//------------------------------// // Chapter 20: Consequences of Diplomacy // Story: The Last Migration // by Starscribe //------------------------------// Velar hadn’t expected he would ever wake again. Once he made it clear to Zoya that he would not accept any life in exchange for his own, even those that were offered willingly, he had expected a painful end. Anesthetics put an end to the first of those—modern chemistry had become very good at suppressing pain, even terrible pain. Less so about putting the mess of his guts back together. His parents had come to see him off, though he couldn’t stay awake for most of the ritual. He could barely even talk to them. “Try to… remember me,” he said, or he thought he said. There was a strange coolness in the drugs they gave him, drugs that made it so he didn’t care even knowing his insides had been completely ruined. I thought it would be worse to die. His only regret faded the moment he saw Starlight’s face, near the end. The pony had cared enough to come for him. I did something right. Hopefully his father could use his death, somehow. Was it good to have a martyr? Then he felt nothing. Velar would’ve imagined that was death, except that he didn’t think either. Time was a dream, and for a few seconds he woke. Pain returned all at once—agony in his chest that set him to screaming and thrashing immediately. Except that he was already restrained, on an operating table barely large enough to hold him. “You fools are wasting your time!” he screamed. “I’m already dead! There’s nothing you can do!” He just wanted it to stop. Why hadn’t the assassin just finished the job and let him die? There were more drugs, and Velar slipped into something like dream. He watched himself as though he were an observer to his own body—watched as half a dozen ponies wearing white and black worked on his open gut. Strange machines beeped and hummed around him as they cut with impossibly small knives and sewed with transparent thread. At least it didn’t hurt anymore. He didn’t struggle anymore, just watched in fascination, searching for familiar ponies. Velar had gotten himself acquainted with many of the ponies in New Scythia, after all. He would’ve recognized any of the unicorns working in the city. He knew none of these. Starlight Glimmer must’ve done this, he thought, in some distant part of himself that somehow remained rational. She was an ambassador. She must have called in a million favors to get so many here in time to save me. Starlight Glimmer herself was not part of the procedure, which seemed to take a small eternity. At a few points, fresh ponies arrived with white clothes, replacing those stained with the red and black of his guts. They’re good at this. I guess that’s what happens when you don’t spend all your time killing. Ponies had decided to get good at saving things instead. Eventually the surgery ended, and Velar finally slept. He woke in agony more than once, coughing and vomiting until an orderly arrived with more drugs. He didn’t lash out anymore—his rational mind had returned, and all the aches had purpose. Velar had always imagined he would die well one day, giving his life to change the world. An assassin’s bullet before he even ruled was probably not the way. I’m going to live. And so he decided. Visitors came, in that strange pony hospital room with silver walls and a floor that shook and rumbled. Velar wasn’t conscious enough to talk to them, but he could at least hear the voices. It was good not to feel so lonely. There were tables around him, and on them Velar could see thousands of little offerings. They were simple things, prayers written on paper and folded into origami. Flowers were the easiest, but a few were more complex. They were the way Accipians expressed their gratitude and their hope for recovery to one who had suffered. A few were bright and colorful, but most of them were not. Instead of the fine parchments scented with perfume, these offerings were written on stained scraps. Many of them had crumbled when moved, and were little more than litter. They were the offerings of slaves. Thousands and thousands of them. It took a long time before Velar finally woke properly. He jerked up in the long cot, conscious of the sturdy straps around his hind legs and claws. Ponies were obviously worried about him hurting himself. He’d been dressed in a plain hospital gown, something made of paper and printed with saccharin heart and flower designs. His belly ached, though not from hunger. He could make out the scars running down his chest even through the gown, as the ponies had shaved away his fur to make the cuts. Sloppy, primitive, was his initial thought. But I turned away the old magic. What did I expect? The room was small—barely large enough for Velar’s cot and the machines connected to him with transparent tubes. There was a tiny porthole-style window, and he could see clouds slowly drifting by outside. There was also one chair, and a pony sitting in it. Starlight Glimmer, with a dozen books piled up beside her. She’d fallen asleep buried in one of them, slumped sideways and breathing heavily. She looked and smelled like she hadn’t left the hospital room in some time, though Velar couldn’t smell much through the antiseptic and rot. “Starlight,” he called, his voice low and gravely from disuse. His throat ached terribly, but he didn’t feel the need to drink. Something to do with the transparent bag of fluid hanging beside him, maybe? The unicorn sat up suddenly, knocking the book from her lap. Her horn glowed with an indistinct, unfocused spell, as though confident she had to do magic but not sure what kind yet. “What is it, doctor? Another infection?” He looked towards the door—but it was still shut, obviously. Then she saw him watching her, and her expression softened. “Velar. You’re awake.” “I guess so,” Velar said, leaning back in bed. He tried to make himself look as proud as he could, though under the circumstances it wasn’t doing much good. With so much fur shaved away and awful stitches running up his chest. “I considered just giving up and dying, but I thought better of it. I just don’t know what our two nations would do without me.” He felt a pair of hooves wrap around his neck, in a hug far more affectionate than was proper for a griffon female. That kind of thing was beneath the dignity and poise that a proper female ought to display. He didn’t care. “You don’t know how hard it was,” Starlight whispered, before suddenly breaking away and glaring at him. “Why’d you have to fight? Why did there have to be an assassin in the games? Why any of it?” “I expect my father will have a better answer to the latter,” he muttered. “Or my mother, for that matter. I can’t believe Gallard shot me. After putting myself in danger for him… I’ve never known any bird to have so little honor. Even a slave.” His eyes lingered on the offerings as he said that. They’d been piled up so high around the bed that he could barely even see the floor in places. “I guess I’ve had a lot of visitors.” “Uh…” Starlight Glimmer looked away. “We got all these before we left. New Scythia was mourning for you.” Velar couldn’t help but smile. Maybe he hadn’t been so stupid after all. There was honor left. Enough that Accipio could recognize it when they saw it, even if they hadn’t demonstrated any. “Left… for where?” he eventually asked. “A pony hospital? There’s nowhere in New Scythia like this.” He held one of his forelegs closer to his head, the one that had the almost invisible tube running into it. “How do you get glass blown so fine without shattering it?” “It’s not glass,” Starlight muttered, dismissive. “It’s called plastic, a chemist came up with it a few…” She shook her head. “Don’t you dare think you’re getting out of this by asking stupid questions, you completely idiotic bird!” She stood over him, glowering. “You’ve been on the edge of death for almost a week now. You have an entire troop of personal guards—maybe you could’ve asked one of them to fight for you?” Velar tried to keep his smile unbroken, but it was difficult. It was becoming difficult just to stay sitting. It felt like his guts were going to come unraveled and spill all over the table if he moved too quickly. They just might. “There’s no honor in that, Starlight Glimmer. A general must demand nothing of his birds that he would not do himself. There’s no honor in asking someone else to fight in a cause you think is just. If you think it’s a good cause, you get down into the dirt and prove it.” He coughed, and found himself regurgitating a disgusting ball of slime and black blood. Starlight levitated a cloth for him to hack into, which he did for nearly a minute straight, his whole body shaking. “Is there water somewhere in this hospital?” he asked, once he’d recovered his voice enough to speak again. “I feel like my throat is dissolving.” “Here.” Starlight Glimmer offered him a bottle, made of the same strange, clear substance as the tubes. But there was water inside, and it soothed some of the pain in his throat. He stopped complaining. “You can’t do solid food for… a while,” Starlight said. “I’ll get your doctor in here in a minute, he can explain.” Velar immediately stiffened, his whole body freezing. “You trusted my life to a male doctor? Unity grant he didn’t leave a knife sewed up in my gut or something.” “No.” Starlight stomped one hoof on the floor. It sounded like metal. “This is Equestria, Velar. We don’t have any room for your barbaric, backwards way of splitting ponies off. Maybe it’s worked well enough for birds, but…” She took a deep breath. “Dr. Stables and his team saved your life, Velar. Along with a few others.” “You,” he supplied, though it was becoming too painful to sit up anymore. He lowered himself back onto the bed, heedless of the indignity. There was no honor in ripping his stitches open. “You’re the reason I’m here. In… Equestria. My family must’ve been desperate to allow this. But when I return home, I’m sure it will go a long way to strengthening our relationship with Equestria.” Starlight sighed, staring out the window. “It’s too bad we can’t put that relationship into surgery and stitch it back together.” “What?” Velar couldn’t sit up, but he did watch her. “What are you talking about? Did something happen after I was shot?” “Something happened before, stupid!” She didn’t even look at him anymore. “You tricked us into letting you keep ponies enslaved! Do you have any idea how upsetting that is to Equestria? I wasn’t just sulking that day I didn’t come to the tournament, I was communicating with the princesses. They gave an ultimatum—to release every single pony slave, or else.” Velar didn’t laugh. The very idea of such a request was ludicrous to him—but he could see from Starlight’s expression that ponies did not see the humor in it. “They said no, obviously. What was the else? A war? Am I a… prisoner?” Starlight shook her head. He could see there were tears there—though he couldn’t imagine why. He couldn’t reach out to try and comfort her anyway, so there was nothing to do but watch. And feel guilty, knowing he was probably responsible. “We severed diplomatic ties. Recalled every Equestrian citizen living in the territory, barred entry for every griffon. Terminated trade. Everything, until the princess’s demands are met.” Velar shivered. The first few provisions would be annoying—but trade meant food, food that the other cities were growing badly. New Scythia had plenty of food, but only because of the ponies helping them. Now that they’d been taken away, it was only another season before they were in the same position as all the other birds. And in the meantime—it sounded like the ponies had just planted a crop of their own. The seeds of a war. “Oh,” was all he managed to say. “Yeah.” Starlight nodded. “Oh.”