//------------------------------// // Chapter 10 // Story: The First Republic // by Starscribe //------------------------------// I knew I wouldn’t have much time for this interview. The Hammer of Gaius was fast, and the emperor didn’t seem patient. I glanced around the bridge to see if any of the other birds here would be disruptive, but so far I could see no sign of their intention to interfere. I reached into my pack, and nearly took the pad myself when I remembered what Radiant Dawn had said. Velar would be too uncomfortable with a male writing to give me anything like honest answers. I passed her the pad, along with my ballpoint pen. Hopefully birds knew how to use them, because I hadn’t seen any yet in the Republic. Before I asked you anything, I just wanted to make it clear that I’m asking for the purpose of the publication. I’m not on Equestrian business, and I’m not making accusations. I’m hoping to make the account as accurate as I can. Someone’s been thinking about this for a while. You think I’m going to declare war on Equestria because of something you ask? Laughter, from him and several of his officers. You don’t have to say it, I can see what you’re thinking. No, I’m not. But I’m afraid you aren’t going to get anything more from me than you have from any of the other questions I’ve answered over the years. I’ll assume you’ve read those. My house has many virtues, but truth and honor are both at the top. If I said something, I meant it. Velar instantly strikes me as the sort of creature who knows how to deal with interviews. He might mock me for having my remarks ready, but he does too. At least Radiant Dawn is keeping up with us, though her claw writing is so bad I’ll have to go back and re-transcribe everything she’s scrawling. Not every question is the kind that you would’ve been asked. For instance, were you in favor of your father’s peaceful solution for Equestria? Not when he first told me. Every bird in Accipio has a chip in their beak over what happened in the Sky Crusade. Losing a whole house—everybird thought their generation would be the one to make things right, to liberate Griffionstone and take some of your land for a change, instead of the other way around. He was right about being honest. I can’t imagine him saying these things around the princesses, but he doesn’t even hesitate. Then again, he is the emperor of the second-greatest nation in the world, and by far the largest by area.  Something made you change your mind. My wife. Well—wasn’t my wife then, but that’s history you can look up for yourself. I supported my father at the beginning, but I didn’t agree with him. But then the Equestrian envoy arrived, and I saw what unicorns could do. The Old Magic is powerful stuff, greater in many ways than what you ponies do. But it takes preparation, and time. Starlight didn’t need either one—she could vanish from one place and reappear in another.  I was younger, and stupider. I thought that she was what every pony soldier would be like. Maybe even less, since I expected Equestria to send an expendable messenger. You were supportive of the peace agreement from then on? Rut no. But Starlight stayed in Accipio to supervise—just one pony, as insane as that seemed. On her first day inspecting ships, she finished one ship all day. But she did a dozen ships on her second day, and had random crewmen from her ship helping by the third day. I’m not ashamed to say that I was grateful we weren’t fighting. Not because I didn’t think we would win—I knew we would. But the stronger our enemy, the more terrible the losses. I don’t want to think about how many birds would’ve died if we had a real war. I don’t know where we’ve flown to. We’re high in the air, so high I can’t even see the ground from the horizontal angles through the window. The ship has begun to jostle slightly, as though we were riding the currents of something larger. But there’s nothing out there but clouds. What were your first signs there might be rebellion from the other clans? You mean before or after Gabriel dueled my father to the death? More laughter. They weren’t called house Vengeance because they enjoyed making chamber pots. It didn’t matter that their duel was perfectly fair, we’d taken Vengeance blood and they would want blood in exchange. Gabriel’s son Santiago was even less supportive of the whole peace thing than his father had been—some part of me wonders if we would’ve been better off just refusing the duel. Gabriel would’ve been bitter and annoying at every turn, but the family wouldn’t have been willing to sacrifice everything to get their way. Guess we’ll never know. They tried to kill you, didn’t they? Yes. On one of your state visits, thankfully for me. Tournament of Freedom was more than just ceremonial back then, it was a real chance for the ones who lived their lives in service, maybe the only one they’d ever have. If you ask Starlight about it, she’ll say I let my virtue get the better of me twice. First by fighting beside a stranger because I felt sorry for him—the stranger who shot me—and then the second time by refusing the Old Magic. We had the means to heal anything, even wounds that Equestria’s most talented surgeons can’t do a rutting thing about. But that magic takes another life, and… It never sat right with me. I refused it, and the rest is history. Starlight Glimmer saving your life… She nursed me back to health, which certainly didn’t have anything to do with my falling for her—forgive my frankness, but I’ve never found another pony interesting before. You’re all just too small, too weak, too… undeveloped. She was the first, and the last. I’m not actually interested in his romantic life, and Radiant Dawn looks like she’s going to get sick if I let him keep going on about it much longer. So I try to take the conversation a different direction with the rest of my questions. That put you in the right place to fight in the Battle Above Canterlot, didn’t it? Velar laughed again, though this time he was the only one who seemed to know what was so funny. I suppose Equestrian history would record it that way. I go from one of your hospitals right onto the bridge of an airship fighting against the evil house Vengeance. But no, that wasn’t it. They brought me in because I was a hostage they could use against my father. At that point, Equestria didn’t know that the rebellion wasn’t a coordinated effort by all of us. I don’t think you could get over your biases—you see each other as one nation, so you thought we would be too. Problem was, my father hadn’t gone back on the deal. He really did believe in the alliance, and more importantly he would happily let Equestria execute me rather than subject the empire to danger or disgrace. Virtue doesn’t take the threat of hostages very well. Let them use it against you once, and they’ll keep doing it until the end of time. This is all news to me—Velar is right, Princess Celesta’s own historians have neglected all this. I make sure Radiant Dawn has it all down before moving on. I can see Equestria didn’t hurt you once they realized you wouldn’t be valuable to them. You’re not very good about using hostages either. Or maybe it was just that my father was innocent, and we were happy to work alongside Equestria to stop the invasion. Fighting two houses is easier than fighting all four.  You look young—were you born after the war? Yes. Thought so. You younger creatures just can’t understand the fear we felt—all of us. Even birds can feel fear when their whole world ends. You spent lifetimes building up something you think is invincible, and suddenly forces so much bigger and stronger than you rip it right out from under your claws. Gaius and I both understood that a war with Equestria would mean starvation, even if we won. We were employing weather ponies to help manage the land around New Scythia, before the invasion. And after. Life is easier with magic. We’re interrupted by the shout from one of his nearby officers. He says the sonar has picked up something large moving away from us.  Better hurry it up with your questions, male scholar. We’ve found our quarry, and I can’t let it get away. You’re welcome to help hunt it, though. That was why my daughter said you were joining us. He says some other things, directly to Radiant Dawn. I can tell she isn’t writing them down, but I don’t correct her. I wouldn’t want those things written down either. After the Battle Above Canterlot, you went with Starlight and some others to New Scythia. You knew you’d be outnumbered and unprepared, since Vengeance and their allies had been making illegal firearms for months. Why’d you go? Because it was the right thing. That’s what House Virtue is about. Our birds and friends didn’t deserve to be burned so some fledgling who thought he should be king could sit on the biggest nest. Besides, I know it probably isn’t this way for ponies, but the houses—we’re extended families, huge ones. New Scythia was mostly populated with Virtue birds. And any of the creatures who weren’t directly related to us through some cousin or other distant relative had sworn their loyalty and friendship to us. Wouldn’t you die to protect your friends? I suppose I’m glad I’ve never been asked to. That’s peacetime for you. While you’re in Equestria, tell them to make it last. I don’t want to kill creatures again if I can avoid it. We’re killing something now. No. Wraiths died a long time ago. I can tell that Velar doesn’t want to talk to me for much longer. He gets up from his couch, stretching and adjusting the rifle on his shoulder. Maybe he expects to be using it soon. But there’s one more question I’m dying to ask, one that’s so poorly recorded that I have no idea what he might say when I ask it. I’ve spent a long time trying to find out how you took back New Scythia. The best I’ve learned, there was some kind of… curse, that afflicted the Vengeance army. What can you tell me about it? That it was cruel… and necessary. I don’t judge my wife for her magic, the way some others do. A bird would never fight the way she fought, but she wasn’t a bird. You can ask her more about it if you’re feeling brave. It’s her truth to share with you, or to die with at her leisure. That was the moment he turned, running for the door. “Stay on its tail, Captain Anthony! I’m headed to the cannons!” “Good shooting, Emperor!” one of the other birds said. I would’ve been perfectly happy sitting on the bridge to watch whatever was about to happen—but Dawn passed me my pen and paper roughly and hurried after her father so fast I didn’t have a chance to protest. I galloped after them. The close quarters of the Hammer of Gaius worked to my advantage here, since I was free to gallop but the emperor could only move so fast.  We didn’t go far anyway, just down a deck and around the corner to a room with a soldier waiting outside, already armed. “Officer Gallus is waiting for your order, Emperor!” He nodded, darting past him into the cannons.  Here an opening in the side of the Hammer of Gaius had been created, filling the room with a roaring wind and steady thrum of engines.  A set of two gigantic long-guns were set into the deck, with hydraulic stands and manual claw-targeting for their automatic reloading.  The ship had a cannon crew, but they got out of the way for their emperor, lowering their heads respectfully. Through the opening to the outside, I got my first look at a wraith. It was a dragon, or what was left of one. A dragon made of bones and wisps of ghostly magic, its eyes burning red. Ash trailed behind it through the air, lighting under the force of its tail and leaving embers to rain down through the air behind it. “Celestia above… we’re fighting that?”