//------------------------------// // Part Three // Story: The Princess and the Kaiser // by UnknownError //------------------------------// It took three days for the old steamer to chug into port at Weter, the capital of Nova Griffonia. The captain, an old brown griffon named Hayes, had been very gracious to Flurry the whole trip. He was utterly terrified of her, Flurry realized at dinner in his cabin. The trick was his eyes: they tracked her horn instead of making eye contact. Flurry remembered a similar look in the maids and servants in the Crystal Empire, after she destroyed the Crystal Heart with her foalish wailing. Her parents expanded their staff after the crystal ponies began reclaiming the Frozen North, but Flurry could recognize the old staff by how they looked at her. Captain Hayes looked at her the same way, and he had good reason to. When the news spread of her arrival on the ship, Flurry gained nearly two hundred armed and devoted veterans on board, outnumbering his own crew. Crystal Ponies, Equestrians, and New Marelanders pledged fealty on the aft deck. A few dozen Aquileian griffons joined them, loyalty to her father proving stronger than loyalty to the fallen republic. The ship ended up a floating diplomatic crisis. Nova Griffonia accepted any refugee that made it across the border, pledging neutrality during the Great War, but they had never offered to take in a princess. When Flurry was five, the governor of the colony was assassinated outside his house, and the country nearly fell in a military coup. By the time Nova Griffonia stabilized into a republic, the war had turned thoroughly against Equestria and the Crystal Empire. The new president claimed to her mother they were too weak to help against Chrysalis. It might have even been true. Nova Griffonia never offered to shelter the Princesses, and nopony ever asked them to consider it. But hundreds of thousands of ponies missed the boats to New Mareland and fled north to the border before Chrysalis’ panzers caught up to them. Nova Griffonia ended up with a sizable pony diaspora, straining its already flagging economy to the limit. The night before the ship reached Weter, a pair of bat ponies left to fly ahead and Flurry went to bed with two crystal ponies guarding her room. The next morning, Flurry Heart stood next to a despondent Captain Hayes on deck and stared at a cheering crowd of ten thousand assorted ponies at the dock. All of them were armed. Most ponies made it across the border with only their guns and the President of Nova Griffonia, Triton Blackpeak, believed that their extra armaments could mean the difference if Chrysalis or the Reich invaded. President Blackpeak met the ship at the dock to speak to Flurry personally. Judging from the way he kept tugging on his brown shirt collar with a claw, he regretted letting the ponies keep their weapons. Flurry had no crown, no parents, and no legal guardian. Flurry did have an army of jubilant ponies that would doubtless be very angry if she was turned away. The gray-eyed mare, Lieutenant Dusty Mark of the Equestrian Army, spoke with Blackpeak and compromised, admitting Flurry as an underage refugee, but officially did not acknowledge her standing as a Princess. He stood with Flurry on the deck and shook her hoof to a cheering crowd of ponies that stomped their hooves in welcome. Flurry didn’t mention that the last president that shook her hoof ended up deposed by an invading army. Thorax found her shortly afterwards on the dock, disguised as ‘Crystal Hoof,’ the bland pony he wore when they first met. Flurry nearly skewered him with her horn before she remembered to ask her unicorns to verify his identity. Lieutenant Dusty scanned the undisguised, naked changeling squirming in Flurry's magic over before nodding to her. “Yeah, that’s my neighbor Thorax.” Dusty gave him a grim smile and shook the rifle at her flank. "Our Princess is quick on the draw," she commented to the gathered crowd. Some of them looked warily at the changeling, but most smiled. “I’m so sorry Thorax,” Flurry admitted, pulling him into a hug before letting him down. “No, no, caution is good,” Thorax said, hugging her back. He lost weight, seeming thinner and leaner; the holes in his legs were more pronounced, like his fangs in a narrow muzzle. Thorax traded radio broadcasts with Cadance during the war, urging his fellow changelings to defect and embrace friendship and harmony. He’d been with Sunburst during the evacuation. Flurry had no idea he was alive. Princess Flurry Heart did her duty and greeted the cheering crowd, politely asked them to disperse like Blackpeak asked and promised to speak again over the radio. She followed Thorax, Dusty, and a few dozen veteran ponies through the dockyards to a small, cramped ghetto in Weter. The buildings were made of unpainted brink and uncomfortably grouped together. There was no sign of the traditional open-air griffon architecture; this had been built quickly and cheaply. Ponies cheered for her in the street as her motley guards passed. Most of ponies were naked like her or wore stitched up old clothes. A foal wearing an old sack stopped in front of them before being snatched up by an overly apologetic stallion in a poorly-tailored suit meant for a griffon. “There’re a few dozen settlements, mostly in the mountains to the west or near the Equestrian border,” Dusty explained with Thorax nodding along. “The griffons want our guns to fight, but they can’t give us proper homes. There’s not enough jobs, either. Those of us that got jobs," Dusty grimaced, "got them in Triton’s Armories on the coast or the mines in the mountains.” “Isn’t the President Triton Blackpeak?” Flurry asked. “How do you think he got elected?” Dusty snorted. "He's one of the only ones to give us jobs. He's got a few hundred thousand ponies voting for him." Dusty, Thorax, and Flurry walked up to a three-story tenement with leaky windows and chipped paint on the door. Dusty patted the rifle at her side as a pair of armed ponies opened the front doors for them. She turned to Thorax. “I’ll do the rounds, set up some guards again. You talk to your ‘lings, too.” “They’re already set up,” Thorax replied. He led Flurry up the stairs past three unicorns with green eyes that only nodded at her. Flurry tensed, but Thorax’s easy demeanor reassured her. He led her to apartment 206, but the ‘6’ was hanging upside down. Flurry wrenched it upright and affixed it with a glue spell. “I’ll need you to fix some of the stool legs in the kitchen,” Thorax chuckled as he led her inside. It was three rooms, with a bare stove in the kitchen, an unvarnished table beside it, a frayed purple couch next to a dirty window and uneven stools around the table. Flurry took it in with a blink. It was nowhere near as bad as shelled-out houses. She sat down on a stool and cast a repair spell on the leg. It still wobbled, but now the leg was too long. She huffed and tossed her frayed purple and blue curls. Thorax sat across from her on his own stool. He glanced over her head at the door, waiting. There was movement outside in the hallway and a short whistle. Thorax whistled back with a chirp. “Are we safe here?” Flurry asked. “Of course,” Thorax replied. “Do you have anything on the ship?” “No, I left in a hurry. Reich soldiers caught me and were going to give me to the Changelings,” Flurry replied. “I escaped and flew from the docks to the ship.” Thorax’s smile twitched. “Please,” he said slowly, “there’s no need to lie, Princess.” Flurry met his look. “Don’t lie to me either.” Thorax looked away first. “Am I safe here?” Flurry repeated. “No,” Thorax sighed, “but you’re safer here in Weter than any of the border towns. This is the oldest and most populated pony neighborhood. Chrysalis could send a strike team across the border, but not into Weter, not without starting a war. She knows I’m here, and that I’m helping the Nova Griffonians watch out for infiltrators.” Flurry looked around the room. “You work for the government and live here?” “It’s the biggest room in the building,” Thorax replied. Flurry’s muzzle scrunched in shame and swished her tail nervously. “I’m sorry, Thorax. Dad thought you died with Sunburst.” “Sunburst’s truck got strafed by a fighter and we had to keep going,” Thorax sighed. “I ended up leading a few hundred ponies north with the changelings that defected. We barely made it across the border.” “Who else is here?” “Most of the crystal ponies went to the border instead of trying for the coast. Colonel Heartsong is the highest ranked.” Thorax continued to list the names of ponies that Flurry barely remembered before he stopped and closed his eyes. “Princess Flurry,” Thorax said softly, “many crystal ponies volunteered to fight with your father in Aquileia. I…if you don’t want to-” “My father is dead,” Flurry cut him off. “I had to leave before they found the body, but he’s dead. Chrysalis showed up wearing my mother’s face and tried to drag me back.” Thorax slumped against the table and his wings buzzed weakly. “I’m so sorry, Flurry.” Flurry shook her head and whickered. “Grover protected me, came up with the story that I escaped. His bodyguard helped me get to the dock.” Thorax lifted his head back up. “Why?” “He promised.” Flurry shrugged her wings. “He promised to get you to Nova Griffonia?” “No,” Flurry smiled. “He promised to keep me safe. This was my idea. I wanted to go here. Some changelings chased us, but I got away.” I hope Benito is okay. Flurry liked the old dog. He risked a lot. “Their alliance with the Chrysalis might be over, then,” Thorax considered. “She’s still broadcasting in Canterlot, but that could be a recording.” “If she’s still gone, we could say something, tell ponies,” Flurry said. Her wings started fluttering. “They could rise up!” Thorax shook his head. “No, most ponies are Nova Griffonian citizens now. It’s been years, Flurry. Nova Griffonia won’t risk a war, especially not with Chrysalis." “I don’t need their permission. They’re ponies, and I’m their Princess,” Flurry responded. “They want to live like this?” Flurry scoffed, sweeping her wings around the room. “No, they don’t,” Thorax replied, reaching into a cupboard with his magic. He retrieved a crinkled map and smoothed it out on the table, “but it is better than living in occupied Equestria.” Flurry looked down at the map, showing Equestria divided into occupied governates. “I’ve seen this before,” she said shortly. “Every few months, we get runners that escaped from the plantations or mines.” Thorax acted like he didn’t hear her. “We help get them across the border. Chrysalis is too proud and stupid to admit anypony escapes, so President Blackpeak turns a blind eye to it.” Thorax put a hoof on Canterlot. “West and central Equestria are the only areas directly controlled from Vesalipolis and the Changeling Lands, mostly because Chrysalis likes to vacation in Canterlot. Most of the garrisons are tied up there. The Everfree Forest is out of control and a center of resistance.” He moved the hoof to the south. “The south is lawless, either desert or jungle. The governors assigned to the area keep getting assassinated. The Changelings are resorting to walled slave plantations to harvest love and rubber.” Flurry noticed he referred to changelings separately, not including himself. He put a hoof over the empire. “The Crystal Empire is too sparsely populated to properly garrison. They can't control the weather enough to dispel the storm; the Crystal Heart only protects Crystal City, none of the farmland around it. It’s basically a research center surrounded by slave mines.” “It shrunk?” Flurry asked. The barrier formed by the Crystal Heart was never very large, but the little circle on the map was pitiful. “The Crystal Heart must be broken," Thorax chittered. "Your mother held out for months after Equestria fell. The snow storm outside the shield brought down their bombers and planes in the hundreds. Thousands of troops froze in the snow outside as their tanks and artillery pounded the shield. The delay bought a lot of ponies time to make it here.” Thorax tapped his hoof on the map. “I think Chrysalis tried to drop some new kind of bomb on the city, but it didn’t work. We saw a flash from the border.” “I didn’t hear any of that in Aquileia or New Mareland.” “I doubt Chrysalis wanted to spread that around.” “Do you know how Mom died?” Flurry asked. Thorax closed his eyes. “I don’t know. The shield shattered suddenly and changelings poured in. Nopony made it out.” Thorax blinked his solid blue eyes several times and moved a hoof to Manehattan. “The eastern coastline is led by Governor Lilac, who’s trying to be liberal with her underequipped garrison.” He smiled at Flurry. “Starlight Glimmer and Trixie Lulamoon are underground, making Tartarus. The rebellion will start there when it starts.” “Chrysalis is weak,” Flurry summarized. “If we rise up, we can beat them! President Blackpeak said I can go on the radio; we can tell everypony to fight.” She put her hoof over the Crystal City. “A lot of ponies live at the border, right? We can storm right over those loser guards and make it to the Crystal Heart, easy!” "Blackpeak wants you to calm everypony down," Thorax stressed, "not rile them up for war. Nova Griffonia is committed to defense, against Chrysalis or the Reich." "Then what's the point of telling me any of this?" Flurry complained. “My point,” Thorax tapped the map, “is that the rebellion already started the moment Chrysalis set a holed hoof in Equestria. Ponies are doing all they can. Sometimes that means sabotaging a train or attacking a garrison, sometimes that means bringing home enough food for tomorrow. Getting on the radio and shouting to fight won’t change that.” “I want to help them." “Are you doing it for them or for you?” Thorax challenged. Flurry didn't respond immediately. "I'm their Princess," she finally answered with a defiant pout. Thorax continued staring her down with solid blue eyes. “So, you'll go on the radio. Did all those speeches on the radio from Celestia and Luna help New Mareland fight?” Flurry clamped her muzzle shut and her stomach twisted. “Don’t compare me to them,” she strained out between gritted teeth. “Are you going to fight?” “If I have to.” “An alicorn on the field doesn’t guarantee victory; Luna proved that twice.” “It would have been different if Celestia and Twilight helped.” “Maybe,” Thorax conceded, “or they could have all died fighting on the front and destroyed any hope of victory. Besides, Twilight spent the war researching new weapons. Are you stronger than Luna? Are you smarter than Twilight?” he asked. “Not yet,” Flurry bit out. “So, you can’t fight yet,” Thorax concluded, “would you like to shout for ponies to fight on the radio? Do you want them to hear your voice as they die, calling for them to give everything, like Celestia?” “Stop it!” Flurry covered her ears with her hooves. “Will you write condolence letters like your mother, assuring their families that they died for a higher cause while sitting in a crystal castle?” “Don't you dare mock Mom!” The entire building rattled. Flurry’s horn fired a bolt of lightning that scorched the ceiling. Two disguised changelings burst in through the door, took one look at Flurry, then backed out. Flurry Heart’s muzzle twitched uncontrollably as she heaved, floating in the air in her own magical aura. Her wings buzzed, causing a gale to blow up dust and knock the map off the table. She hung in the air like an inert pendulum before Thorax. Thorax stayed on his stool and gripped the table for balance. He stared up at Flurry as she glared down at him, tears falling from her eyes. She bared her teeth at him with a snarl fit for a changeling. “I loved your mother,” Thorax said calmly. Flurry stilled her wings to hear him, but remained floating in her magic. “Writing those letters destroyed her. She wasn’t a fighter,” he admitted, “but she did everything could until the end." He kept eye contact, not staring at the electrical arcs coming from her horn. "When the city finally fell, Chrysalis gave the city to Hive Marshal Trimmel. His first act was to hang my brother from one of the balconies of the Crystal Palace. Chrysalis said he helped me escape.” Flurry took a shuddering breath as she tried to calm down. “Pharynx?” “Yes,” Thorax said, chuckling to himself. “We hadn’t talked for years, and our last conversation ended with him swearing to bring me before Chrysalis." He snorted. "But that’s exactly the kind of leader Chrysalis is. She watched the war from that damn tower in Vesalipolis, gave speeches on the radio for changelings to die to, then executed her best panzer commander.” “She lied,” Flurry righted the stool and fixed it again with a flare of blue magic. “No,” Thorax laughed. “Pharynx's tank broke down while his brigade was chasing us across the tundra. He made the everyling stop and wait for him to repair it. He wanted to be there when I was caught, you see.” “I don’t understand,” Flurry sat down on the stool. It didn’t wobble. “He faked the breakdown,” Thorax said. “Pharynx was always a good liar, even to other changelings, but it was too suspicious.” The changeling closed his eyes and sighed. “He did what he could, when it counted.” He opened his eyes. “What kind of princess can you be right now?” “I can go on the radio,” Flurry began and Thorax frowned. Flurry paused. “I can tell my ponies that I am glad so many of them came to see me, and I can tell them to give me time to settle into Nova Griffonia, like President Blackpeak asked.” Thorax nodded with relief. “I can visit them and see where they live. I can show them I care.” Thorax hesitated, but nodded. “We can do that. We'll use it as a chance to set up your legal guardian. It will just be on paper; Dusty Mark downstairs is a good choice-” “You,” Flurry said and crossed her forelegs. Thorax blinked. “Flurry, no.” “You said it was just on paper. I can stay with Dusty or anypony or a spare room.” “Flurry, I am a changeling. Nova Griffonia tolerates us because we help them, but there’s still a lot of distrust.” “You’re Thorax, my friend and honorary uncle. You helped my mother and father. You helped raise me.” “That was a long time ago, Flurry. Ponies don’t always remember things they should.” Thorax worried his fangs with a forked tongue. “We can remind them. Besides, what better to guard against changelings than changelings?” Flurry asked, and knew she’d won the argument because Thorax looked over her head to the door as his ears pinned back. “It’s not a good idea,” he sighed. “Because you’re starving?” Thorax’s head fin stiffened. “I am not.” “Don’t lie,” Flurry reminded him, “those holes are pretty big.” She pointed at his hooves on the table. Thorax quickly shifted them under the table. “I work with the other changelings," Thorax said quickly. "We ration. I’m just hungry. Nova Griffonia has limited trade. Food can get scarce.” “Yeah, I bet with all that distrust, like you said.” Flurry stuck her hoof across the table and thought about the time Thorax fell asleep reading her Daring Do and the Temple of Terror. Thorax flinched and hissed at her on reflex. “No,” he rasped, “we’re better than that." He swallowed, licking at his fangs. "It belongs to your family." “My family,” Flurry said wistfully. “You’re the closest thing to family I have left, and you know that's not a lie.” Princess Flurry Heart and Thorax the Exile stared at each other. Flurry's ears twitched as it began to rain outside. Thorax's window started to leak from the downpour. Thorax shut his eyes and slowly reached out with a holed hoof that was more hole than actual hoof. Flurry Heart sat quietly as she felt the pull on her magic. It was barely more than a drop being drawn from an ocean. They sat together in the rundown kitchen, now slightly more battered due to Flurry’s outburst. “My brother was right. I really am an idiot,” Thorax laughed with a sniffle. "I'm sorry I said all those things." "They needed to be said," Flurry answered. "I'm sorry I yelled at you. Mom always said a Princess needs wise counsel." Thorax laughed again and Flurry giggled. The alicorn glanced at the scorch mark on the ceiling. I need to control my magic better; I can’t fight with it, not without probably destroying a building. I can’t write letters for ponies who died for me. I can't call them to war without fighting myself. Dad taught me about guns, but didn't teach me to shoot, she thought. But she had time to learn. All of it. And if Thorax objected, he was only her legal guardian on paper. I am a Princess.