//------------------------------// // Chapter 1: Leaving for adventure // Story: Gusty the Great book 2- The crusades // by Dianabel //------------------------------// Very early in the morning as usual, Majesty lit candles for her husband and son. She breathed in a faster pace than usual, staring blankly at Lucky´s personal objects. “Sorry for not talking much today.” she apologized. “It´s just…” she sighed. “Today is an important day because we´re leaving to resume the conquests. After all this time.” she chuckled slightly. “It´s going to be very difficult to step into another battle due to what happened in that fateful day.” she looked away and closed her eyes, whimpering at the memories. “But I must do it so your death is not in vain, my child.” she stroked the toy carefully. “And I also must fulfil the promise I made to my family: I´ll take back what´s ours and nothing will tear it down, no matter what I must sacrifice in the way.” she said as she got up. Majesty looked at her parent´s portrait, most specifically at her father. Her ears dropped and her eyes were those of a foal with longing. “Majesty!” a feminine and tender voice called her. She widened her eyes and perked her ears up in surprise. She turned her head and saw a small filly giggling while running through the corridors, her mother following behind. “Majesty, slow down.” the mare ordered to the filly. “Sorry, mother.” the filly apologized. “But I can´t help it! I´m so full of energy and looking forward to play.” “You´ll play with your dolls later.” “I don´t want to play with the dolls. I want to run around.” “I took you with me for a walk not for a run.” Majesty walked to the door and peeked her head to keep sight of them. “Stop it, you´re going to bump into somepony.” Despite her mother´s warnings, the filly didn´t listen and ended up doing what her mother had predicted. Ashamed, she looked up at the pony she juts bumped her head against, who was none other than her huge and bearded father. “Oh! Sorry father.” “Hm!” the stallion rolled her eyes before he continued his walk. The young Majesty´s stared disillusioned at her father. She looked down with a sigh. “See? I told you you´d bump into somepony.” her mother scolded her as she checked she didn´t have any bumps. “Come on, let´s get you back to your room.” “Why doesn´t father like me?” Majesty her mother. The unicorn mare widened her eyes, shocked by the question. “What?” “Why doesn´t father like me?” Majesty´s mother scoffed. “Wha- Why would you say that?” “I don´t know, he barely smiles or talks to me, or spends time with me. Have I done something to offend him?” “Well, right now you just bumped into him to be fair. But as for other times, he´s just stressed due to Grogar, you know? But don´t worry, I´ll talk to him.” her mother kissed her cheek before she closed the bedroom´s door. As it would happen to any other foal, curiosity got the best of young Majesty, so she opened her bedroom´s door and went to the corridor. Following her parents´ voice, she walked to the door they were behind and eavesdropped their conversation. “I understand that she´s not the kind of child that you wanted. But she´s still your daughter. Show her some love.” her mother said to Majesty´s father. “It´s not that simple, love.” the stallion replied. “Our dynasty is in danger of disappearing and we can´t afford to have a child that can´t inherit the throne.” “I know, but she can still make an heir when she´s old enough.” “But what if she can´t?” “In that case, you´ll have to do an exception.” The stallion scoffed. “Really? You think she would be a suitable ruler?” The mare pressed her lips. “I know that due to our emotional nature we are not suitable rulers. But if we have no option left, I believe we should give her a chance.” “She won´t grow into a strong colt! I am not making her my heir!” “I´m sure we´ll find a solution in case she can´t bring foals to this world but let´s assume she does. She can still have a purpose.” “She´s a filly. A filly! She won´t be of no use to me. So why bother?” Young Majesty gasped hurt at those words. She ran to her room, holding her tears. Majesty looked at the filly with sympathy. “Queen Majesty?” a voice asked. The voice brought Majesty back to the present. “Lancer! I didn´t see you.” “Are you ok?” Lancer asked concerned. “Yes, sorry it´s just I was lighting a candle for my husband and son as always, I remembered something and I lost track of time.” “It´s ok. But I´ll inform you that we are ready to leave.” “Good, tell them I´ll be there in a few minutes.” Lancer raised a hoof in obedience and left. Majesty entered again to the room to pick up her son´s toy. She kissed it and she looked up to the sky. “Well.” she sighed. “This is it. There is not turning back.” She breathed in and out before joining the soldiers. “Do you really have to leave? Again?” Luna asked Gusty. Gusty sighed. “I´m afraid so.” “But you´ll come back, right?” Celestia asked in reply. Gusty stayed silent. The truth was that she didn´t know. There was a high chance that she wouldn’t come back, and this would be the last time she saw her daughters. But saying that would be very hard for her daughters to digest. But lying didn´t feel ok either. Seeing that there was no answer, Celestia sighed frustrated. “Look, you knew this would happen. I don´t want to do this either but I have no choice.” “I know but whenever we are together you have to leave again for a long time!” said Luna. “And worse, this time you might not come back for real.” her eyes filled with tears. “I don´t want to lose you too.” she hugged her. “Me neither nye tikpe dawa. My small moon.” Gusty hugged Luna as she cried. Celestia joined the hug as well, tears also in her face. “And little light. Tang tikpe batti.” she stroked Celestia´s mane. “Will you remember us?” Celestia asked Gusty. “Of course! You´ll be in my head all the time. Why would you question that?” “With all the fighting and everything, I don´t think you´ll have time to think about us. Besides, we cannot communicate because you won´t be able to visit.” “Yeah, that´s a big problem.” Gusty agreed. Glory, who was passing by, overheard the conversation. “You can always write each other letters, you know?” she suggested. “That´s a great idea! But we don´t know how to read or write that much…” “I can help you!” Glory offered. “You would?” “Yeah! We´re going to be away for so long, you and your bonny lassies shouldn´t be deprived of communication.” “But what about us?” Luna enquired. “The unicorns that will take care of you are experts in reading and writing. They can help you with that.” she noticed Clover passing by with Galaxy. “Especially him.” she pointed at him. Clover noticed Glory pointing at him. “Why are you pointing at me?” he asked curiously. “I was telling them that you were the best to teach them to read and write.” “Of course!” he said with great pride. “Wait. Are you calling me a nerd?” Glory held her laughter. “You can also communicate with pictures, you know?” Galaxy suggested. “That´s actually a pretty good idea!” Celestia commented. “Thank you. Fizzy used to draw while telling me stories.” “Of course I did!” Fizzy sprung out of nowhere, scaring Clover. “Where did she come from?” “Don´t question it, just get used to it.” Galaxy adviced him. Fizzy hugged her sister very tightly. Though a bit uncomfortable by it, Galaxy smiled and hugged her sister back. “I´m going to miss you so much! Take care ok?” “You too! Don´t do anything stupid and pay attention to what´s happening, ok?” Galaxy said worried. “Yes sister.” Fizzy gave her a huge kiss. “I love you cosa linda!” “Me too hermana.” Galaxy held the urge to cry. “Fizzy! Fizzy! Where are you?” Buttons looked for her. “Here!” Fizzy raised her hoof so Buttons could see her. Buttons sighed relief. “Thank goodness! I thought you left on your own.” “Why would you think that?” Fizzy asked naively. Both Buttons and Galaxy raised their eyebrows at her. “Ok, you´re right.” Celestia and Luna looked at their mother. Gusty shrugged and started laughing, the fillies joining in her laughter. Meanwhile, Lancer left the building. He stomped his hoof to get everypony´s attention. “Attention everypony!” he called to everypony. “Queen Majesty will join us in brief moments. Is everypony ready?” “Yes sir!” everypony replied as they raised their hooves. Lancer nodded his head. Few moments later, Majesty joined Lancer. She looked at him and nodded. “We´re leaving now.” she annunciated. Everypony followed behind her. Gusty gave Celestia and Luna a tight hug and two big kisses. “Take care. We´ll be fine.” she told them. “I´ll try to stay alive to come back in some months.” Slowly, she let go of their hooves. Like everypony else, they waved hooves at each other as they separated. Clover watched with a proud smile how they left, only to change expression when he noticed Galaxy´s, Celestia´s and Luna´s worried and sad faces. He raised his eyebrow intrigued. Gusty looked sad at the ground. As well as Luna said, she was reunited with her daughters only to be separated once again with a higher risk than last time. Very often she felt guilty for what was happening. She always loved hearing her magaga´s tales and imagined herself living the adventures she told her, breaking free from her boring hard life for a while, sometimes even wishing to live it in the real life. Oh, how naïve she was. Her younger self would have never imagined in a thousand years that she would be facing Grogar as an adult. Noticing her feelings, Buttons put a comforting foreleg around her. “Don´t worry. They´ll be ok.” she reassured her with a smile. “I know they will. But what about us?” “For that I have no answer. But in case we die, which I think it won´t happen even though it´s very likely but let´s stay positive, they´ll be in good hooves.” “Yeah, that´s true. Unless Grogar takes them.” “He won´t take them. He doesn´t even know where they are.” “But what if he eventually knows and I´m not there to protect them?” “Uh…” “He could feed them to his monsters, he could torture them, oh I can´t even imagine what he would be capable of doing to them!” she held her temples. As Gusty spoke, breezes were forming around her. “Ooh!” Buttons exclaimed horrified when she noticed them. “Ok, ok, that´s enough. You´re starting to form wind.” But Gusty didn´t listen to her. “Why did I follow Clover? Why?!” “Gusty!” Buttons raised her voice, this time getting her attention and stopping the breezes. “We´re going to breath in and out, ok?” Imitating Buttons, Gusty breathed slowly, the breezes slowly disappearing. “Feeling better?” “Sort of.” “Good. Now let´s take your mind out of it.” “How?” “Girls.” Fizzy interrupted the conversation. “Do you remember where we´re going now exactly?” she covered her mouth. “And whisper it so Lancer and Majesty don´t hear.” Much for her misfortune, the two unicorns she didn´t want to hear her, heard her. They both sighed frustrated. “Seriously? You´re on the way to war and you don´t know where you´re going?” Lancer angrily asked her. Fizzy looked away. Gusty held her laughter. One important difference between spying and battling against Grogar, was that she wasn´t alone anymore. She didn´t have to hold secrets to protect others, as they were also in the same business who supported her and gave her some liveliness to the situation by comedic situations, mainly her absent-minded Fizzy. “Ok, there are three main cities to reconquer to get Majesty´s kingdom back.” Glory explained to Fizzy in Lancer´s and Majesty´s places. One of them is Trottingham, which is now ruled by Crunch.” “Who´s Crunch?” “Crunch is an enormous dog made of stone. You have to be careful with him, otherwise he´ll petrify you. Gusty, I saw you entered once to Grogar´s reunion, did you see him?” Gusty replayed the image in her mind. She remembered many different creatures, the clearest in her memory were Silenius and Katrina, as they interacted with her. Nonetheless, she remembered a creature that matched Glory´s description. “Yeah, I think I saw him. But I didn´t interact with him.” “Ok. Next one is Coltlogne, which is ruled by Hydia, a troggle that does spells with potions that she concocts in a cauldron.” “That´s an advantage isn´t it? In attack we´ll be faster as she will be busy preparing potions.” Fizzy supposed. “Don´t underestimate her, she´s very fast and powerful. But with a coordination between our actions, we might defeat her. Coming back to subject, the last one is the capital, Canterlot, which is ruled by Grogar.” “Wait? Majesty´s kingdom´s capital is Tambelon´s capital?” Glory and Gusty nodded. “You knew this?” Fizzy asked Gusty. “Yup. She told me while we were waiting for you.” “And what was Majesty´s kingdom name?” Buttons asked curiously. “Maragon.” Majesty answered with pride. “Hm…” the three unicorns said in chorus, intrigued by Glory´s information. “And right now, where are we heading?” Fizzy asked. “Our first stop is Trottingham.” Glory replied. Lancer stared at Glory, he smirked at her. “What?” Glory asked Lancer. “You know? I´m starting to realize that you´re kind like the walking encyclopaedia and mother hen of the soldiers.” “And you´re kind of a tyrant.” Glory clapped back. “But unlike Grogar, I have honour.” “And is Trottingham very far?” “Unfortunately, yes.” Lancer replied. “Oof…” Fizzy, Buttons and Gusty shared anxious looks. “Don´t worry. We´ll tell you when we´re there.” Glory reassured them. “But you´ll need to be patient.” “Don´t worry. I have lots of it!” Fizzy said with pride. “Five minutes, and she´ll start asking if we´re there yet.” Buttons whispered in Gusty´s ear. Gusty held her laughter. Just as she predicted, Fizzy started asking if they were near. “Are we there yet?” “No.” Lancer replied. Fizzy repeated the same questions throughout many days of travel. “Are we there yet?” Fizzy asked in a rainy day. “Not yet.” Glory answered. “Hey, are we there yet?” Fizzy asked in a snowy day. “No…” Glory answered again, a bit frustrated but patient at the same time. “Are we there yet?” “No!” Majesty replied angry. Although Buttons nor Gusty replied, they grew increasingly tired of Fizzy´s persistence in asking. The same could be said for the other soldiers. “Are we there yet?” “Yes.” Lancer replied. “Really?” “NO!” “Are we there yet?” “No!” Glory replied somewhat angry. “Are we there yet?” “No, we´re not!” Majesty replied fast-paced. “Are we there yet?” “NOOOOO!” Majesty, Lancer, Glory, Buttons and Gusty yelled at the same time. “Are we there-” “Fizzy, if you ask one of us are we there yet one more time, I will put you in your final destination.” Lancer warned her. “WILL ANY OF YOU SHUT UP?!” Majesty stomped one of her hooves. “For who knows many days I´ve been putting up with your useless annoying blathering and we still have days of travel ahead of us! So for the love of all the kings and queens, STAY QUIET!” Everypony stared at her scared. Gusty was both scared and surprised, as she thought that the angriest that Majesty had been in her life was when she messed up the spying mission. “This can´t get any worse.” Majesty muttered. Suddenly, out of nowhere, an ophiotaurus crept through some bushes and roared at them. “I´m afraid it can.” Gusty said worried.