//------------------------------// // Prologue // Story: The Lies of War // by RegularBrony //------------------------------// Equestria, the Griffins’ greatest enemy. Warhorses of a land built upon a notion of blood and steel. They are ruled by a pair of undying goddesses that embodied the aspects of the Sun and Moon; Daybreaker, the Sol Invictus and Nightmare Moon, Walker of Dreams respectively. For over fifty years they had been slowly encroaching upon our lands, taking more and more of our hunting grounds, villages, and sacred forests. All the while, they murdered anyone in their way whether it be hen, chicks or tercel. Finally, our Imperial King Edward the Third had enough- he waged all out warfare with the Ponies, taking back much of the lost land and pushing back the invading force. About three years into the war, I was drafted into His Majesty's Imperial Army as a scout and messenger. I had seen the Ponies, and how they work in combat up close. The animalistic blood-lust and pure rage that the Ponies put forth in battle chilled me to my very core. There are three main races of Ponies; the Unicorns, Pegasi, and Earth Ponies. The Unicorns, who specialize in spellcasting, assassinations and magical medical practice, are also the Knights of Equestria’s Armies. Our Griffin Glyphmakers’ only advantage over Unicorn Spellcasters, is the Unicorns’ absolute reliance on others to protect the casters when they cast spells. A single Glyphmaker can cast a fireball at an enemy, while the same fireball spell would take two to three Unicorn casters and a squad of Earth Breakers, or a team of Pegasi to protect them. The Pegasi are weather warriors and scouts, and hold a much better grasp of weather control than any Griffin could ever hope to achieve. Our only saving grace is the limited number of Pegasi in the war- rumor is that before the Ponies’ unification the Pegasi were almost wiped out of existence due to their warring nature with the other two races. And finally, the Earth Ponies. They make up the bulk of the Equestrian Armies, but since many of them come from farming or botany backgrounds,they hold little to no combat expertise. Instead they use their knowledge of nature and plants to their advantage by using potions, fetishes, and talismans to aid in combat and field medical work. On the other claw there are the Earth Breakers- large Clydesdales who can literally crush boulders and send the shards flying through the air just as fast as any of our archers could shoot a bow. We have nothing that can contend with that, other than our agility and finesse in flight to hope we can dodge the shards. As of the present, I was assigned to a mission of carrying an order of materials that the Imperial King needed for his luxurious field tent and command center. It was of utmost importance that I get back to Ironclaw to deliver the order, as His Majesty had ripped his bed sheets while merrymaking with a camp whore. This is where my story really begins- it was on that outing, that my life had changed forever. On that mission, I had met my first Ponies up-close.