The Last Migration

by Starscribe


Chapter 6: Evacuation

Dear Starlight Glimmer,

The airships baring your writ of approval arrived in the newly created Accipion refugee territory. There was a minor dispute over borders, which has since been resolved. My friends have been on the ground helping to coordinate, but so far it looks like you were right. I know I speak for all of Equestria when I tell you how thrilled we are to be wrong about a coming invasion. To be honest, it isn’t a conflict I think we could win.

We had to choose to train soldiers or train more weatherponies and farmers. The former would certainly result in many deaths by starvation, though the latter might result in Equestria’s eventually enslavement.

Celestia suggested I should reiterate the importance of your work in Accipio, though I know you already take it very seriously. If anything like a complete evacuation takes place, the griffons and their slaves will outnumber us by two or three to one. We will already be dealing with their strange magic and ancient artifacts, both of which we cannot confiscate. You are the only defense Equestria has against soldiers armed with weapons we can’t reproduce.

Equestria has chosen to fight against the winter that Equus will soon suffer. I know you can be the one that prevents a new army from migrating here.

We have chosen their new land well—though the farmland is rich, it is poor for minerals and far from large pony settlements. Celestia doesn’t think they have any chance of re-arming with the supplies available to them in the time it will take for Accipio to be inhabitable again.

Use the scrolls the instant anything changes. Princess Luna has a contingency prepared in case a few ships try to run the blockade—something dramatic, but that we won’t be able to repeat. Don’t make her use it.

Regards,

Princess Twilight Sparkle


Starlight Glimmer wasn’t sure if anypony could’ve possibly done the job she had been tasked with. Accipio was an empire in decline, but it was still a larger nation than Equestria, with dominion that stretched across the known world. Its citizens outnumbered ponies, its technology was strange, and its customs were stranger.

The next two months were not without their difficulties—there were at least two different assassination attempts made against Emperor Gaius’s life, and who knew how many others she was not told about. A few times Starlight did find contraband in ships that had traveled from the domain of other clan lords, and was forced to delay the entire queue as the emperor’s own troops searched each ship individually.

A few of those birds tried to kill her. Each of those discovered that Equestria had not sent a helpless agent to enforce the terms of the treaty.

Cargo ships were soon replaced with ships carrying refugees, which were harder to search. Starlight simplified the process by developing a spell to detect gunpowder. The weapons themselves were just wood and metal, and there were too many designs to universalize. But since they all used the same substance in their ammunition…

Starlight did not tell the griffons exactly how her spell worked, though she did teach it to as many of the Daughter of Wintergreen’s unicorn crew as were competent. The process got faster, and word was apparently spreading that attempting to circumvent the searches was impossible. Though whether those rumors were real, or created purely to deceive her, she did not know.

She watched the great city of Scythia empty before her eyes. Fewer and fewer of the fires burned from its high chimneys. More of the huge spots in its docks were left empty, and the streets were no longer clogged with passengers.

Starlight Glimmer sat up abruptly as somepony knocked on her office door. The space all around her was packed with ledgers and other documents, her best guesses at how many birds were coming to Equestria and what they had brought.

“Yes?” Starlight ran her magic through her mane, brushing it straight as best she could. The ship swayed slightly in the breeze, as it always did when it was flying. But Starlight had been in the air so often over the last few months that the airsickness didn’t bother her. “Come in.”

The door opened just a crack, and Sure Heading peeked in. “Forgive me, Starlight. There’s a visitor here to speak with you.”

“A visitor?” She raised an eyebrow. “They’re pushing it, aren’t they? The eruption is tomorrow.” To her knowledge, only those who had refused to evacuate were left in the city. That, and a few of the emperor’s household. His flagship was scheduled to be the last to depart, carrying as many refugees as they could possibly stuff into its holds.

Sure Heading shrugged his wing. “Don’t ask me to explain how the birds think. It’s your favorite bird, by the way. Or… maybe you’re his favorite pony.”

“Oh,” Starlight groaned, rising to her hooves. “Velar?”

“He’s waiting on deck,” Sure Heading said, pushing the door open the rest of the way. “Sounded like he had something urgent to speak to you about.”

Starlight was tempted to teleport straight up—but not knowing who might be on the deck and where they might be standing made that a dangerous proposition at best. Transport collision was a gruesome business, which was part of why teleportation magic wasn’t better known in Equestria. What unicorns didn’t know, they couldn’t use to accidentally kill each other.

Starlight turned to hurry past the first mate, and up the steps of the deck as quickly as she could. She found herself matching the swaying of the Daughter of Wintergreen quite naturally, leaning against the direction with each step so that she wasn’t reduced to a vomiting mess. It had been an unpleasant bit of practice, but at least she had finally found her sky legs.

She stepped out onto the deck, and her eyes immediately found Velar, standing by the railing that looked out on Scythia. He hadn’t turned around, and apparently didn’t see her yet. So Starlight approached, remaining as quiet as she could, hoping for the satisfaction of sneaking up on him.

There was something different about the city, something Starlight hadn’t expected to see. There were birds down there again—many of them, and a few were actually fighting. She could hear the little explosions of gunfire, see the flurry of feathers, hear the sound of things breaking. The city wasn’t that close.

None of the airships waiting in dock were familiar to her—Starlight had seen far more of them now that she could search with just one spell, and she didn’t recognize the black and gold color scheme that was apparently universal to them. The invasion fleet? This is when we’re betrayed.

“Starlight Glimmer,” Velar said, before she had managed to cross half of the distance between them. He hadn’t turned around, hadn’t looked away from the city far below.

How is he so good at this? It was mildly infuriating.

“I’m glad that you could join me. My father has sent me with an urgent request—too urgent to risk a messenger.”

“I thought your father’s flagship was supposed to depart an hour ago?”

“It was, and it did,” Velar said, not looking up from Scythia.

“Then what’s all that?”

“House Vanquish. Taking the abandoned wealth of Scythia all for themselves.” He laughed, though there was no humor in his tone. Only bitterness and regret. “They’re staying behind, Starlight Glimmer. All their talk of evacuation ships was a ruse—they’re planning on inheriting the entire empire for themselves. My father received word by spell that the situation is similar in at least three other cities.”

“That’s…” Starlight shivered, leaning down over the edge to try and get a better look at the numbers. There were just over a dozen airships down there, of the massive variety that Equestria couldn’t equal. Each one of them could hold thousands and thousands of ponies. “That’s insane, Velar. Scythia is within the projected range of pyroclastic emissions. If they aren’t suffocated with ash, the poison gases from underground will surely kill them.”

Velar nodded. “Insane is exactly the word I would use for it, Starlight. That’s clan Vanquish—they’ve always thought themselves invincible. Able to overcome any difficulty. They apparently think that by spreading themselves out across Accipio, that most will survive. That while we’re prisoners in Equestria, they will rise uncontested in the whole of the empire, with all its wealth to themselves.”

Starlight opened her mouth, then closed it again, unable to even voice the horror she felt. There were five great clans, each one representing about a fifth of the population of Accipio. She already knew of plenty of individuals who wanted to stay behind and take their chances—those who lived furthest from the epicenter of the eruption, or who didn’t believe the word of Gaius’s engineers. But a whole clan?

“Is that what you’ve come to tell me?” she eventually asked, her voice low and respectful. As though she had just walked into a funeral.

“I would’ve come anyway, even if the mad birds weren’t… well, I guess I wish them well. They won’t have long to enjoy their spoils.” Velar turned to face her. “My father heard you intended to stay behind and watch the eruption from here. To observe it for… science? Is that the right word?” He didn’t wait for confirmation. “We hear your pony vessel has certain… protections. That it will be able to safely observe, then arrive in Equestria ahead of the last wave of refugee ships. Is this true?”

“Yes,” she said, a little smugness creeping back into her voice. Starlight herself had designed the shield spell the ship would use, based on one used by the Captain of the Guard during an invasion a few years back. Her version was stronger and easier to cast, though it still wasn’t strong enough to get anywhere near the heart of the eruption. Scythia itself was as close as she dared, with the shockwave and the pyroclastic wrath that would be raining down even hundreds of miles away. “Daughter of Wintergreen is prepared. Most ponies back in Equestria are hoping we never live to see another one of these, so it seemed like documenting it from up close was the right thing to do.”

“You sound a little like my mother. She has been lamenting how little we will learn from the eruption for weeks now.” A weak smile returned to Velar’s face. “In any case. I’m here to ask permission for five birds to stay behind and observe from your ship… then to receive transport back with you to the emperor’s flagship.”

“Let me guess,” Starlight replied. “You, your father, the queen, and… some guards?”

He nodded. “Exactly. My mother would like to see the eruption for the same reasons as you. And my father… he feels it’s the emperor’s duty to watch the death of Accipio. Don’t ask me to explain it, I don’t understand him myself.”

There was nothing forcing her to agree. More importantly, it wasn’t even her decision to make, really. The Wintergreen’s captain would be the one to make that decision, ultimately. But she knew she would get whatever she asked for. Will it make things any harder to have a few more birds aboard? Not really.

Starlight didn’t really want to be around Velar any more than she had to—at least, that was what she told herself. “I’ll have to speak to Captain Weathered Sails,” she said. “But I don’t think it should be a problem. So long as none of your birds know you’re here. The Daughter of Wintergreen isn’t really equipped to fight off assassination attempts.”

“I understand.” Velar spread his wings in preparation for takeoff, stalking away from her a few steps. “I’ll assume you can work things out with the captain.” He didn’t wait for her response, just clambering up over the railing into a dive. He vanished with a rush of feathers out into the sky, as brave as any pegasus.

Starlight grunted frustration. “He didn’t even wait for an answer,” she muttered to nopony, before turning off to find the captain. As frustrating as this would be, at least there was only one more day. One more day, and then they would be heading back to Equestria.

That’s when the real war starts. Surviving this was just the opening act.