Velar collapsed to the floor, panting from the exertion and the pain of so many wounds. His Voidsteel had been so badly damaged that he could see it fuzzing away in places, little cracks of light leaking out from within. It would need to be contained again soon, or it would begin to feed on its wearer to repair itself.
But he couldn’t bring himself to care about that, or much of anything. Velar had done everything he could for Accipio. It was time for his fellow birds to pick up a little slack.
He spent an hour or two drifting between conscious and unconscious, the dreams of delirium and injury and maybe the ancient magic he wore. As he lay there on the stone, he imagined he could see ancient armies in the age before civilization, when ponies and griffons had fought together against a hunger that could never be sated.
But then something brought him back. Guinevere appeared before him, along with her train of engineers and attendants. They’d brought a vessel, along with tools. “M-mother…” he croaked, forcing himself into a sitting position even though he didn’t have the energy. “Is… my father…”
Guinevere shook her head. Her voice drifted in like a distant wind, her words only partially heard and always out of focus. “Every brave bird I know gave themselves for… looks like you almost did as well. Some of these wounds are serious.”
He nodded. “Some are. When you… take the armor off… be careful. I might bleed to death.”
His mother actually laughed. “I’ve been caring for Voidsteel since before you were hatched, child. Relax.”
“Get me…” he croaked, then dissolved into hacking coughs. A few seconds later he tried again. “If you can find me a pony doctor… that would be helpful. I don’t want the old magic. Zoya… has done a great service for the house. But there’s been enough blood, I don’t want any more spent for me.”
He wasn’t sure what his mother said next, or any of the other birds in her group. But he didn’t really care. He was vaguely conscious of their work as the armor was removed, and his many wounds were bandaged. He thought he saw a group of ponies arrive in white, medical uniforms, but he couldn’t have said for certain. He’d spent so long around ponies dressed like that after he’d been shot that he still sometimes saw them out of the corner of his eye when he was on the edge of consciousness.
Eventually he slipped away, and rest found him at last.
When he woke, he was in the throne room. He was looking up at the carved ceiling, thankfully not below any of the massive holes that his battle had created. The throne room was largely empty—no court today, no crowd of bickering nobility.
He sat up and found the relative numbness the Voidsteel gave him had been revoked. His whole body ached now, some places worse than others. Looking down showed him a body covered with bandages, tight enough that he couldn’t move as much as he might’ve liked. But at least he didn’t feel any of the persistent soreness of infection. The Equestrian doctors have done it again.
“W-who’s there?” he asked, trying not to sound too desperate. “I’m… thirsty.”
A glass of water appeared beside him, glowing in green magic. Starlight Glimmer emerged from behind the bed a second later. “Hey.”
Was that always her color?
“Hey.” He took it in one claw and drained the whole thing. Most of it went onto the bed, but it did help. “You’re still alive.”
“Alive, yeah,” she said. “So long as you restrict your measurements to the physical. Politically… well.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “I kind of committed like a dozen capital crimes saving New Scythia yesterday. And let’s just say that I’d already be in Tartarus if this was Equestria.”
“But it isn’t,” said another voice. Guinevere wore her full, formal robes, and from the sound of her voice she’d been sitting near the throne. But her wings fluttered for a moment, then she settled down just beside him. “For the moment, Starlight Glimmer is under the auspices of our protection. Her magic ended the worst slaughter in memory. House Virtue would not even still exist without her.”
“Yes, well…” Starlight Glimmer made a vague, indecisive sound. “I don’t think the princesses see it that way. Dark magic tends to… corrupt… the ones who use it. Even if I knew what I was doing, they’ll see me as a danger. Unless you somehow made it impossible for them… they’ll insist on giving me up. They’ll say you’re unsuited to contain the danger I pose, that the magic I turned against the deserving last night might be cast on innocents next. And they might be right.”
“What… what happened exactly?” Velar tried to rise out of bed, but Starlight Glimmer pushed him back. “After the battle started, I… kinda lost touch with everything else.”
“Equestria lost a lot of ships,” Starlight said. “We were badly outnumbered, and Vengeance was prepared. But our reinforcements kept arriving. Once the rest of the Lunar Fleet got here, word had gotten back to the admirals what you’d done to Santiago. They surrendered. Good thing too—my spell wouldn’t work at those distances.”
“The army was decimated,” Guinevere continued. “Our ships were unarmed and helpless, most of them were destroyed in drydock. New Scythia is occupied by the Equestrian Navy. They haven’t landed troops, but if they wanted to…” She shrugged her wings. “Well, you’re the one who needed to know.”
“Not you?” Starlight asked, without malice. “You’re the empress. Even with your husband’s… passing…”
“I’m the regent now,” Guinevere said. “In all the time you’ve lived with us, Starlight, I’m surprised you didn’t expect this one. There must be an emperor, and imperium passes through his line. Either that, or the office is claimed through blood. Santiago’s supporters would argue that the wounds he inflicted on Gaius caused his death, which would mean he is the rightful ruler. But then my son killed him, restoring the office to our house. Either way, Velar now rules. Or… would. If he had a wife. The emperor’s office cannot be filled by one bird, there must always be two.”
Velar’s mind swam. He’d known this day would come his entire life—dreaded it more than anything. He’d half imagined that his father would live forever, and that he would inherit the throne for a few years in his own old age, before passing it along to his son.
But his mother was right. Being emperor required a spouse. The same requirement would be imposed on him if something unfortunate happened to his wife while ruling. His eyes settled on Starlight Glimmer. “You said… Equestria will want your head, right? That asylum wouldn’t be enough to keep you from prison.”
“Not just prison.” Starlight sat back on her haunches, grinning ruefully. “Tartarus is… a distant, magical realm, filled with the demons of the past. I would probably be chained up there alongside some of the worst tormentors the world ever had.”
Some ancient instinct of Velar’s wanted to argue a story like that. But considering what Starlight Glimmer had accomplished—what he’d seen from ponies during his stay in Equestria—he figured he could start giving them the benefit of the doubt.
“Right,” he said, glancing meaningfully at Guinevere. Would she understand what he meant? Apparently yes, because behind Starlight she removed something from her head. The wrought platinum and white-gold diadem worn by the empress.
“But I wonder…” he went on. “What if we could give you more than just asylum? What if you were the Empress of Accipio? Would they still try to punish you then?”
“Obviously not, that would—” She trailed off, her ears suddenly flattening. Starlight Glimmer might be a little slow when it came to connecting griffon customs, but she had been living with them for a long time now. She could listen well enough. “Wait.” She sounded more confused than upset, which he hoped was a good thing. “Isn’t that… wouldn’t that mean…”
He nodded. “Asking a bird you’re courting is supposed to be an elaborate ritual. Every generation tries to make it a little more elaborate than the one before. But my city just got burned down, my father is dead… after everything you’ve done for me, I don’t want to lose you too. Please.” He gestured, and Guinevere set the thin metal crown onto the cot in front of Starlight. It was too large for a pony head—but they had blacksmiths for that.
“No pressure, right?” Starlight said, laughing quietly. “A lifetime with a selfless, honorable bird like you… or an eternity in demon prison. You drive a hard bargain.” Then she kissed him.
It wasn’t the best kiss Velar had ever experienced. But under the circumstances, he knew it was one he’d remember.
Equestria didn’t wait long to send in its negotiators—Princess Twilight Sparkle and her friends, as it turned out. They had a long list of demands for the griffon nation, one that started with the surrender of Starlight Glimmer just as his new betrothed had suggested.
But Velar was right about her becoming empress. As soon as the princess heard that, Twilight seemed almost relieved.
“These other demands are inflexible,” Twilight Sparkle said. “And yes, we’re calling them demands this time.” She flicked her wing up at the destroyed palace around them. “We negotiated with you like you were ponies, last time. We won’t make that mistake again.”
Velar was standing on his own legs, or at least sitting in the throne under his own power, but he was still wrapped in bandage and weak from his many wounds. “Tell me,” Velar said. “You’ll have to read the document for me. I can’t.”
Starlight levitated it over. She wore the crown now and sat in the throne beside him. The ritual wasn’t complete yet—it had to wait for the right phase of the moon. But that didn’t matter. She was empress now.
“An immediate end to the slavery of all ponies currently held captive,” said the very first point. “And an end to captivity for all other creatures within the year. A public commitment under oath not to reinstate the practice once you have returned to your home territory.”
Velar hissed under his breath, but didn’t actually argue. He’d known that point was coming. The other demands were just as harsh, and ended with the presence of military police in every city to enforce the provisions. In many ways, it was everything that Accipio had feared Equestria would demand. The slavery that Santiago had promised this peace agreement would bring. He’d been right, in a small way.
But now Accipio was in no place to resist. And for many of these new rules, he didn’t even want to. I told Starlight that this would collapse our economy. This war has probably already done that—it can’t get much worse, can it? It was like a bandage—it was best just to rip the whole thing off at once, instead of peeling carefully.
“Accipio has only one concern,” he said, once he’d finished listening to the list. He was an emperor now, and this was his palace. He didn’t wait for Twilight’s permission. “With the land you’ve given us, these provisions are impossible. Look outside—” He couldn’t actually move to do it by way of demonstration, but he could point at the windows.
“That’s a desert, out there. I notice there were no promises in there to return our weather ponies and provide them to the other cities. With those rules, we will certainly starve. Even if I enforce them, my government will collapse, and you will have millions of starving, angry birds flying north on Equestria.” The implication there went unsaid. It had been a long time since his kind had eaten ponies, but if Equestria starved them…
“Oh, yeah.” It was one of Twilight’s companions. The orange one. “We’ve up and figured a way for that already. See… we’ve got some better land picked out. It was a real mess to find it, and it’ll probably be another right mess to fly you there. But I’m sure there’s a way…” She nodded towards Twilight. “Let her worry about the logistics.”
“Better land…” Velar said. “I… have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“The carrot for that stick,” Twilight Sparkle said. “There is… a great deal of fertile land north of Equestria. Or there will be. We’ve been turning the towers on one at a time… ponies are already clamoring to move up there, so you’ll probably have some settlers joining you. Some settlers that will be protected under these new laws, I might add.”
“Woah.” Starlight Glimmer’s eyes widened. “You found the Crystal Empire’s weather network? It still works?”
Twilight seemed a little pained to answer—the same way she looked whenever Starlight spoke. But she still answered. “We’re still working out the kinks, but… it works. And the ones living there won’t need weather teams, just technicians to keep the towers running. Those technicians could be of any race… the magic comes from the Crystal Heart, not from the ones running it.”
“Ooooh.” Starlight nodded, apparently realizing something Velar didn’t. “That… makes sense.”
The treaty was signed within the hour.
Under any other circumstance, Velar knew that it would’ve been impossible to get Accipio to cooperate with such terrible demands. But Vengeance and Victory had already pushed their cities to near starvation. With their armies slaughtered, the birds who remained would take food in exchange for obedience. As for his own birds… he wasn’t the only one happy to see a few changes around Accipio.
The slaves who had sent him prayers of health and swift passage to Unity now formed his strongest supporters. Where his father would be remembered as Gaius the Unifier, he would be Velar the Liberator.
Accipio as an empire was dead, the old clans shattered and their web of ancient allegiances meaningless. But something new could be born from its corpse—Accipio the Republic. Many of the institutions were already in place.
They ended up living in the Crystal Empire for less time than ponies had probably imagined. Their new empress was just as passionate for engineering and invention as the old one—just of a different kind. And she had an excellent set of new technologies to reverse-engineer.
A few years later…
Velar felt the warmth of the weather-projector, even if it was hundreds of feet above them. The blimp lowered itself into position almost directly above Scythia.
But only the palace district had been cleaned—most of the rest of it looked like a city swallowed by a desert, a desert of white ash and flame.
“Projection is good…” said the empress, landing beside him with a half-dozen different instruments and papers following her through the air like her attendants. “We’re losing less than three percent over the ocean. I’d say the construction crew was right. Scythia is safe for habitation.”
Of course, she had real attendants too. Gina, of his father’s staff, supervising the military police. A number of Griffinstone representatives, here to determine if they wished to fly west with the rest of their kind.
“Did they… say if they’d finished excavating the tomb?” Velar asked. “I remember sealing it before we left, it shouldn’t take much. Just got to get to the door.”
Starlight leaned briefly against him, ignoring her instruments. Velar didn’t mind showing her a little weakness. “They have.”
“Then… radio to my father’s escort. There’s one thing I have to do… before the old empire can finally rest.”
“And then we build a new one?”
He nodded. “A better one.”