//------------------------------// // Chapter 5 - Flashback // Story: Union of Hope: Shrouded Great War // by Kvnhuang1222 //------------------------------// April 10, 1043 CE, 10:30:21 Royal Meeting Room, Canterlot The royal sisters and their husbands were sitting by the round table to wait for their children to arrive. While they were waiting, Celestia was reading a journal written by her and Luna together. Some of the entries made her feel uncomfortable, the entries that were about she banished N. Shroud who did something atrocious and cruel to ponies. Every time she remembered, her emotion became unstable. Luna sighed while looking at her dearest sister, she tried to say something to comfort her but she didn’t because only Celestia herself knew this pain. Later, the children of the royal sister entered. The first was Luna and Prince Nocturne’s elderly son, Prince Orion; their second son, Prince Apollo, and their elderly daughter, Princess Selena. Then next were Celestia and Sombra’s daughter, Princess Estella, and their second son, Prince Eclipse. “Morning.” they greeted their parents in unison. The parents nodded with a smile and had them take a seat. “You called us to come this early, must have something important, don’t you?” Eclipse started. “Yeah, does something huge happen in Equestria or Crystal Empire?” added Estella. “Or a conflict between nations?” The five children kept asking, making the whole room filled with questions. To calm them down, Luna tapped the table. “Children! Please be still, my dearest sister will tell ye today’s meeting.” Luna nodded at Celestia and cued her to start. Celestia took a deep breath and cleared her throat. “My dearest royal members. Today we gather around here because I have something that needs to tell you.” The children looked at each other, they were curious about what Celestia had been hiding from them. “Over 500 years ago, there was a human arrived in Equestria. When I met him, he was just a teen.” Hearing it, the children’s eyes widened because - for a long time - they thought Megan Williams was the first and the only human in Equestria. Nobody expect that there was another one before her arrival. "So you’re saying that Megan isn’t the first human who arrives in Equestria?!” said Estella. “Who was that human, and how did he get into Equestria?” asked Orion. Celestia went silent, she loathed mentioning his name, but to fulfill their curiosity, she sighed. “H-his name is Nigel Shroud. It all started over 500 years ago when I was still a princess.” ================================================================================== 528 years ago June 7, 515 CE, 22:32:10 Canterlot, Equestria Princess Celestia “Your Highness, are you sure that you’ll attend the diplomatic conference with the Griffon Kingdom?” “Yes, the relation between Equestria and the Griffon Kingdom is still unstable, we must carefully manage it. You're dismissed, thanks for the hard work.” As the servant bowed and left the throne room, my royal duty for today was over. I sighed on the way to my chamber, thinking that dealing with the Griffon Kingdom was getting more and more difficult. From my years of understanding, griffons are arrogant species, they believed that they are all superior to ponies and other species. Because of that, the relationship between Equestria and Griffon Kingdom was at a freezing point. As a princess myself, I didn’t want to say this, but their arrogance had caused many troubles. Like the last banquet, a griffon warrior said something offensive to ponies angered a pony noble who overheard the conversation, he started fighting with that warrior. Although I showed up and stopped the fight, the banquet was cut short after that incident. To build a good relationship with the Griffon Kingdom, I’d sent an envoy multiple times, and the conference tomorrow was essential for me. Not just for spreading harmony and peace, but also for letting my subjects accept other species. I returned to the chamber, took off my accessories, and stood on the balcony watching the moon where my sister was staying. It had been over 400 years, I prayed for her every day, hoping she could back to me sooner. After finishing praying, I was about to go to sleep, I suddenly heard some trotting sound from the door. “Intruder!!” I also heard one guard yell. To figure out what was going on, I walked out of my chamber and followed them. Later, royal guards and I stopped at a corner in the royal garden. I passed through them and looked, it was a strange creature that I’d never seen. Taking a closer look, it has no coat or fur, except on its head. Instead, it was wearing some kind of weird-looking fabric which I assumed that it was its clothes. It only had two legs, maybe it was a bipedal creature I suppose. Yet, judging by its body size, the creature didn’t look like a minotaur. Furthermore, from its look, its age was quite young. “Your Highness, we just found that this creature was attempting to enter the castle, we immediately surrounded it.” the captain stood next to me said, pointing at the creature with his sword. I looked at the creature, I could see that it was scared, seemed it got separated from its company. I should keep it for some time to get further understanding. “Bring it to the dungeon, I will interrogate it the next morning. Remember, don't do any harm to it.” “Yes, Your Highness.” said the captain. “Get up and move!!” I sighed as I watched the creature taken away by the guards. I felt sorry for it because I wanted to show mercy to it at first, but since guards were there, I needed to be assertive. It was not easy for me. Either way, I should communicate with it, hoping that it would accept my kindness. The next morning, I headed to the dungeon to visit that creature with two guards for escort. As I arrived at where the creature was locked up, I looked inside, the creature was sitting in the corner, holding its knees, and its head was bent. “Hey! Wake up, bipedal creature. The princess is here!” One guard tried to wake the creature by knocking metal poles with his spear. The creature didn’t move. “Oi!! You hear me? I said…” “Enough! You’re scaring it.” I stopped the guard. “My apologies, Your Highness…” “Let me communicate with it, this might be the only way.” “Are you sure you wanna do this alone, Your Highness? What if it is dangerous?” said the guard. “I know we never see this creature, but we shouldn’t judge someone by its look.” I refused. “But…” “It’s fine, just open the door. You two stay here, okay?” Two guards hesitated for a moment, then they opened the door and let me in to communicate with the creature. After I got in, I slowly approached it to avoid frightening it. I lowered my body as soon as I got close to it. “It’s okay, little one, I won’t hurt you.” I gently said. The creature slowly raised its head with a look of confusion. I kept my tone to make him less cautious. “You…you mean it…?” My eyes widened, this creature could talk, and it was Equestrian. Even the two guards outside were surprised. From its tone, it was a male. After I calmed myself down, I smiled at him, “Yes, I mean it.” then I asked him, “Could you please tell me what are you and your name?” “M-my name is…Nigel Shroud. I’m a human…” he sheepishly said. Human…I was kinda familiar with this species since I learned that there used to have humans in Equestria, but they disappeared by an unknown cause and left no traces one day. Barely anypony have a record about them. Therefore, humans became a myth to Equestria. Right now, I couldn’t believe that I could see humans again in my own eyes, but the thing was - where did he come from? “Where are you from?” I started the next question. “I’m from Earth, a country called the United States of America. I…escaped from there,” he responded. Earth? The United States of America? Escaped? I thought in confusion. Why did he say he escaped from that country? I had a lot of questions that needed to be answered, but not here, so I made a decision. “Guards, I decide to take him to the palace, he and I will have a private talk in the meeting room.” “Sorry, Your Highness, but I can’t allow this. It…, I mean, he would cause trouble if you do this.” “He won’t, I’m sure of it. He was suffering and frightened too much in the dungeon. As a princess, I have a responsibility to ease his feelings. Besides, I want to learn more about humans from him.” I looked at Nigel Shroud and slightly nodded, pleading with the guards to let him go. The guards finally released him and lead us to leave the dungeon. In the castle’s hallway, all ponies on both sides looked at Nigel Shroud, some of them were either pointing at him, whispering to each other, or even feeling fear. Yet he didn’t seem to care like there was nothing. Seemed he’d already gone through and felt numb about it. As we arrive at the meeting room, I let Nigel Shroud feel free to take a seat while I sat opposite him and started talking face-to-face. “Oh, how rude I am, I haven’t introduced myself yet. My name is Princess Celestia, the ruler of Equestria.” “It-it’s a pleasure to meet you, Your Highness.” “Celestia is fine.” “Okay, Celestia…” “So, you said that you escaped from this United States of America. Why escape?” Nigel Shroud went silent, his expression showed some anger and hatred, I guess he’d suffered in that place. “Sigh…,” he sighed. “I was an orphan when I was little, I was always being laughed at, bullied, calling me a freak, just because I like to invent something or be different from others.” Hearing his distress, I felt pity for him. If this thing happened here, I would feel sad about it… “And frankly,” Nigel Shroud continued. “This was my second time when I found the portal to here.” Wait a minute, were my ears deceiving me? Has he already found the portal to here before? Well, this was getting intriguing, I wondered if the human world is connected to Equestria. I should check the records from Starswirl the Bearded, maybe he had some information about humans. “You saw the portal before you came here?” I asked. “Yeah, about two months ago. I was so excited that I told others, a grave mistake, people began mocking me, so I became a whole town’s laughingstock. I had enough of this bullying, so I left the town, and I’m here. I swear, I will not go back to that fucking place!!” I could visibly see his hands gripped tightly and shaking. He was furious about his tragic past. I changed to other questions to calm him down. “If you don’t mind, could you talk about what your world looks like? I’m curious.” “Well, alright. I’ll try as more as I can. How about I start with our human technologies.” I heard Nigel’s lecture for several hours, everything he said kept giving me surprise and astonishment. Like a building with various types of machines that can produce a vast number of products, transportation that can travel on the water or across a whole continent in a short time. All they need are to combust something black called coal to make them work. I enjoyed and was amazed that humans can create those things without magic. However, there were some that I felt unnerved, such as a flammable black powder called gunpowder, a weapon that could give a faraway target lethal injury or even death. They also had a massive weapon for destroying thick walls or injuring targets within a blast range. Nigel also mentioned that five years ago in his world, his country was divided into north and south because they had some different opinions about a system and war broke out until last year. My body was shaking, never thought that humans would kill each other for only just a mere different point of view. Was this the reason why those terrifying weapons were invented? Come to think of it, Equestria had that history. Ponies were divided into Earth Ponies, Unicorns, and Pegasi before Equestria was founded. The three tribes clashed with each other for claiming sovereignty over the land, blaming others that they were the main cause of eternal winter. After the three tribes finally made peace and formed Equestria, Luna and I were crowned as princesses. We swore that there wouldn’t be any conflicts in here anymore. Ironically, when Luna became Nightmare Moon, I had to fight against her until I had no choice but used Elements of Harmony to banish her to the Moon. Nevertheless, those could not compare to human conflicts. “Well, if it’s fine for you, I maybe can offer and teach you some of our inventions,” started Nigel. I froze for a second, was he mean it? “You what?” “I said I can teach you some human techs I’ve known. These could make your nation stronger,” he firmly said. I hesitated for a moment. It was true that their techs were far more advanced than ours, but they could be beneficial to our nation if we acquired them. On the contrary, they could bring harm to our subjects, especially those human weapons. If they fell into evil hooves, the consequences would be immeasurable. I need to make a wise decision for the big picture. “I’m obliged to your offer, but there’s one condition before I can accept,” I said. “Shoot.” “I must decline your offer of this gunpowder and weapons.” “Why not? Those can upgrade your nation’s military prestige.” "They indeed can help with our military, but Equestria is a land of harmony and friendship. If we acquire them, it would against the nation’s purpose. Plus, gaining other nations’ suspicion toward us.” Nigel looked disappointed after hearing my decision, but he still looked at me with a smile. “Very well,” he said. “I respect your stance, but in exchange, I want you to allow me to learn magic and everything in Equestria. Deal?” I guess I have no options. I just declined some of his offers, allowing him to learn magic may count as making up for him. Plus, he has nowhere to go. He needed someplace to stay. “Fine. While you learn magic, you need to teach ponies human technologies starting tomorrow. In the meantime, I’ll teach you some basic magic spells when you’re free, okay?” “You have my word. Thank you, Celestia.” “Come, I’ll get you cleaned, after that, you can rest in the room I provided.” “Okay, Celestia. I won’t let you down!” ================================================================================== Present-day - April 10, 1043 CE, 11:17:39 Royal Meeting Room, Canterlot “What happened next, mother? After you adopted him,” asked Eclipse. Celestia looked displeased which made Eclipse cringe, he thought he said something wrong and triggered her. “Do you wanna know?” Celestia said in a deep tone. “He became extremely obsessed with pony magic after years of learning. One day, I discovered he had kidnapped and killed 50 ponies and creatures for his experiment subjects on dark magic. I arrested and banished him back to the human world.” All went speechless, no one could imagine that Nigel could do such a vile thing. King Sombra and Prince Nocturne were shocked, too. Now they understood why Celestia was loathed to talk about it. “I can’t believe he did that to those innocent souls…” said Orion as he slammed the table to express his anger. “Yeah, 50 lives were gone…” Estella had the same feeling. “After you banished him, have you ever thought that he would return?” Celestia didn’t answer, she was thinking whether the nightmare she dreamt of was a sign of his return or not. It was too real for a dream she thought. “Well, I’m not 100 percent sure since I haven’t sensed his presence yet so far, but there’s one thing I’m certain that he would return shortly.” There came a silence in the room. All ponies were concerned that he was taking action without noticing. The silence was broken as a royal guard rushed into the meeting room with a scroll. “Forgive me for the interruption, Your Majesties.” he bowed. “Please,” said Celestia. “An urgent letter from Princess Twilight Sparkle. Something important that needs to inform you,” said the guard, as he handed the scroll to Celestia. She thanked him, then opened the scroll and read it. Dear Queen Celestia, This morning, my daughter, Violet Harmony, told me, Courageous Heart, and the rest of my family that one of her books’ several pages were torn down when she was studying humans last night. We didn’t know who, when, and why, but we sorta figured out who. I spilled the tea on its endpaper by accident, we found that there was an unknown symbol which is a rose with the letter “N” in its center. I suspect that it is somepony’s initials, and he or she is responsible for the vandalism. I’ll attach the picture of the symbol, maybe you can help us to investigate. Thank you. Sincerely, Princess Twilight Sparkle As Celestia looked at the picture attached to the letter, she was frightened. Last time she saw it was when she investigated the crime scene where Nigel had killed several innocent ponies and creatures for test subjects. All the memories became clear as the sky. “Tia, what’s wrong? You alright?” asked Sombra, but Celestia didn’t hear him, so he tapped her shoulder twice. “Huh?! Oh… sorry everypony, I must stop the meeting for now. You all can dismiss for the next agenda.” Everypony but Celestia left the meeting room. She put down the picture and summoned a quill and a parchment. “My dearest Twilight. You, your family, and your friends must come to Canterlot tomorrow morning at once……”