“When the sun goes down on the world we know,
when darkness covers land and sea,
What do we become, when we are alone,
Who are we, really?”

Part One: The Price of War

Chapter One: Fresh Start

The Griffon

The faces of those colts jumping in front of his eyes, appearing in the scarred, early-morning clouds outside the window, their intricacies making the alleys and streets of inner Cloudsdale.

The sound of a breeze caught his attention, and he turned to find the door, which was made entirely of cloud just like everything else, ajar, and a worried eye peering through the gap.

A soft feminine voice floated through the door, each consonant marked by that click that comes with having a beak, "Rivet, honey? ...It's almost time."

He stopped for a moment to look at himself in the mirror one last time before he left.
He was smaller than a full-grown griffon had the right to be, but he was luckily still bigger than most ponies. He liked to think he was good-looking, at least for a griffon. He kept his feathers and coat well groomed, and that showed in the way that the white fur on his flank and equally white feathers cresting on his head glowed.

He took pride in the bluish sheen to his silver feathers, but there was one thing missing, something on his flank... A cutie mark. That one seemingly small thing that made him 'inferior' to ponies.

Downstairs, to his surprise, he found his father, a black-feathered, red-coated mountain of a griffon, standing in the living room talking curtly to his mother. There was an air of uneasiness about them, which was to be expected; in Griffon culture, no-one ever got married, as was tradition.

As he reached the bottom of the stairs, his claws sinking into the floor as he was so used to, his father turned to look at him with what may have been disdain. Rivet instinctually shrunk back from his father's accusing gaze.

"Rivet. I see you haven't gotten much bigger. That's a pity, you showed so much potential as a cub. So I hear you're leaving?"

Rivet, shrugging off his initial fear, drew himself up to his full height, which admittedly wasn't very impressive, but it made him feel better.

"Hello, father. Yes, you heard right. I'm moving to Ponyville to finish my education."

His father towered over him, his face devoid of any emotion. Without a word he turned and walked toward the open door to the house, the sounds of Cloudsdale waking up wafting in through the doorway.

Rivet hesitated, and looked helplessly toward his mother. She didn't look him in the eye, but rather chose to stare accusingly at the slowly roiling clouds that made the floor; there was rain on the way. She looked up momentarily and he saw that there were tears in her eyes.

And that was when it truly hit him. Nothing could make a griffon cry. Nothing.
This was it. He might never see his mother again. His mother, who had been his only friend for as long as he could remember. His mother who would let him hide under her wing at night when there was a storm scheduled. His mother who could always make him feel better, no matter how much the colts and fillies had teased him.

He stared blankly at his mother, not allowing his father the satisfaction of seeing him fall apart. He ripped up a chunk of cloud and watched it dissipate in front of him. Making up his mind, he went over and hugged his mother tightly. There was a surprised grunt from his father; real griffons wouldn't be caught dead hugging their mother.

Suddenly, he felt himself ripped away and heard his mother gasp as his claws raked at her neck. His father dropped him in a graceless heap next to the door.

Standing up, he looked at his mother for the last time. Her tears had been replaced with a small trickle of blood tarnishing her feathers from where his claws had scratched her. Somehow it was worse than the tears.
You caused this.
Unable to stand it anymore, he turned and leapt out the doorway.

His wings caught the updraft and he glided gracefully down toward the large gray mass of cloud that made the 'street' of Cloudsdale. Graceful, he thought, is not a word often used to describe griffons.
He landed on the street, his paws instantly becoming soaked from the moisture the heavy cloud was holding.
There was the slightest whump of his father landing behind him.

It was a well-known fact that no ordinary flyer, be they griffon or pegasus, could simply fly as far as Ponyville. No, for that there were specially trained pegasi called 'taxis' who pulled chariots to carry all but the strongest flyers to their destination.

They flew in silence for an eternity trapped in the span of about ten minutes, Rivet quietly watched the city that he had been born and raised in slowly wake up for the last time.
He saw Mrs. Green setting up her stalls where she sold her famous grilled leeks. There was Corkscrew, one of his old classmates, practicing his hoofball throw, he used to tease him but not the worst by far. There was Gilda, one of the few other griffons in Cloudsdale, but maybe the worst when it came to bullying.

The canopy of cloud below suddenly opened up, and the two found themselves at the edge of Cloudsdale, the rolling countryside that served as the only representation of the outside world to Rivet, was a green blur far below.

Resting on the edge of the clouds waited a small golden chariot, a pair of burly white pegasi standing next to it, chatting to each other. They glanced up at them momentarily, then carried on talking.
Together they landed next to the chariot and Rivet's father stepped forward to greet the two pegasi.

The pegasi turned, pretending to see the griffons for the first time. One of them grunted a lackluster greeting, and the other ignored them.

His father squinted, his voice taking on a dangerous tone, "I asked you a question."

The pegasus closest, the one who had attempted to greet them, smirked and said in a thick Manehattan accent, "Yeah, I heard ya. But before we start cartin' you around, we gotta talk about payment."

All it took was a low growl, and the pegasus soon forgot about being paid and focused on not angering the griffon shaped mountain. Rivet hopped up onto the chariot's platform, not wanting to making eye contact with the two pegasi as they grudgingly hooked themselves up to the harnesses.

His father had barely even waited, or said so much as 'goodbye', just flew away once he thought
everything was sorted. That was all he ever knew of his father anyway.

As he was flown silently toward his new home, he involuntarily remembered once again the other pegasi, the ones he had gone to school with, and started playing through all of the things that they had said to him, every time they teased him. He didn't want to leave, he really didn't, but events had soon gotten out of control.

The pegasi made no attempt at small talk, and the one time he tried to talk to them, one of them just grunted and said "Flyin's hard, kid... Keep yer mouth shut."

And that was the end of it, the rest of the trip was just him, his thoughts, and the ground rushing away far below them.
Behind him he heard a rumble, and the storm started below Cloudsdale.

With a thump and the squeaking of wheels they landed in the center of Ponyville. Rivet hesitated, looking down at the dirt ground not two feet below him. The concept scared him; there was no way to just fall through this ground, there was solid rock underneath it, deeper than anypony knew, or had been before.

He brought one claw down hesitantly onto the grass. He put his weight down, and his claws instantly sank into the dirt. He tried to tug them out, and fell flat on his face. The taxis just snorted and flew away without so much as a word.

Rivet yanked his claw out of the ground.
Mental note: You're not supposed to dig your claws into dirt.
He had stood on clouds his entire life, was used to how malleable they were. The solidity of the ground scared him.
What if he were to fall?

It was as he watched the Taxis fly away, that he realized he was in a strange town with nowhere to go. For whatever reason they hadn't organized where he was going to live.

He had a quick look around. There was a stone well in the middle of the space that he was standing in. The houses surrounding the 'courtyard' were all wooden with thatched roofs, it would seem the citizens of Ponyville lived a simple life. On one side of the courtyard there were a couple of tables with parasols in them, a pair of ponies sat together at one of them, chatting amiably.

Seeing no other viable options, he approached them timidly. One was a light brown Earth Pony with a purple and pink mane seemingly twisted together, the other was a cyan unicorn with white streaks in her mane.

When they noticed him, the unicorn raised an eyebrow at him, but tentatively said "uh, hi, are you new here?"

That stopped him short, he wasn't used to ponies actually trying to talk to him. He stuttered, words failing him. The unicorn giggled, and the earth pony took her turn to raise her eyebrow.

The unicorn said "My name is Lyra, and this is BonBon. You are new here aren't you?"

At this the earth pony piped up, saying "Well, duh, we just saw him land in a taxi. Everypony knows flyers don't take taxis unless they've come a long way."

The unicorn stopped glaring at the earth pony and turned to him, "Oh, Cloudsdale? I think that's where Rainbow Dash is from."

"So... I'm kind of looking for a place to stay, do you know where I should look?"

After a few seconds of staring at the table, the unicorn shrugged and said "Sorry, can't help you. Try talking to Twilight Sparkle, she'll know. She pretty much handles everything in Ponyville. Makes me wonder why we have a mayor... You'll find her in the library. It's the tree, over that way."

She pointed in its general direction, where he could see it over the top of the houses.

As he was walking off, he overheard them talking, "Really, Lyra? You giggled at him? Now he's going to get the wrong idea!"

The good thing about small towns was that they were easy to navigate, and he soon found himself outside the massive tree/house that was the library. He knocked softly on the door and waited. After a surprisingly short amount of time, the door opened, and a small purple dragon stood at the door looking unamused.

Rivet shook his head a couple of times to make sure he wasn't hallucinating. When the dragon stayed solid and very real, he regained his composure and said "Uh... Hi, is this where Twilight lives?"

Before he could finish, a voice came from inside, saying "Spike, don't be rude. Show in our guest."

They sat around the kitchen table as Spike made them tea, it seemed like he was Twilight's butler or something. Twilight Sparkle herself was a smart-looking lavender unicorn who was apparently the go-to pony on everything in ponyville.

Rivet shifted slightly, scraping his claws over the table's surface in the process; these chairs were clearly not made for griffons.

Twilight gave the little dragon a condescending look, "No Spike, he's not going to sleep in a barn."

She turned to Rivet, and gave him an unsure smile, "Don't mind him. Look, I don't know where you can stay long-term, but you seem nice enough, so in the meantime, maybe you should stay here."

Rivet started to object, to say he didn't want to intrude, but she interrupted him, "Now, as for your education, you came to the right pony. Well, you sort of did. That is, I won't be teaching you, because I don't know anything about being a mechanic. That's what you said, right? Mechanic?"

He nodded hesitantly, and she continued, "Well then, I think you're in luck, just two weeks ago, the local mechanic Mjӧlna said she had been looking for an apprentice. Who knows? Maybe she's still looking."

After hesitating for a moment, Rivet got up awkwardly and followed her out of the kitchen into the main room. As they walked toward the door, there was a knock at it, and Twilight called for them to come in.

A moment later a dark navy-blue unicorn with a gray-brown mane stepped in. He was wearing a saddlebag with a little white galaxy stitched into it (he assumed this was the unicorn's cutie mark).

"Hey Twilight," he said enthusiastically, " I've got that book on-" he stopped when he saw the griffon and made an 'eep' sound,

"Hello, Andro. This is Rivet, he's from Cloudsdale. He's going to be staying here for a while." Twilight said, gesturing to Rivet.

'Andro' cleared his throat and said "Well hi, it's good to meet you! The name's Andromeda, like the galaxy. So... how long are you staying?"

The unicorn suddenly remembered why he was there and laughed. He wrapped the saddlebag in a white sheath of magic and pulled out a thick book with some kind of star constellation on the cover, and floated it over to Spike, who grabbed it happily.

Twilight smiled warmly at her assistant and stepped outside. "Come on, these two are going to be looking through books for a while. Let's go see Mjӧlna."

He followed her out, and Andromeda called after him "Well it was nice meeting you!"

As they started to make their way across town, he heard the unicorn whisper to Spike, "Did he seem a little... uptight to you?"

After wandering Ponyville for a while, including going through the town square that he had landed in, the two of them eventually found themselves outside a blacksmith's building beside the river.

Smoke billowed lazily from the chimney on the roof. The air smelled of burning metal and the sound of hammering could be heard inside.

Twilight walked straight in through the open door and Rivet followed close behind. Inside it was stifling hot, and the air was full of smoke and heat haze. Standing at an anvil beating at a red-hot piece of metal was a tan-colored earth pony with a blonde mane and a hammer held impossibly in one hoof.

When she finally noticed them through the haze she dropped her hammer, grabbed a pair of tongs in her mouth, and deftly tossed the piece of metal into a bucket where it steamed profusely for a moment.

"Well hi Twilight, ye still having problems with that chandelier?" she asked in a thick Highland accent, wiping at her dirty face with an equally dirty cloth.

Twilight coughed from the smoke and said "Hey Mjӧlna, the chandelier's fine actually. But Rivet here's new in town, and I was wondering-" she broke off long enough to have a coughing fit before continuing, "-I was wondering if you were still looking for an apprentice."

Rivet cleared his throat, which quickly turned into a coughing fit of his own. When he recovered, he said "Uh, actually I don't know anything about being a blacksmith. I know about being a mechanic, repairs and all that."

"Well, I do both in this town actually, and to answer yer question Twilight; aye, I'm still looking fer an apprentice."

And just like that, Rivet started his new life. Days passed, and he began to hone his skills in repair and forge work. A week went by, and talk of him finding his own place came back up again, and after some discussion, Mjӧlna helped build another room onto the library, which he shared with Spike.

The weeks went by, which blurred into months, and before he knew it he had lived in Ponyville for a year. He barely thought about his old life in Cloudsdale by that time, he loved his new life, he loved having friends; despite first impressions he got along well with Spike, and Andromeda came around every other night to use Twilight's telescope, so they came to be fast friends.

He tried joining them one night, but the two unicorns just stared through that looking glass and wrote down notes and chattered in egghead to each other, so he went to sleep. He got along well with Mjӧlna too, she was a patient teacher, and although tough, a nice pony, maybe even the nicest he'd met.

He could have lived like that for the rest of his life without a complaint, but two years after he moved there, everything changed, and not just for him...

The Earth Pony.

Two years later...

'Big' Macintosh. After all these years, he still wasn't sure how he felt about that name; it was a nickname given to him by his little sister Applejack, back when he would give her ponyback rides around the farm.

He was big, he knew that, but having it as part of his name made him feel like he was all muscle, made to pull the plow and anything else that needed somepony strong. He hated the feeling of it being his identity.

Granny Smith's voice rang across the yard, waking him from his daydream. He had been finding his mind wandering more and more these days.

He stood up and ponderously made his way over toward where Granny was waiting outside the farmhouse with his younger sisters, Applejack and Applebloom.

Granny Smith was a sweet old mare who had cared for him and his two sisters for as long as he could remember. Her coat was green and wrinkled, but she still had spirit, even if her body was failing.

Applejack was the one to answer, and said "I don't rightly know, but Twilight just came 'round an' said somethin' about an important meetin' in Canterlot."

He thought on this for a moment, if it were important then Twilight herself would go to Canterlot. If it were really important Applejack and their friends would go with her. But for all of them to be going it had to be something extremely important.

"It does, we're all headin' straight to the train station now. Ye shouldn' need ta pack."

She gestured, and with an "Eeyup" from him, they all started their walk into town.

Half an hour later they found themselves waiting at the train station for Twilight and the rest of her friends. It was a particularly sunny day in Ponyville, so they had no problems with waiting outside and snacking on some Apples while they waited.

Rainbow Dash was the first to arrive, flying like a bat out of hell straight into Applejack, bowling her over. Applejack bucked the light blue pegasus off, and placed her hat firmly back on her head.
"Whoa there, RD. What's the rush?"

Rainbow Dash stood up and shook her rainbow-colored mane, "Applejack? How long have you all been here?"

"And that's where you're wrong. Everything's a race. Life is a race. The slow ponies just pretend it's not."

Before it could turn into a full-blown argument, Pinkie Pie bounced up wearing a saddlebag with muffins falling out of it.

"Hiya! Are you excited about our surprise trip to Canterlot?" she asked to nopony in particular.

She sat down and started chattering away to anypony who would listen.
They all sat and talked and ate muffins for another ten minutes before Rarity and Fluttershy turned up chatting between themselves. They all exchanged greetings then sat together and waited for Twilight.

While they were waiting the train arrived and ponies started filing out of the various cars and going their separate ways.

Another five minutes passed before Twilight showed up, Spike and Rivet following closely behind, arguing about something unimportant like they always were.

Big Macintosh watched the griffon as they approached, he had grown some since he had been there, and filled out as well. He was still short for a griffon, but he made for an imposing figure nonetheless. He didn't like him, he wasn't sure why, but something about those eyes and the way he looked at him gave him the creeps.

Twilight trotted up and sat next to the rest of her friends. She looked tired and worried, which wasn't characteristic of her at all.

She sat there muttering to herself until somepony wearing a uniform appeared out of the train and shouted "All aboard!"

Applejack, Applebloom and himself waved goodbye to Granny Smith before hopping onto the train.

On the train Twilight didn't break her silence, and chose to stare solemnly out the window instead.
They passed half of the trip in silence, everypony either enjoying the countryside or wondering what was so important that they were all called to Canterlot.

About halfway through their journey, an earth pony that he recognized as Roseluck, who was also from Ponyville, walked through their train car looking for something or other.

After she left, Applejack said "Golly, half-a Ponyville's headin' to Canterlot. Whatever this meetin' is, it's mighty important."
Twilight kept silent.

Rivet, who had been just about asleep the whole trip, suddenly sat bolt upright and looked out the window. He turned and looked mischievously at Rainbow Dash, "Hey Dash, I bet you can't beat me to the front of the train."

Without another word he opened the window and tumbled out, Rainbow Dash following closely after.

Big Macintosh sighed and shook his head, then said quietly to Applejack, "They're gunna get themselves hurt one day."

He had timed it perfectly. The train had been going over a bridge when he fell out the window, so he had plenty of space to catch an updraft.

He opened his wings and floated liesurely back up behind the train car just as Rainbow Dash popped out.

He flew above her, trying to get as close to her as possible, and was rewarded with a "Hey!" as he shot over her.

She finally caught up to him, and they flew side by side above the train, allowing a sort of warmup period. He was about to pull ahead when he noticed the front of the train disappearing into a tunnel further up the track.

He cursed inwardly, then shouted above the wind, "Looks like things are about to get difficult!"

She dove down and landed on the roof of one of the train cars with a clank, then she turned and grinned at him before dropping down into the space between the two carriages.

The tunnel was getting closer, so he flew down to the carriage behind the one Rainbow Dash had landed on, and swooped through the gap between the cars just as the tunnel closed in around him.

He tried the door to the carriage, but to no avail. Obviously somepony in there wanted privacy.
He poked his head up above the roof, then ducked and barely missed having his head taken off by a rock outcrop.

He waited there in the dark, counted to ten, then leaped up onto the roof and ran forward as fast as he could. He dodged another rock outcrop, then ducked down into the next gap, where he found Rainbow Dash sitting between the cars.

He dropped down next to her, panting and covered with soot, "What's the matter... You're not scared are you?"

He smirked, "Good, you'd better get a move on, then. You wouldn't want me to win!"

She looked skeptical for a minute, then without a word, launched herself up over the top of the carriage.

The moment he got up onto the car, a hanging lantern flashed past, just missing his head. He ran forward, the extra traction in his claws meant that he caught up to the pegasus quickly, and they both ran together for a few seconds.

"Watch out!" Rainbow Dash shouted, pointing at a large rock outcrop further up the tunnel that was as wide as the entire train. They glanced at each other, then jumped off either side of the carriage, grabbing onto the windows.

The outcrop went by with a whoosh, and he quickly clawed his way back up onto the roof.
They ran together again, ducking and weaving through a sudden field of broken stalagtites.
Suddenly they were at the next gap, and they both dove into it as the roof lowered, and they once again barely avoided getting smeared across the top of the carriage.

They sat in the gap, filthy from all of the soot and laughing hysterically from the nerves of having nearly died at least three times.
When they recovered from their laughing fit, they looked up at the roof of the tunnel, and Rainbow Dash asked "Well, now what?"

He thought for a moment, peeked out the side and had a look ahead, then grinned slyly at her.
He held up three of his claws, then counted down on them.
3...
2...
1...

The moment he counted down to zero, the tunnel opened out, showing clear blue sky. He launched himself up into the air and gave a carefree screech, before banking back and flying above the train once more, which turned a corner and he was treated with a magnificent view of Canterlot, the capital city of Equestria.

The trip was mostly uneventful; nopony was in the mood to talk, except Pinkie Pie of course.
They all sat in silence for a while, everypony looking out their respective windows and not wanting to mention the elephant in the room, but he noticed Rarity glancing at Twilight every now and then.

He turned and nudged Applejack, then nodded at Twilight, egging her to go and speak to her. It was always Applejack that had to speak to Twilight when she got like this.
His sister was about to get up when the entire car was plunged into darkness as they entered a tunnel. He heard her groan and sit down again with a thump. She hated the tunnels.

Time is difficult to comprehend in the dark, so he was left with little choice but to sit and listen to his thoughts grinding away. He was normally pretty easygoing, but something was going on and he wasn't sure he was going to like it.
Don't worry about it, Twilight always gets worked up about things.

With a rumble the train left the tunnel and their carriage was once again flooded with light, and they could hear an eagle scream somewhere above.
The train turned a corner and they got their first glimpse of the magestic towers that rose shining above Canterlot. It had only been a few months since he had visited last on business, but it all seemed different somehow, even though it all looked exactly the same. It felt different.

As the train slowly rolled into the station, he heard Pinkie say "Whoa! Look at all of these ponies! It's like a party, only everypony's invited! This is gonna be great!"

And indeed there were a lot of ponies, milling around, chatting, calling out over the crowd, and generally taking up space. But above it all, there was a tension buzzing through the air.

They all filed out of the carriage and made their slow way through the crowd. Big Macintosh didn't feel as nervous in the crowd as the rest of them; there were certain advantages to being so big.

After a lot of pushing, and squeezing, and saying "excuse me", they finally made it through the bustle into the archway that led into the rest of the city. They walked down the short hall a bit, but stopped there to do a quick head count.

Applejack spoke up first, saying "Aw hay, we're still missin' Rainbow Dash and Rivet."

They heard a bickering behind them, and they all turned to find the pegasus and the griffon walking alongside each other, apparently arguing over who had won their little race.

Applejack cocked her eyebrow at the two of them, then she asked "So... Who won?"

Applejack looked smugly at Spike, who sighed and handed her two bits.
They all kept walking together, and Spike and Rivet started arguing. Again.

After waiting around Canterlot for an hour or so, they heard a bell ring, summoning everypony to the throne room. They all glanced nervously around, then got up from the table they had been sitting around, leaving their drinks half finished.

They made their way to the hall, following the throng, rather than trying to push their way through. By the time they made it into the hall their hooves were sore from shuffling around the courtyard, and Big Macintosh missed being back on the farm where it was quiet.

A gasp and a murmuring washed back in a wave over the crowd, then an utter silence: The Princess had arrived.
He could just barely see her over the crowd, but when she spoke, her soft voice floated over the entire hall, and could clearly be heard by everypony.

"Hello my subjects. It warms my heart to see so many of you come to support us."

She paused, then continued, "I have ruled over you and your ancestors for over two thousand years. I know many of you by name, but too few of you personally. I would trust any one of you with my life. But I am afraid this is a dark time for us all, and we must learn to trust each other as I trust you..."

She paused again, and when she continued her voice was barely a whisper, but by some form of magic was heard by everypony in the room, "...And so, it is with great sadness that I declare that, for the second time in our history... Equestria is going to war."

The murmuring from the crowd rose to a cry of distress.
War. It was an alien concept to everypony. Who would want to kill somepony else, and why?

He could see Fluttershy crying and Rarity trying in vain to comfort her. He saw Twilight looking shocked and babbling at the ground. Strangest of all though, was Pinkie Pie, who stood rigid, a smile frozen on her face, staring blankly into the crowd.

Celestia spoke again, softly but with determination, "If we are to make it through this, we must do it together. There will be choices we must all make, challenges for us all to face, but if we stand together as a nation, we will succeed. But for us to win, we need soldiers, so I ask that any able-bodied mare or stallion please consider signing up for the Royal Army of Equestria. A recruiting office will be set up outside the hall, and I ask you all again to please consider. Now I have... A council to attend with my new commanders. Thank you all, and good strength."

Black and White

by SeriouslyLuna

1: Fresh Start