The pegasi platoon circled the smoking shelf of flattened rock. The villagers who had carved out a space to live here had worn their hooves to the bone.
And all for naught, Hurricane thought bitterly.
She banked a sharp left, unused to the strange mountain air currents. One of the ponies behind her overcompensated and nearly flew into the cliff face.
“Watch yourselves!” she snapped, risking a look back. Though her carefully chosen platoon’s faces were all blank, she read in their stiff postures that they were horrified by the smoking ruins below. She wondered whether the idiot had really overcompensated or simply been too distracted to fly straight.
Three specks rose up to meet them. Pansy’s face was far from blank. “No raiders remain, Commander,” she said, falling into formation. Instinctively the rest of the platoon reordered themselves to give her secondary position a smidge behind Hurricane. “We did a wide sweep and then close reconnaissance.”
“We were too late,” Hurricane replied grimly. “May their eyes rot in their sockets.” She struggled to hold in the yell, tamping it down to a growl.
This wasn’t the first time they had heard about a raid too late to save anypony. Part of her wanted to decree that all pegasi return to the ever-growing city of Pegalopolis. There were so many ponies up there now they had formed offshoot communities that thrived and expanded in turn: Cirrus City, Cloudsdale, Wild Blue Town, all flourishing places where guards patrolled and kept the citizens safe.
Yet since the formation of Equestria there were pegasi who had given up the skies and gone to live on the ground instead. Hurricane couldn’t understand it. Who would want a life of hard floors and harder living? This burned out shell of a village was at least set between earth and sky, as if the residents couldn’t bring themselves to give either up completely.
Bloody fools, she thought. Bloody, bloody fools!
Somewhere in the distance an eagle screamed; a lost and lonely cry that sounded a lot like a grief-stricken wail.
“Descend!” Hurricane barked, tucking both wings and dropping. She was the best flier in Equestria. She knew she could pull out of a nosedive with only seconds to spare. Most of this platoon were good too, though nowhere near her standard. Pansy, for example. Pansy was a stamina flier. She could cover long distances without falling out of the sky from exhaustion but shorts bursts of speed were beyond her. She needed plenty of warning for a dive.
In perfect formation, the V-shaped platoon tucked and dropped, flaring their wings out again to alight on the ledge. The smell of burned wood and blood, weak at a distance, now filled theirs nostrils. Even Hurricane’s gorge rose. The raiders had left no full bodies behind. It had been a hunting party for certain. Tell-tale splashes of red and detached manes and tails told their own story of who, exactly, had done the raiding. Griffins couldn’t digest pony hair and often removed it before carrying their prizes away.
Pansy came to stand beside her. “Should we search for survivors, Commander?”
There will be none, whispered Hurricane’s brain. “Aye,” her mouth replied. “Search high and low. If any remain, bring them. We shall leave nopony in this terrible place.”
“They built too close to the border,” she heard a brawny tan stallion mutter as they split off in predetermined pairs, the better to watch each other’s backs. “A mountain village this near Gryphona? ‘Tis pure foolishness! They as good as signed their own death warrants.”
“The only safe place is in the sky,” his partner replied, nodding.
Idiots, Hurricane thought.
Griffins had wings too. They were much less likely to tackle a fully armed warrior on the wing, but it wasn’t unheard of. enemy raiders and hunting parties had experienced too many victories and it was making them arrogant. This village had been burned at night, when the highest number of villagers would be there. Hunting parties rarely numbered more than four or five griffins.
So many of ours slain. So few of them slaying.
“Commander?” Pansy prompted.
Without acknowledging the other mare’s encouragement, Hurricane stepped forward.
The village wasn’t brand new. They’d had chance to get established. Had the griffins across the border been watching them the whole time? Life was harsh and food scarce in their frozen country, especially now, in winter. Had they allowed their neighbours to live and fatten up to provide fresh –
She shook the useless thoughts away and pushed her head against door barely clinging to its hinges, as if bumping against the inside of her helmet might shake loose the things spinning through her mind. It swung inward and, despite herself, her heart picked up speed. The interior of the small dwelling was pitch-dark and could be hiding anything. Her nostrils flared as she inhaled sharply, scenting for the distinctive musty odour of griffin. She could smell them everywhere but the scent was overlaid with blood, telling her they hadn’t been back after they had killed the occupants.
She glanced around in the square of pale morning light the open door threw. A small stove sat in the corner, an overturned saucepan on the floor. Whatever had been cooking had congealed beneath it in an unpleasant brown mush. To her left was a large rumpled bed. Evidently at least one occupant had been in bed when the raiders came, while another cooked. Such simple domesticity. These ponies had not been expecting what had happened.
None of them had. As she and Pansy checked dwelling after dwelling. Hurricane found tarnished armour and few weapons. The village had grown complacent about their safety. They had stopped practising Pegasus Laws after they removed themselves from the rest of their race. Hurricane knew that many pegasi chafed against her laws, but this was why they needed such rigour and severity!
“Just look at what doth happen when they leave the flock!” she muttered to herself.
“They could not have known,” Pansy said softly.
“Known? Nay. Suspected?” Hurricane snorted. “They should have suspected the dangers they faced on their own. They grew lax, Pansy, and this is their reward.”
“Reward?”
“Punishment, then!” she snapped. “They should have stayed in Pegalopolis.”
“They needed to be free.” Pansy’s voice softened to a near-whisper.
“Free? Free!?” Hurricane whirled on her. “This is what that kind of freedom hath wrought! Only death doth await those who choose to live on the ground!”
Pansy levelled a strange look at her; part grief, part sympathy, and part sternness. She had changed since they facing the Windigos more than a decade earlier. Her backbone was made of stronger stuff these days. “Wouldst it be thy will to hold them under thy hoof, no matter their own wishes?”
“I wish for them to be safe!” Hurricane thundered back. It always happened this way. She grew disproportionately louder as Pansy grew quieter. She threw a hoof at the dwelling they had just left; little more than burned out husk. She trotted to another, where the door was sturdier, and bucked I open in impotent rage. “I wish for –” She stopped as she saw what lay within.
“Commander?” Pansy trotted toward her, obviously worried at the change in her expression. “Hurric-oh!”
A small tail lay on the floor. It had been cut off and discarded by whoever had been here. From tip to tip it stretched no further than the span of Hurricane’s hoof. Strands of fur slicked too red to tell its original colour remained on one end. A tiny wooden crib lay overturned in the corner.
Hurricane trembled with grief and fury. “I wish for our ponies to be safe,” she said, her voice choked. She was glad only Pansy could hear her. Every other Pegasus thought she was strong and immoveable. She couldn’t afford to let them know otherwise.
“That is why Equestria was founded.” Pansy leaned in a gently nuzzled her friend’s shoulder. Her nose hit armour but she kept nuzzling anyway. Ridiculously, it made Hurricane feel a little … not better. More centred, she supposed. Pansy usually had that effect on her. “Once a song is sung, one cannot un-sing it, Hurricane. Once a foal is birthed, one cannot un-birth it. And once thou hath given freedom of choice to thy citizens, thou cannot then remove it. These pegasi chose because thou didst give them the possibility of choice. That is a good thing. To do otherwise would be pure tyranny and that is not thee, old friend. Thou art strict and strong, but thou art not cruel.”
Hurricane hung her head. “It was not supposed to be this way,” she said hoarsely. “Equestria was meant to be a land of peace and plenty.”
“Where all three pony races live together in harmony,” Pansy agreed. “And we have done that.”
She didn’t add how relations were still a little strained sometimes. They were still far better than they had been in the beginning. Princess Platinum was actually letting unicorns live elsewhere than the Unicornia province these days and there was tell of growing intermarriage between the tribes. Just the other day a nervous Pegasus stallion in her own guard had come to Hurricane asking permission to marry an earth pony and move to the ground to be with her. Ponies –all ponies – it seemed, were making inroads on the prejudices that had divided them for so long.
But Equestria was not the paradise the six founders had hoped for. Fate was fickle and unkind. No sooner had the ponies begun healing rifts amongst themselves, they were beset by enemies from outside their borders. The enemies had always been there, picking off earth ponies, pegasi and even unicorns when they could. Now, however, circumstances were spiralling and Equestrian citizens were the ones paying the price.
Hurricane stamped a hoof. “This shall not stand,” she declared.
Pansy drew back. “Hurricane?”
“I aim to call a council. I shall summon all six founding ponies and we shall decide what is to be done about this heathen threat to us and ours.” She stamped her hoof again. “No more will we be too late to save another village, Pansy. No! More!” She wheeled around cantered away, yelling for the rest of the platoon to reconnoitre where they had landed.
Pansy took a moment longer. She half-turned, but then hesitated, one foreleg raised. Seeming to come to a decision, she knelt to pick up the discarded foal’s tail and tucked it gently into her saddlebag.
“I am so sorry, little one,” she whispered, voice cracking in a way she could never allow Hurricane to hear. “On my honour, I shall see thee to a true burial.”
With that, she cantered after her commander.
….
Hurricane slammed her hoof against the table. “Unacceptable!”
Platinum tossed her head, sending her silvery mane bouncing. She did that a lot when she was irritated. Since the summit started she had practically bounced her head right off her neck.
“Wherefore is this ‘unacceptable’?” she demanded.
“You place your unicorns’ lives above my pegasi!”
“I do no such thing,” she sniffed. “I merely state that it is preposterous to sacrifice ponies whose hooves remain on the ground to adversaries with wings.”
“But is it tolerable that my pegasi fight and die because they also wear feathers?”
“Be silent, Hurricane. I spake nothing for the sort.”
“thy meaning doth run clear as ice melting to water, Platinum.”
“Princess Platinum,” she corrected.
Hurricane snorted. “Have we need for archaic airs and graces here?”
“I know not, Commander,” Platinum replied, voice cool. “Have we?”
They both turned their heads at the sound of someone else tapping the table. “Ladies, ladies,” Puddinghead said cheerfully. “Since it took months for this meeting to be reached, let us not take it all up with petty arguing, hmm?” His bushy moustache wiggled from side to side as he smiled and wrinkled his nose. He hadn’t possessed the ridiculous thing the last time Hurricane had seen him, though he seemed quite proud of it now and moved his face constantly as if to show it off to the room-ful of ponies.
“Petty arguing?” Hurricane echoed incredulously. “The lives of our ponies are not petty, you impudent –”
Pansy placed a hoof on her shoulder. It had the same effect as splashing water on a spitting coal fire. Hurricane’s embers smouldered but her blazing temper died back a little.
Puddinghead’s moustache stopped wiggling. “Forgive me, Hurricane. I misspoke. Thy words are truth: the lives of our ponies are not petty. Many earth ponies have also been taken from their farms and homes. We know the same sting of loss as thee.”
It was so strange to see the relentlessly cheerful stallion act sombre for once that Hurricane was lost for words. It fell to Pansy to make her point for her, rolling her helmet between her hooves apprehensively. They had both removed their helmets upon entering the room as a show of good faith, though they kept them in hoof.
“Then we come to the crux of this meeting. What are we to do about the griffin threat?”
Puddinghead stared out of the window. This longhouse they were in had been built by earth ponies. Hurricane found herself drawn to whatever point he was looking at. Several ponies passed the window, though not all were earthers. A pegasus went by, helping to carry a huge basket of apples. A unicorn pulled the cart carrying the rest of the load, seeming not to care that his coat was covered in dirt as he chatted with the mare hitched beside him. Strangest of all, a tiny unicorn filly bounded around an earth pony mare who was her exact double in coat and hair colour, but lacked her horn.
Equestria was not just a place. It was something happening around them. It was something wonderful; something magical; something that had never happened before. They were witnessing history being made.
But how long could it last against outside threats?
“There have been … unicorn losses also,” Platinum admitted. She sighed, as if admitting this was something she had hoped not to do. She glanced at the empty seat beside her, reserved for Clover the Clever. One reason they had postponed the meeting until now was because they had been trying to track him down, but since he left the Unicornia Province he seemed to have fallen off the map. Nopony had been able to find him and they had eventually agreed to hold the summit with only five founders instead of six.
At Platinum’s admission and furtive glance, both pegasi and earth ponies shared the same thought: was Clover among the losses she spoke of? Had they not been able to find him because he wasn’t there to be found? The thought was horrifying. Clover was the strongest of them all, though neither Hurricane nor Platinum would ever admit that. If their enemies could kill him, what hope did the rest of them have?
“We cannot go to war,” Smart Cookie said flatly. She didn’t smack the table to get attention, yet her soft statement had every ear flicking towards her. “We are not equipped for that.”
“Pegasi are all combat trained,” Hurricane started to say, but faltered. They used to all be combat trained. Now only those in the pegasi cities were, and even then she could only swear to Pegalopolis. The offshoot cities were self-governing. It was possible that they, like the burned out village that had inspired her to call the other founders, had ceased following the Laws once they were away from her. Nonetheless, she squared her shoulders and hoped her misgivings didn’t show on her face.
“But earth ponies are not,” Smart Cookie replied. “We are ponies of soil and plough, not blade and blood. Unicorns are ponies of crafts and magic.”
“They could be trained,” Hurricane insisted, though there was less conviction to her tone than before.
She looked outside again, watching the little unicorn filly trot after her mother. A pair of pegasus colts whooshed past, chasing each other and laughing wildly. They were spindly little things, all too-long legs and big eyes. She tried to imagine them older, in armour, carrying spears and ready to face off against an experienced griffin hunting party. It used to be easy for her to imagine the next generation taking their rightful place in pegasus society. Now … not so much.
“Aye, they could,” Smart Cookie agreed. “And then what? Gryphona is not a fledgling country still trying to find its place in the world. It is old and so are its ways and customs. Loyalty to the king is absolute. He need only raise a single claw and more than mere raiders would pour over our borders. In a heartbeat Equestria would be razed to the ground.”
“Then what is thy suggestion?” Hurricane demanded. “Thou dost offer many nays but I have yet to hear any of thy solutions.”
“I …” Smart Cookie started, but her mouth remained open as she ran out of words after just that one. Her coat, the colour of dirt even when it was clean, seemed less lustrous than when Hurricane had seen her last. Smart Cookie was a work-pony through and through. She actually enjoying tending the land making things grow. She got some sort of pleasure from it that Hurricane couldn’t fathom, though she supposed Smart Cookie couldn’t understand her love of flight either. The founding of Equestria had done wonders for Smart Cookie’s po-faced disposition. Now, however, the worries and cares of running a country and keeping its inhabitants were clearly taking the its toll. Earth ponies didn’t live as long or retain their youth the way unicorns and pegasi did.
It occurred to Hurricane in a bolt of unwelcome clarity that, of the founding six, Smart Cookie and Puddinghead would likely be the first to die – provided she and Pansy didn’t get themselves killed first. She mulled the idea over and found it unpleasant in a way she would not have only a few short years ago. She would … miss them. It was ridiculous, but she would actually miss them.
A pegasus mourning mud-ponies? she thought, falling back onto the old nickname pegasi had used for earth ponies since time immemorial. Even calling them that felt unpleasant now, as if she had insulted them to their faces even though the words had only been inside her own head. She resisted the urge to hit herself with her own helmet. She was going soft in her dotage.
“What can we do?” Platinum said at last. “I mean not to offend thee or thine, Hurricane, but we are not warmongers.”
“Yet our hooves remain as stained with blood as the griffins’ if we do naught,” Hurricane snapped, bristling at herself and the other ponies around the table.
As if on cue, a splotch appeared in the centre of the table. At first, Hurricane thought it was a shadow. Then it rose off the wood and levitated into the air, undulating like a piece of hot pitch falling in reverse from a freshly thatched roof.
She was on her hooves in an instant, helmet on and sword unsheathed. A fraction behind her Pansy also drew her weapon, as Platinum, Puddinghead and Smart Cookie shot away from the table.
“What is this?” Hurricane demanded.
The splotch rippled and swelled, clumps of fur sprouting from it as tiny nubs appeared and lengthened. Several cracks were heard as these protuberances bent themselves into joints that had apparently not existed prior. The whole nightmarish thing kept growing and growing, until it towered over them, top half swinging forward like a spiked mace in the middle of battle. A horn popped out, and then another. Two lines appeared and popped open, revealing dull yellow eyes beneath. These rolled about in the still-undulating skull, until a newly formed upper limb reached up and smacked the back of its head.
“Ugh, I do so loathe it when that happens,” the creature said. It blinked a few times and then focussed anew on the founders. It smiled when it saw Hurricane and Pansy, seeming amused by their display. “Dost thou intend to stick me with thy tiny needles?”
“Needles!?” Hurricane thundered, rearing up and flaring her wings to make herself look larger. It was an old pegasus technique and, couples with her red coat and armour, made her look quite formidable. She managed to talk understandably around the sword-grip in her mouth, testament to the many battles and times she had repelled raiders while still barking orders to her warriors. “My sword shall find thy throat, intruder. What manner of beast art thou and what be thy business here?”
“My business?” The creature smiled wider. “So quick to turn to talk of business, little pony. As to what manner of ‘beast’ I am, well, I am all manner of beasts.” It laughed raucously, as if it had just made the best joke in the world.
Hurricane tightened her teeth around the sword-grip. Her wings trembled with the impulse to fly at whatever the thing was. The air reeked of sulphur from its entrance.
It looked like some godling had put together a collection of limbs without having a real working manner of what the word ‘body’ meant. Things had been thrown together haphazardly, with no thought for aesthetics. The creature’s eyes were two different sizes, one seemingly slipping down its long face. Its horns didn’t match. Neither did any of its four limbs. Some parts of it looked vaguely equine, while others reminded her of goats, dragons, snakes, lions and – she forced down a growl – griffins.
The creature sat back onto empty air and hung there as if taking a seat on an actual chair. It regarded them and snickered to itself again.
“I come to thee, ponies, with a proposition,” it chuckled. “This summit be to discuss the threat to thy country posed by King Slaughterbeak and his griffins. Is this so?”
“What interest is it of thine what we discuss?” Hurricane demanded.
“I have watched thy tiny country for some time now,” it replied. “Its struggles amuse me. Ponies are such amusing creatures. I would be saddened by its loss – and the loss of its citizens. Therefore I propose a solution to the threat whose shadow falls across it now.”
Hurricane made to speak again, but Smart Cookie coughed loudly. She looked across the table, peering past the creature’s undercarriage to meet Smart Cookie’s gaze. The other mare shook her head slightly and cleared her throat to get the creature’s attention.
“What is thy name?” she asked.
“Oh, I have had many.” The creature leaned forward, turning a slow somersault in the air. “Names are names are names are names. ‘Tis all much of a much in the end. I am old and I am young. I have nameless and yet I possess more names than all gathered here.” He focussed on each pony in turn. “Smart Cookie. Chancellor Puddinghead, Princess Platinum Pearlescent Resplendent-in-her-Glory, Liege of the United Ponies of Unicornia.” It tapped its chin. “Such a mouthful. Yet I still outstrip thee, princess, for my names are legion.”
“What should we call thee?” Smart Cookie maintained.
The creature sighed and scratched the back of its head with the tip of its lizardine tail. “Discordance,” it said at last. “I am an avatar of chaos in this world and I have chosen thee, little ponies, upon whom to lavish my attention. This ‘Equestria’ doth show much potential and I would have it continue, not fall to the claws of thy enemies. Therefore, I propose thus: let me save thee. I could but click my claws and the borders of Equestria would be safe again.” It grinned a mouth full of mismatched yellowing teeth.
Hurricane scowled. “And what payment wouldst thou expect for such a deed?” She still didn’t trust unicorn magic entirely. The idea of letting this thing loose on their borders made her stomach pulse cold.
“Simply thy time and company,” the creature replied. “Oh, and the time and company of thy citizens. All ponies amuse me. Their reactions to me and my powers are always so … entertaining.” It laughed again, twisting up to the ceiling and pushing off as if swimming back down to their level. “So what sayest thee, little ponies.” It cocked its head. “If it would aid the speed of their decision, I can tell thee that a small earth pony village on thy northern border suffers a raid at this very moment. I could save it as an act of goodwill, to prove my worth to thee.” It wiggled its eyebrows encouragingly. “A favour in want of no payment.”
“What village?” Puddinghead asked.
“I do believe its name is … hmm … Green Meadow.” The creature nodded. “Aye, named for the field upon which it was planted.”
Puddinghead and Smart Cookies exchanged a look. Evidently this was a real place.
“Where is it?” Hurricane asked them.
“Too far for even thee to reach it in time,” Smart Cookie replied grimly. “Dost thou play us false, Discordance?”
“Nay, I would never!” The creature raised its paw to its chest as if clasping its heart – although who knew how many it contained in that strange body. “My magic can transport us there is two shakes of a lamb’s tail.” It turned around, revealing its own tail had transformed into a long white woolly one. “Merely say aye and ‘tis done; thy ponies saved an my intentions made clear. I only wish to aid thee.”
Something about the way it smiled when saying this made Hurricane suspicious, but there was no time to think too hard about it.
“What say thee, friends?” Puddinghead asked.
Platinum, who had never once taken her eyes from the creature, spoke up in a watery voice. “I … I say aye.”
“As do I,” Smart Cookie agreed. “Our ponies’ lives are not ours to play with if aid is offered to save them, whatever the source.”
Pansy and Puddinghead agreed, which left only Hurricane. She let the growl she had tamped down earlier travel up her throat, making her sound like a feral dog, but nodded.
The creature clapped its misshapen paws together. “Wonderous! Come, new friends, and let us away to Green Meadow !”
The world tipped sideways, as if something had picked up the longhouse and shaken everything and everyone within it to one end. Hurricane stumbled and took to the air out of habit. Colour smeared across her vision. She heard cows lowing and chickens clucking, but the sound whipped by her. The laughter of foals slurred and became the screams of wounded and terrified ponies.
And then she was outside a small village being raided by a griffin hunting party.
“Oh my …” she heard Pansy say.