Flurry followed the dog, Benito, out a side door, then through several hallways and workrooms. The Griffonian guard presence increased exponentially in this side of the Royal Palace; Flurry guessed they were in the west wing. After several minutes of walking, Flurry realized they were traveling through the same hallways multiple times, turning sharply at intersections guarded by knights and backtracking. The dog finally stopped at a plain, unguarded wooden door and rapidly ushered Flurry in.
It was a storage room for cleaning staff. Metal shelves lined the walls, packed with towels, cleaning spray, and some spare uniforms. Benito shut the only door behind her and stood to the side of it against one of the shelves. There was only one bulb to light the room, which left it gloomy. He drew the saber again, placing it on the shelf next to him, and unholstered his pistol. There were no windows and one exit. He looked the shelves over for a moment before giving Flurry a critical look. He pointed at some towels on the shelf beside him.
Flurry took the hint and pulled down some towels with her hooves. She flapped her wings and pulled down a jug of water on one of the higher shelves, popping it open with her teeth and pouring it over her head, soaking her bloody curls and ignoring how the frills on her dress collar collapsed. After a few moments of rapidly scrubbing at her mane and bumping against the inhibitor ring, she spoke up.
“You know,” she began in Aquileian, knowing Benito couldn’t understand her, “this would be easier without the ring.”
“I forget,” the dog replied. “Come,” he beckoned his unarmed paw at her.
Flurry blinked. “You know Aquileian?”
“Some. I sit with Kaiser during teach.” Benito raised his muzzle up. “Kaiser know much Aquileian.”
“I thought so,” Flurry replied.
“How?”
“He responded too quickly during the talks,” Flurry said, but Benito’s muzzle twisted and he shrugged at her. “Kaiser talk too fast,” she simplified.
“Not good,” Benito frowned. “Changelings will know.”
“I thought the Changelings are your friends.”
“Only Thranx,” Benito said gravely, then raised a brow at her. “How old is pony?” he asked.
“Ten.”
“Kaiser ten,” Benito chuckled, "and much smart too."
When Flurry approached, he grabbed the ring around her horn and twisted it clockwise and counterclockwise several times. “Dog make ring,” he said while he worked, “Ring hurt pony. Use pony magic to hurt pony. Trick to turn ring off.” He pulled the ring off her horn smoothly.
“Like breaking into a safe,” Flurry replied, sparking her horn. She took a deep breath and felt the magic all around her. As the only natural-born alicorn in recorded history, scholars had been clambering around Flurry her entire life to study her magic. Her mother had vocally told off any that approached the family, and Sunburst never pressured her to learn magic, not after the troubles of her early foalhood. Her father had been more active, throwing one unicorn that broke into the Crystal Palace in jail and having Aunt Twilight revoke his credentials. Nopony tried to investigate after that, though the war had everyone occupied.
All alicorns had a domain, something that spoke to them uniquely over everything else. Cadance could sense love and relationships, something that she used to empower the Crystal Heart and frequently mock Chrysalis over the radio, pointing out that Changeling prisoners of war never felt true love for their Queen, only fear. Auntie Twilight had friendship, both familial and forged in war and adversity. Celestia had the sun and light, and her sister Luna had dreams and the moon.
Flurry always told anypony who asked that she wasn’t sure yet, even her father. It was natural; she was still just a foal.
When she looked at Benito’s pistol, she could tell it had been fired, not in anger, but in duty. It had killed, she sensed, and will kill again for the Kaiser. She saw magic drift from the blood on the sword resting on the shelf, as new blood covered old stains. Benito favored the sword; it was part of his heritage. Flurry knew that the dogs of the Griffonian Empire held fierce loyalty to the Kaiser, and she felt the loyalty of generations in the blade. The blood told her another story.
“You killed the Changeling that hit me,” she said, looking away from the sword.
Benito glanced at the sword. “No,” he replied. “Bug leave with others. Strong armor,” he laughed.
“He’ll die tonight.”
Benito looked confused, but a rapid-fire knock at the door cut off any reply. He tensed and grabbed the sword with his other paw and leveled the pistol against the door. Flurry stepped back and leaned against the shelf on the opposite side of the closet. The knock repeated in a pattern three times before Benito sighed and knocked back with the butt of his pistol.
The Kaiser entered with the old priest. The older griffon took a moment to smooth down his plain robe, while the Kaiser still lacked his crown; his dress shirt was untucked from his slacks and rumpled, but his small glasses had been straightened. Flurry realized she was already taller than him when he stopped a just a few hooves away.
Two knights stood in the hallway, and they would have entered, but the closet was already too cramped. Flurry backed up against the back shelf, scrunching her tail and dress as the elderly griffon squeezed past Benito and shuffled next to the Kaiser. Flurry lit her horn and provided a proper ball of light to illuminate the room as Benito shut the door. The old priest flinched and said something to Benito, who responded defensively with crossed paws.
“It is fine,” the young Kaiser replied, looking Flurry over with a blush around his eyes. Flurry’s mane hung loosely around her head, still wet.
“I only know some Aquileian," Grover began with a slight accent. "I learn all the languages of my subjects. I do not know Equestrian.”
“That is fine,” Flurry nodded. Her own Aquileian was better.
“I am Grover-”
“He is Kaiser Grover VI of the Griffonian Reich,” the priest cut him off in heavily accented Aquileian, “rightful heir to the lands of Aquileia, Wingbardy, Cloudberry, Vedina, and the Evi Valley.” Kaiser Grover gave him an even look.
“I am Grover,” the Kaiser sighed. “And this is my regent, Archon Eros.”
“My name is Flurry,” the Princess said. “Why am I in a closet?”
“The Changelings wish you harm.”
Flurry snorted. “Is that meant to be a surprise?”
“You attacked your mother,” Eros stated.
“My mother,” Flurry began shortly, “is dead. She stayed behind with the Crystal Heart, shielding the Crystal City from bombers.” She shook her head. “Even if she wasn’t dead, Chrysalis would never let her travel here. They always hated each other.”
She looked at Eros. “Was I expected to fall for that?”
“It was not our plan,” the old griffon took an effort to shrug his wings. They shook from the effort.
“Synovial and Thranx have been part of the Changeling advisors to us for several years,” Grover said. “Synovial presented Cadance just before you came." He smiled. "I am glad you did not fall for it.”
“It was obvious,” Flurry scoffed.
“Which poses a problem,” Eros said. “Because you just attacked Queen Chrysalis.”
Flurry threw her head back and whinnied in laughter, causing Benito to jump and look at the door. Flurry spread her wings and knocked some cleaning supplies off the shelves as she laughed again at the Archon’s dour look.
“I didn’t think you were funny,” Flurry said to him, settling her wings. “Are you this funny in your language?”
“It’s true,” Eros glared. Grover was blushing at her oversized wings.
“If they told you that my 'mother' was Chrysalis, they were lying." Flurry rolled her eyes. "She spends all her time in that stupid tower in the Changeling Lands, sucking up love and getting fat.”
Grover choked down a laugh at Eros’ glare.
“General Thranx told us,” Eros stated. "It is meant to be a secret, but he has a soft spot for our Kaiser."
Flurry felt a block of ice fall into her stomach.
“She arrived unexpectedly at the dockyards in Skyfall to the north," Eros continued, "She brought a convoy of Jaegers and fresh panzer tanks as a gift from the embassy.” Eros squinted at her. “Officially, Queen Chrysalis is still in the Changeling Lands. She sent a telegram to congratulate our conquest of Aquileia. There will be a meeting at the capitol in Griffenheim in a few days, where the embassy will request you and your father be given over to them.”
Flurry took a deep breath through her nose and closed her eyes. She hugged the mare that almost certainly killed her mother, her Aunt Twilight, and her home. She tricked and almost killed that mare in a single moment. Flurry couldn’t stop the smile, but the ice remained in her stomach.
“I always heard that she was bad at pretending to be my mom,” Flurry deflected.
“She’s here for you and your father,” Eros summarized. “Wingbardy refused Changeling help when they took New Mareland and the Sisters escaped to the River Republic. I’m sure Chrysalis wants them too,” the Archon sighed. "It is a miracle that she kept up the disguise after you attacked her. She must be too proud to admit she was nearly killed by a filly."
Flurry looked at the glowing orb illuminating the room as she sized up the other occupants. “Why,” she repeated, “am I in a closet?”
“I asked Benito to take you here,” Grover replied.
“Why?” Flurry asked again.
“Because you are…” Grover paused and lifted up a claw to his beak in thought. “You are…under my wing?” he said uncertainly. Flurry blushed and her wings fluttered.
Lucky I'm already pink, Flurry thought.
“The Kaiser means that you are under his protection,” Eros cut in, flustered. “It is a saying in the Herzland. You have pleaded for mercy before the Kaiser, and he has pledged your safety. The Changelings are our guests, but they will not respect that.”
“They demanded you be given over to them. Archon Eros bought some time, but you must leave,” Grover said. “Chrysalis will hunt you; she is very angry. We cannot take you back to Griffenheim.” Grover gave the Archon a wry look. “I am ten, and still a silly cub. The Archon will convince me to take away your protection, but you will be gone.”
"Where is Chrysalis now?" Flurry asked.
Grover shrugged his wings. "In the east wing of the palace with the other changelings." He blinked as Flurry's horn sparked with a bolt of electricity, then shook his head. "You surprised her, but she will be surrounded by her best guards."
"She defeated Celestia before the war during your parent's wedding," Eros reminded.
"That is not that great of an achievement," Flurry replied.
The Archon swallowed to suppress a chuckle. "Even if I believed you could best her, she is technically our ally. We would be obligated to defend her, even from an alicorn."
"Please," Grover implored as he clasped his claws together, "you are under my wing. Do not try to fight her."
Flurry's icy blue eyes looked into Grover's bright blue eyes, then she dismissed the static around her horn with a sigh. “I need to find my father.” Flurry changed tactics. “I won’t let him be buried in some ditch.”
“Your father shielded Flowena during the advance. It held off our tanks for a week before collapsing. The city is mostly rubble; we lost far too many griffons in street fighting,” Eros countered. "We aren't even sure he is dead, neither are the Aquileians we captured, including Président Gaudreau."
“He would have come for me. I will find my father. You cannot deny me that,” Flurry demanded.
“Listen,” Eros stepped forward in the cramped space and grabbed her muzzle. His claw no longer shook. “If your father is alive, he would want you to escape. If he is dead, then he died fighting a war against us for nothing, and you are the last of your line. We did not want to kill him, but he chose to be our enemy,” Eros spat. “He could have stayed here with you.”
“Love is the death of duty,” Flurry replied around his talons.
Eros looked at her strangely and removed his claw. “An odd saying,” he remarked. “Your father’s?”
“My mother’s.”
“A strange saying for the Princess of Love,” Eros replied dubiously.
“It was the last thing she said to me,” Flurry replied, “before I was sent east with the retreating forces.”
Grover stepped forward in the small closet and held a claw up towards the glowing orb. The light reflected on his glasses.
“Princess Flurry Heart,” he began in a squeaky voice. “I swear that your father will be found and given a full burial with honors. He will rest in Griffenheim with my father until you reclaim your empire as I have.”
“Pinkie Promise?” Flurry asked.
“What?”
“Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye.” Flurry did the motions as best she could in the cramped space. Grover copied her after a moment, stuttering through the unfamiliar Aquileian.
He smiled at her when he finished. "A strange promise," he commented.
"Breaking it is the fastest way to lose a friend," Flurry said.
Benito’s ear twitched and he listened at the door for a moment before shaking his head.
"I am proud to be your friend, Princess Flurry," Grover stated. "I will fulfill your promise."
“Okay,” Flurry nodded. “How do I get out of here and where do I go?”
“There’s several convoys leaving the harbor, volunteers from the River Republic returning back to the Riverlands,” Eros explained. “They fought for Aquileia, but they don’t want to start a proper war with us,” he grumbled. "Benito will take you."
“I do not want a war with the east. You can go to your aunties,” Grover said. "We will send a message to the River Republic once you are on the boat."
“No,” Flurry immediately replied. “I don’t want to see them.”
“Why not?” Eros scoffed.
“They quit.”
Grover laughed at the Archon. “You said the same thing."
Benito said something in Herzlander and Grover nodded, much to the Archon’s exasperation.
“There’s a ship leaving for Nova Griffonia with volunteers and refugees, but we are hostile to them,” Eros said grudgingly.
“I forbid our boats from attacking," Grover cut in. "Griffons can leave if they wish; I will not cause my subjects more harm." The Kaiser cleared his throat awkwardly. "Besides," he admitted, "our boats are not very good.”
“My Kaiser,” Eros implored, “we have discussed this.” He ran a claw down his beak.
The regent and his charge argued softly in Herzlander while Flurry thought.
Nova Griffonia was north of Equestria and the Crystal Empire. It was the last bastion of hope on the continent; everyone else had submitted to Chrysalis. Some ponies had fled north during the chaotic retreat, racing to stay ahead of Chrysalis' tanks. The Republic of Nova Griffonia remained officially neutral during the war, but took in any refugees that made it across the border.
“Chrysalis hasn’t attacked them?” Flurry asked, ending the argument.
“We don’t know why,” Eros answered. “Something must be wrong in Equestria.”
“The tanks they just brought are not as good as the one Chrysalis got for my birthday a few years ago,” Grover added. "Thranx taught me how to drive it. These new tanks look cheap."
“I want to go to Nova Griffonia,” Flurry nodded.
Eros gave her a look; the same look of disapproval her father used to give her. “Do you have friends there, Princess?”
“Yes,” Flurry lied. “Crystal ponies went there during the retreat.” Sunburst's convoy got left behind, along with a dozen other trucks. He might have made it to the border, Flurry justified to herself.
Eros narrowed his eyes, but Grover clapped his claws together. He spoke in Herzlander rapidly to Benito, then turned to Flurry.
“Benito will take you to the docks. You will get on a boat to Nova Griffonia. You can trust Benito.”
“I do,” Flurry affirmed.
“Benito will give you money,” Grover continued. “You can find your friends in Nova Griffonia.”
"Your Aquileian is good. You can pass as a local pony at a distance. Can you hide your wings with magic?" Eros asked.
"No," Flurry said and grabbed a uniform off one of the shelves with her magic, then discarded it. She continued rummaging about the shelves until she found one cut for a pony.
It was a rather bland and unassuming blue jumpsuit meant for cleaning staff. Uncaring of her audience, Flurry tore her dress off with magic and slipped it on.
Benito, Grover, and Eros turned away abruptly with a cough.
“Clearly, none of you have been to Equestria,” Flurry said under her breath.
Flurry had to roll up the sleeves halfway, but her freakish alicorn height and large wings finally paid off, and she filled out the jumpsuit well enough to pass for a teenager. Her wings twitched, stuffed inside the jumpsuit, but Flurry had a lot of practice keeping them still under starched dresses. She cleared her throat and Grover and the Archon turned around, signaling Benito to step into the hallway, weapons drawn.
Grover was still blushing when he looked at Flurry, whose mane had dried into a stringy mess during their conversation. She looked nothing like a princess, but he didn't look much like a kaiser.
“G-good luck, Princess Flurry Heart,” he stammered. “I hope to see you again one day in Nova Griffonia.”
“Thank you, Kaiser Grover,” Flurry replied. “I wish you luck as well.”
Benito stuck his head through the doorway. “We go now,” he said in broken Aquileian.
Flurry and Grover nodded as she brushed past his blushing beak. The Archon looked down at her as she passed him. He opened his beak to say something, but closed it again. As she exited, he finally said, “I will pray for your safety, Princess.”
Flurry smiled back and left.
Benito led her for several hours through the streets, bypassing checkpoints and taking side alleys when possible. Apparently, he was well-known enough not to be questioned, and he occasionally ordered several ponies and griffons that were walking behind them seized for questioning by passing Reich soldiers. Flurry wasn’t sure they were changelings, but Benito never stayed to check.
There was a massive crowd at the dockyard, and Reich soldiers were clearly overwhelmed trying to keep the native Aquileians under control. Benito shoved his way through the crowd as Flurry followed. His ears pinned back as the dog kept glancing back at the disguised alicorn following him. At the front of the crowd, he grabbed a soldier by the helmet and barked something in his face. The Griffon stammered a reply, and Benito grabbed Flurry by the horn and dragged her towards a pier, barreling through the crowd with an escort of soldiers.
They stopped against the railing at the end of the pier, among a crowd of ponies and griffons carrying bags. Benito pointed to a ship sailing away. Flurry recognized the Nova Griffonian flag, a griffon's claw against a purple background.
“Griffon ship,” he said in Aquileian.
“I can fly,” Flurry said. She braced herself on the railing and started to unzip the jumpsuit.
Benito began to reply, but his ear twitched and he whirled around. In one smooth motion, he unholstered his pistol and jammed it under a unicorn mare’s head and pulled the trigger. The unicorn’s own gun tumbled out of her green magic as the crowd screamed and surged away.
“Fly!” Benito barked over his shoulder. He drew his sword with his off-paw.
Flurry flew. She tore off her jumpsuit in a flare of magic and flew all the way to the ship, corkscrewing to throw off any bullets, before abruptly crashing onto the deck of the old steamer crowded with wounded and angry griffons. She was utterly naked, her purple and blue mane was a windswept stringy mess, and she did not receive money from Benito.
One griffon with an eye patch leveled a rifle at her. A crowd had gathered on the aft deck to watch her fly towards them as a riot erupted on the docks. Several more gunshots sounded from shore.
“Stop right there and fly right back,” he growled in Equestrian.
“I can stop or I can fly back, idiot. I can’t do both,” Flurry retorted in Equestrian, earning some wary chuckles from the crowd.
“Think you’re a comedian, filly?” the griffon replied. He was wearing a dirty camouflaged jacket over a bandaged wing.
“No,” Flurry said before stretching her wings out and lighting her horn with a spark of electricity. “I am Princess Flurry Heart, heir to the Crystal Empire and Equestria.”
“Now, that’s funny,” the griffon laughed and lowered his rifle. “They’re both gone, filly. No one cares anymore.”
Flurry stood tall as the griffon continued to laugh down at her, even as the crowd joined in mocking the disheveled and naked filly, even as tears came to her eyes, even as she recognized that she was the last of her family except for two ancient sisters half a world away.
Flurry stood proud on the deck of a strange ship, bound for a strange land, surrounded by defeated and tired griffons.
She finally understood how her father had thrown aside his crown.
“Princess Flurry?”
A voice broke through the scattered laughter.
A crystal pony pushed through the crowd. “I heard you’d been killed.” The young stallion looked at her in awe.
“Princess?” Another crystal pony, a mare with a wounded foreleg, emerged between two griffons. The pair stopped laughing.
A bat pony landed to her right, cradling a rifle between two hooves. “I thought you got captured by the changelings,” he said.
“The griffons,” Flurry replied, sniffling away tears. “I escaped. I used a cleaning outfit to hide my wings.” The crowd began to chatter in a variety of languages, only half of which Flurry knew.
A unicorn pushed her way past, a mare in a tattered Equestrian uniform with sagging gray eyes. She eyed Flurry suspiciously before lighting up her horn with a gray burst of magic. The pistol on the mare's belt was already cocked in its holster.
The crowd quieted down. Wordlessly, the older mare swept her horn over the alicorn. Flurry felt the magic brush across her and recognized the spell.
“Auntie Twilight made that spell. I could never figure it out. Sunburst told me if I got it wrong, I could make some poor pony or changeling explode.” Flurry smiled at her.
The gray-eyed unicorn stared at her a moment longer as the ponies around her shared uncertain looks.
Then she knelt. “Princess Flurry Heart.”
Two more crystal ponies pushed their way through the crowd, stopping before Flurry with tears in their eyes.
“Princess!” They exclaimed together and knelt as one.
A griffon in a blue Aquileian uniform burst forth, knocking the one-eyed griffon aside. “Little Flurry,” she shouted in Aquileian, “I served under your father!”
Another griffon followed her. “We would have never escaped if not for his magic.”
The two griffons bowed; claw clasped on their heart in the Aquileian way.
“Princess,” a pegasus stepped forward, speaking in Prench. “I saw your father in Flowena. There was no finer unicorn in the entire army.” He bent his forelegs in an elaborate bow.
“Princess Flurry,” the bat pony lowered his rifle to the ground and inclined his head. Flurry remembered bat ponies in the Night Guard doing the same for Luna.
The one-eyed griffon that laughed at her was pushed back as more ponies and griffons made their way forward. Flurry could only stare as a dozen, then two dozen, then more and more creatures faced her with shock in their faces and tears in their eyes.
An earth pony in a New Marelander expeditionary outfit knelt to her right. “I should’ve gone with your father when he left,” he said.
Flurry saw the wounded crystal mare wince as she knelt, crying. “I came to fight for your father, but I was too late,” she sobbed. “Please forgive me, Princess!” She waited for Flurry to respond.
All of them were waiting for her to respond.
Flurry looked around the crowd. Equestrian and Crystal uniforms blended with Aquileian and Nova Griffonian. This was a ship of losers, Flurry thought, leaving another war lost. Nova Griffonia’s time was coming, whether by the Reich or by Chrysalis.
Flurry Heart was ten years old, almost eleven. She wanted to fly away, back to her mother and father and castle. She wanted to wake up in her bed in the Empire, yelling at Aunt Luna for giving her such a bad dream. She wanted to go back to Grover and see if she could make him blush again. She wanted Auntie Twilight to read her another bedtime story.
Flurry Heart closed her eyes and took a breath. She couldn’t do any of that. And her subjects needed her.
“As long as I live, the Crystal Empire is not lost,” she said, projecting her voice like her mother.
“I know you are tired; I know you are hurt," Flurry looked at the wounded Crystal mare, pulling her back to her hooves with a flare of magic. "But as long as you live, the Crystal Empire is not lost."
"Princess," the mare sobbed.
“As long as you live, Equestria is not lost,” Flurry looked at the gray-eyed mare, then the bat pony.
“Princess!” Everypony around her called out.
“As long as you live, Aquileia is not lost,” Flurry looked at the two griffons, speaking in Aquileian.
“Princess!” The griffons in the crowd matched the shout. It was the one word that everyone knew, regardless of language.
“As long as you live, New Mareland is not lost,” Flurry smiled at the earth pony, flapping her wings as she reared up.
“Princess!” The crowd shouted in unison.
“As long as we live, we have not lost!” Flurry shouted in Equestrian. Her voice echoed across the deck.
“PRINCESS!”
“PRINCESS!”
“PRINCESS!”
The crowd roared until the captain came onto the deck to investigate. Flurry Heart got his cabin.
She cried herself to sleep in it every night until the ship docked in Weter, the capital of Nova Griffonia.