//------------------------------// // 1 - Victory and Sponge Cake // Story: Mrs. Robinson's Stand // by WishyWish //------------------------------// They marched. Four by hundreds of hooves, they marched in dreary lockstep towards their fate, be it to serve as beasts of burden or be herded into cages. From all over the nation they had come to this place in the name of friendship, and a mere hour before their patriotic pride had brought them all to celebration; be it by soaring feathers, horned glow, or hewn from the greatness of the earth. But now their colors were struck and their ears drooped, as scorching sulfur invaded their nostrils and heavy chains bore them into capitulation. As they walked, their eyes strayed to the ruined banners and cracked towers of their homeland’s majestic capital. The sky above was choked with black sails and airship exhaust that coalesced around the stone-locked bodies of three rulers. Defeated, each princess had been left where she stood on purpose, to stand in full view of every loyal subject that passed by. Tempest Shadow, commander of the armies of the north and mistress of her own name, stood between the trio of royal statues. She met each wandering eye with a firm stare, until the fire that had smoldered through her formative years inevitably caused each prisoner to back down and look away. There was much yet to do in preparation for the arrival of her lord, but Tempest allowed herself a moment of personal revenge as she painted a wordless picture of hopelessness for her vanquished foe. Though she was unlikely to recognize them so many years later, Tempest wondered if perhaps those who had cast her out - who had made her what she was today - were somewhere in that chain gang. She wondered if they too were suffering by her hoof. The thought made her cheeks twist into a smug smile. A snotty voice broke her reverie, accompanied by a peppering of spongy crumbs on the shoulder plate of her segmented armor. “So hey, Tempest-” The voice paused for a spasm of gluttonous chewing, “-don’t we gotta get the royal stiffs here up to the throne room?” Tempest impaled another snivelling mare with her lancing gaze. She addressed her subordinate, but ignored his visage for the show of the cowering pony, who could neither break step nor cry out with fear due to the iron muzzle locked tightly over her face. “In time, Grubber,” Tempest replied. “For the moment they are far more valuable to us right where they are.” Grubber, the runt of the Storm King’s proverbial litter, wasn’t much to look at. Portly and stout, his cousins dwarfed him by three times his own height, such that he had long since taken to wearing his white hair in a starched plume just to add to his hopeless stature. He was a non-combatant in a race of warriors, but he had one thing his brethren lacked - where he was stunted in body, they were stunted in mind. Beyond the rudimentary intelligence that dawned just above that of a common animal, Grubber enjoyed a position of authority over his kin because of his ability to communicate and think for himself. Intelligence, however, did not guarantee shrewdness. Grubber tilted his head, eyes as empty as those of the enshrouded princesses that stood tall around him. “Yeah? Why’s that? You know they ain’t any good to the big boss down here.” Tempest’s ear flicked. Refusing to show an excess of reaction to her enemies, she cooly glanced toward a hanging garden palisade. Beneath it, a few remaining ponies who were helpless to defend themselves were being subdued by the hulking walls of muscle and fur that were the Storm King’s vanguard. The sound of each clanking manacle as it drew another leg into imprisonment rent the air, mingling with cries for mercy that more iron muzzles cut down into feral whimpering. “Never underestimate your opponent, Grubber. Morale can be as sharp as a spear and do just as much damage, but…” Tempest trailed off as she watched the one-sided conflict unfold, glancing away only when the last pony had been added to the chain gang and marched off. “But what?” Grubber urged as he produced a slice of shortcake from what seemed like an interdimensional portal to nowhere. Tempest eyed the frozen princesses with a look that hovered somewhere between pity and contempt. “But...nothing. Perhaps there is no purpose after all in breaking the spirit of mewling urchins that never had any to begin with. Order the transplant of the princesses to the throne room. I want a report from your search parties around that waterfall in an hour.  If they haven’t found the purple one, I expect my flagship to be ready to launch ten minutes later. Am I clear?” Grubber saluted - somehow the slovenly creature always had a habit for making the gesture look sloppy. “You bet, other boss! Yanno I gotta admit...I didn’t think it would be this easy.” Piqued for once by Grubber’s commentary, Tempest favored him with an arched eyebrow. “Oh?” Grubber polished off his last few bites all at once, by the simple expedient of shoving the entire slab of cake into his maw. “Wull shure,” She spoke whilst masticating, “Iz like deez ponies dun even care ‘nuff to defend themsuulves.” “We lopped of their head in the first ninety seconds of the conflict,” Tempest pointed out. Grubber swallowed loudly. “Yeah yeah, but you’d think even then they’d at least try, right? You’d think if they cared at all they’d put up their dukes a little bit or something. Instead it was all ‘oh blah blah blah, big hairy monsters, let’s run around and scream until they tie us up’. That’s weak.” He meandered over to the fourth statue - the one that was not a princess - and considered it like a work of art in a museum. “This one here is like the only one who even gave a crap at all.” “Don’t flatter them,” Tempest reproached. She came up beside her subordinate and nodded at the frozen face of the pegasus. “Look at this one, with her lopsided eyes and vacant expression. She’s probably got about as much going on upstairs as most of your lot. What she did wasn’t heroism. It was an accident, and it's as much a result of interference by the rainbow-colored one.” Grubber squinted and peered at the statue of Derpy Hooves, as though he thought it might move if he looked long enough. “Eh, I guess she is kinda stupid looking. But if it hadn’t been for those two horses, we’d be looking at a statue of the last princess.” Tempest gritted her teeth. Anger flushed her sangria cheeks and brought sparking life to her horn. “My aim isn’t why we lost her. If your people had half a dozen brain cells to play tetherball with, they’d have ensued this went off perfectly the first time!” Grubber summoned an unusual display of nimbleness to hop away from the threat of being sizzled by magic. “Whoa, okay! We’ll find her! Don’t get your hocus-pocus in a wad!” Tempest seethed, but allowed her raw power to wink out. “See that you do. I am not about to be embarrassed by letting one of these wretched little nags get away.” Grubber let out a bated breath. “Day-ummm Tempest, that’s harsh. Calling your own people that.” “They’re not my people!” “Alright fine, whatever you say. You don’t gotta be all emotional about it. Maybe you oughtta consider some anger management classes or someth--” The rest of Grubber’s words were overwhelmed by a sudden slamming noise, and a howl unlike any Tempest had heard so far that day. She recognized it, and knew in an instant that the deep, guttural cry had not been made by a pony - it had been made by one of her own retinue. Her ears perked in unison with all the other ponies, but unlike them, she was free to turn about and seek the source. “What was that?” she demanded. Grubber looked alarmed. “Uh...I dunno? It sounded like somebody done got planted.” “Yes,” Tempest agreed, “but that somebody was not a pony.” Her reflexes back on high alert, Tempest scanned the broken crags of Canterlot. A small fire that appeared to have been brought about by some discarded sparklers was burning a vending cart full of cakes. Several soldiers were tending to it, but none of them appeared injured. In another place, a marble tier built directly out of the side of the mountain was being organized as a mooring place for three airships, but the beasts who trampled party accessories to work the anchor chains seemed none the worse for wear from their task. The deep cry erupted again, and Tempest’s ears swiveled as she zoned in on a spot deeper in the city, invisible from the main plaza. She turned to a pair of guards that were minding the already well-staffed chain gang and nodded sharply at them. “You, and you. With me!” The commander was off at a gallop, her booted hooves clacking metallically against the stone street. “The rest of you mind the prisoners and tend to your tasks! Grubber, forced into a run, was already huffing. “Hey! Wait up! Do ya think Princess Purple Hooves was dumb enough to come back!?” “Oh, she’s dumb enough all right,” Tempest muttered to herself. “She’s the last princess, after all. She has to try something. Pity she’d throw her lot into a random attack so soon without time to plan out a strategy, but really, what do I expect from pitiful ponies who give up before the battle’s even joined. For that, they disgust me most of all.” This time, the commander’s victory would be absolute.