leading into the throne room.
Breathing deeply, the captain and the samurai stepped in reluctantly. Now in the center of the throne room, both of them gazed up to the goddess perched atop her golden throne. Her mane burned red, and her eyes glowed a beautiful blue. This pale coated ruler smiled on her subjects, and the captain and her comrade bowed to her.
"State your name, rank, and business!" Empress Celestia said in a brave tone.  The captain cleared her throat, suddenly it had gone dry.  "Out with it," the Empress demanded, looking to the right side of the room and out the window, just to see what was out there.
"Lightning Dust, your Highness.  5th Captain of the Cloudsdale royal battalion," Lightning Dust finally stated.
"And your business?" the Empress asked.  And just when Lightning was about to speak, the other samurai spoke up first.
"We were attacked!" the samurai said, "Ambushed by a rouge samurai! We didn't stand a chance!"
Silence filled the throne room as the Empress' attention turned to the samurai.  All who were in the room, from the humble servant to the noble royal guard, looked to this loud and panicked Pegasus.
"A Ronin?" the Empress peered at the samurai, "You were defeated, and chased away, by a single Ronin?" she asked, stepping down from her throne, and standing before him.  The Empress was not amused.  Lightning Dust remained still as a servant approached the Empress on her left.  Holding out a weapon still sheathed.
"S- She didn't show any mercy," the samurai said, "Killing two dozen of our comrades, and leaving me with these scares..."
"Oh, You poor thing." the Empress said, touching his bruised and battered face; before pulling her blade and holding up to him. “Redeem yourself...” She then said, waiting for him to draw his short sword. Lightning watched quietly as he knelt to honor his ruler. But just as he readied himself, stripping off his armor and positioning his blade, concentrating to gain the strength to commit Seppuku, the Empress raised her blade, and the royal guards each knocked back an arrow aiming for him.
But Lightning was too late to protest before the samurai had lifted his blade, only to die by the Empress and her guard, sullying his pride and loyalty.
Lightning Dust, looked back to the ground, wondering why, and why she wasn’t ordered to do the same.
"Pity," the Empress said, "Its always the coward who stains the carpet red.  You may leave Lightning Dust, I have learned all that I need to know." Lightning stood, her helmet being taken away by the servants, who smiled as if no murder had occurred here.  It's not like Lightning hadn't heard of rumors like this, that the Empress executes judgement on failed allies, but to witness it was completely different.  She had seen so much death in just the last two days alone, and now the last of her friends were dead, and at the hoof of the Empress. Lightning Dust's mind flowed endlessly of denial that she serves such a ruler, who takes life on a whim.
Still stunned, Lightning Dust walked to the door, and as she left, she turned back to her ruler, curious, and asked the question, "She said you love cowards, That Ronin... Is it true?" 
The Empress Celestia was puzzled as to why she would ask that, and then her eyes opened as if remembering something and she chuckled, laughing at the thought.  "Yes," the Empress answered, "And as for the Ronin, she is nothing more than a deranged fool, once my pupil, but is now nothing more than a shadow cast behind me."  
"So then, how did that shadow form?" Lightning Dust asked, and the Empress looked to her with a gentle smile.
"Continue to ask questions like that, Lightning.  And you will be just as studious as my last pupil.  That, I will promise you, and I hope to will leave this palace soon, before you become cowardly like he was." the Empress said, gesturing to the samurai being dragged out of the room.  That sentence alone cut Lightning Dust to the core.  That attack to the mind almost made her draw her sword. 
But now is not the time, she thought.  And she left the room, eyes connected with Celestia's until the doors closed behind her.  And then she ran, leaving the palace, as ordered.  Humiliating to say the least, but hatred is a double edged sword that can only be tamed in the most humble of circumstances.
And while the now former captain left, Celestia watched over her kingdom, bathed in the glorious sunlight of her rule.
"I wonder," Celestia thought out loud, "What animals will the children see in the sky today?  Will it be a horse, or a rabbit?" she giggled with her hoof over her mouth, but continued to gaze on at the children in the courtyards.
"For I saw a Dragon, my sister a Tiger." She said, now alone in her throne room, peering over at a grand tapestry, depicting a white moonlit tiger falling to a brilliant crimson dragon.  "My lover saw a Demon..." she said again, glancing only for a moment at the cracked crystal spear on the wall, "And both my pupils; they saw Dragons as well." The Empress now moved her horn in a counter clockwise motion, and in that moment, she had vanished and reappeared in her sleeping quarters, gazing at a library of letters, one half labeled Sunset and the other half, Twilight.
"The war will begin soon, I should say my good-byes my faithful student, before I regret it." and with a red and gold robe flung over her shoulders by golden magic, she whipped her horn clockwise, appearing at the front of the palace.
"Ready the chariot, I must find my pupil!" she said in the imperial voice, gazing up at the sky, not a cloud in sight.