//------------------------------// // Part Twenty-Three // Story: The Princess and the Kaiser // by UnknownError //------------------------------// The next morning, Flurry Heart arrived at Nouveau Aquila just after dawn. The port city to the south of Weter had actually been named that before the Aquileian refugees settled there; a holdover from the time Nova Griffonia had been a poor loyal colony for the Griffonian Reich. The Aquileian refugees, a few hundred thousand in total, dominated the southern coastline. They didn’t have the numbers or influence to form their own coalition like the Republicans with Kemerskai, and the Aquileian ponies were firmly split between the Equestrian refugees and their Griffon relatives. They had a few representatives in the legislature, but they had to cut deals with the native Nova Griffonians or the Republicans to get anything done. Most served in the navy or in their own local militias. Flurry Heart had known the most influential leaders for years from her visits during her birthday tours. Due to their fence-sitting in politics, the southern coast wasn’t as well-funded or guarded. The worst fighting and attempted naval landings had occurred there. Flurry drifted above a half-destroyed apartment block; a remnant from last night’s bombing raid. Griffon architecture favored large balconies and high towers. It made buildings accessible by flight, but one good hit could collapse the structure down to the foundation. A few dust-covered griffons in blue uniforms were digging through the rubble. One had an excavator pushing a pile of bricks aside. Flurry landed next to a griffon with a shovel and beak-covering mask. “What’s going on?” Flurry asked in Aquileian. The griffon chick pulled her goggles up and tugged the bandana away from her beak. “There was an anti-air emplacement on top of the building,” she explained. “Took a hit.” “Was anyone inside?” “They were sheltering in the basement,” the griffon nodded. “We’re trying to get to them without collapsing the rest of the building.” She gestured to the left half of the apartments still standing. “Progress has been slow,” she coughed, “and they’ll run out of air.” Flurry shuffled her hooves on the destroyed brickwork and glanced at the side of the building. Several of the rooms were exposed by the partial collapse. “I’m better at destroying things than building them up,” Flurry admitted with a shrug of her wings. “Would it help if you didn’t have to deal with what’s left of the building?” The griffon looked between the apartments and the alicorn. “I would prefer,” she swallowed, “not to add more rubble to dig through.” “I won’t,” Flurry promised. She took a few steps back and her horn sparked. “Back up,” she shouted in warning to the others. The griffons ceased digging and the excavator was quickly shut off as the Aquileians flapped their wings and flew behind her. “No one’s in there, right?” she called over her shoulder and a few of the workers nodded. Flurry reached out with her telekinesis and probed around the ruined building, feeling for weak points. There were a lot, so she would have to move quick. Her horn burned a bit brighter as she closed her eyes and concentrated on her spellwork. The building began to sparkle blue as she tentatively surrounded it with her magic. “Please, don’t strain yourself,” one of the griffons called out from behind her. Flurry snorted and stomped her hoof. The ruins were ripped upwards from the foundation, causing a wave of dust to envelop the crowd. Flurry stomped her other hoof and her magical grip contracted, forming a bubble of steel, brick, glass, and wood. Her ears pinned back at the grinding shriek as the materials crunched inwards, but she poured magic into the bubble and continued to shrink it down. The bubble glowed bright white as the shield heated up and burned away the rubble. Flurry’s horn tip sparked and dripped blue fire that ran down her horn as she grit her teeth. The shield rippled with waves of white-hot flames while the air around it shimmered from the heat. The bubble continued to shrink, now about her size, when she abruptly cast a wave of ice at the orb to cool it and let it drop to the rubble. Flurry Heart and the griffons stared at the pony-sized obsidian orb wafting smoke, sitting on the foundation where half of a five-story building used to be. Flurry nodded at it. “Right.” The griffon from the excavator approached and offered her a canteen wordlessly. She waved a wing at it. “Thanks, but I’m not thirsty.” “Your horn is on fire,” he deadpanned and gestured up to it. Flurry took the canteen with her front hooves and splashed it on her head. There was a brief sizzling noise and she smelled the acrid smoke of her burning mane. She scrubbed a hoof at her curls, feeling how charred they were. I’ve done worse. “I was due for a mane-cut anyway,” she shrugged. “Thanks,” she nodded to the griffon. “Cecil,” the griffon nodded back. “We know where the basement is. Are you just here to help, or…” he trailed off and gestured with a claw. Flurry shook her head. “I’m looking for Admiral Fierté, or Commander Altiert and Eagleheart. Are they in the field?” Cecil looked to the side and wiped his head with his bandana. “The Admiral is at the harbor overseeing repairs. I’m not sure about the others.” Flurry flapped her wings and lifted off the ground. “Do you need help here?” Cecil looked over at the smoking orb for a moment. “We have it covered,” the griffon shook his head. He pointed a wing to the harbor. “You should know where the harbor is.” Flurry smirked and flew a few blocks to the harbor, passing over several more anti-air flak guns setup on rooftops and a few more teams digging through debris. She stopped briefly at each one, but they waved her away. Flurry arrived at the dockyards with the sun rising before her, and slowly flew above the small destroyers parked against the piers. Dozens of griffons, and a few ponies, paced across the decks while welders flapped their wings and inspected the armor plating along the sides. She landed briefly and received directions from a repairpony, then flew to a heavily damaged destroyer, propped up by floatation devices. One of the light guns had split apart form a direct hit; a crane on the dock was removing it. Flurry dodged around the crane and spotted a griffon standing before a small crowd standing at the end of the dock. Flurry Heart landed on the railing at the end and hooked her forelegs over it to balance herself. Admiral Fierté turned around to look at the alicorn perched at the railings. The storm-white griffon’s feathers turned gray around her head, and her uniform was unbuttoned. Her right eye was covered with a white eyepatch, and her left wing was in a sling. She had been speaking to the crowd of sailors, but smiled at Flurry’s abrupt entrance. Fierté waved a claw at Flurry for the crowd. “Little Flurry, our lightning bolt from the Gods!” she crowed in Aquileian. “She turned defeat into victory yesterday, destroying the new pride of the Griffonian Reich!” The sailors screeched approvingly and clapped. Flurry looked over her shoulder and spied the two heavy cruisers sunk at the harbor entrance before replying. “I’m just doing my job,” Flurry said in Aquileian, shifting in her flight suit, “and I think I’m taller than you.” “Maybe so,” she chuckled, “but you will always be Little Flurry. I remember when you shook President Gaudreau’s claw.” Flurry Heart suppressed a smile. “I need to talk to you,” she said seriously, “and the militia commanders. There’s a situation.” Fierté clacked her beak and regarded Flurry with sudden intensity with a narrowed blue eye. She turned and snapped her claw at one of the griffons in the crowd. “Get Eagleheart and Altiert,” she squawked. She turned back to the alicorn. “There’s a café on the corner of 9th Street. Should be still standing. Wait there.” Flurry took flight as Fierté pushed her way through the crowd and squawked orders while griffons scrambled to the air. A few nodded and waved at the alicorn as they spread out. Flurry left the harbor, looking over her shoulder at the wrecked cruisers one last time. They had tried to support the landing. Rainbow warned her that she might have nightmares after battles, and that it was okay. “Twilight told me that violence weights heavily on a pony’s soul,” she had snorted. “I’m not much for egghead stuff, but that stuck with me for some reason.” She had placed a reassuring hoof on Flurry's withers. "We're here for you if you need to talk about it," she had promised. Flurry Heart didn't need to talk about it. She didn’t dream about her battles, or any of the griffons she had killed. Her only nightmares were about the plantations and mines in her home, where ponies died in slavery resenting her, if they even remembered she existed. The café’s windows and name had been boarded over, but the old griffon outside ushered Flurry Heart in with beckoning wings. He even smiled as she checked if he was a changeling and offered her some bread. There were two armed miltia griffs inside that glanced at her and peeked through holes in the boards. Flurry waited at a table lit by a gas lamp and chewed on a stale baguette, surrounded by stacked tables and chairs while the old griffon and his wife cooked something for her in a wood oven in the back. She tried to tell them it wasn’t necessary, but swiftly realized that she would have to restrain them in her magic to make them stop trying to pamper her. It wasn’t worth the effort, so she settled for tearing off chunks of the baguette and sharing it with the guards. After a few hours and two bowls of undercooked pasta, three griffons and one pony entered the café. The owners grabbed chairs and swiftly set them up around Flurry’s table with more pasta bowls. Sophie Altiert was gray griffon and militia commander, still in uniform. Eagleheart was an Aquileian unicorn with a gold coat, also wearing a blue officer’s uniform. The Admiral, Josette Fierté, limped after them, followed by an unexpected griffon in slacks and a stained white shirt. “Little Flurry!” Jacques cried out. “I am saddened that you did not ask for me.” He wiped a fake tear from his eye. “I thought you ran the union in the dockyards,” Flurry replied in Aquileian. “I do many things,” he preened. “Do I not have command of your heart, Little Flurry?” “No,” Flurry scoffed. The admiral slapped him with her good wing. “He should be here,” Fierté said. “He’ll never admit it, but he was an operative for the Second Republic. He does a lot for every griff.” “Lies and slander,” Jacques coughed with a claw to his beak. Flurry blinked. “Right,” she shrugged. “Is every griffon here trustworthy?” “It depends on what you have to say,” Jacques quipped as his eyes lingered on the guards and Altiert for a beat. He waved a claw at the guards and owners. “Please, step outside for a bit.” Once they did so, he looked at Flurry. “Perhaps some extra protection?” Flurry cast wards around the room and the walls shimmered blue. Jacques looked around and nodded, then took a seat. He grabbed the bowl greedily and ate the pasta with his claws, much to the disgust of the others. The Aquileians seated themselves around Flurry. “Blackpeak is making a deal with Chrysalis,” Flurry cut to the point. “We’re overthrowing him, and we need your help.” Eagleheart set her spoon down in her magic. “Are you sure?” “Yes,” Flurry nodded. “We have less than two weeks; we're planning an attack in a few days.” “That’s not much time to work with.” Altiert wrung her claws. “The land border is clear right now,” Jacques muttered around a stuffed beak. “We can move quickly.” “You’re the highest-ranked naval commander in Nova Griffonia,” Flurry said to Fierté. "How much support would we have?" “There’s not much of a navy left,” Fierté squawked and rubbed at her eyepatch. “I though this was about Hellcrest.” “What?” “Admiral Hellcrest was aboard the Artur,” Jacques mumbled. “He didn’t go down with the ship and was taken captive. He’s being held in Weter.” Fierté sighed and looked askance with her eye at Jacques. “How do you know that? It hasn’t been announced.” “I eat, and I know things,” Jacques replied, with a noodle falling from his beak. "He's useless as a prisoner." Flurry refocused. “I’m not asking about the ships, but the sailors. How many will fight with us against Blackpeak?” “All of them,” Fierté spat. “All that’s left. Every ship still floating owes you, one way or another.” “And we’ve been treated just as bad as the Equestrians,” Eagleheart remarked. “The Nova Griffonians don’t see a distinction between us.” “We have the coast to the south of Weter,” Altiert added, “but the Republicans aren’t going to just sit on their wings while we take the government.” “I already spoke to Kemerskai,” Flurry said. “He’s on board.” The Aquileians looked at each other, wary. Jacques set the bowl down. “You went to him first?” he accused. Fierté also crossed her arms, slightly offended. “I knew he would take more effort to convince,” Flurry explained. “His ego’s the size of the Reich,” Eagleheart snorted. “He also blamed Aquileia for losing again,” Flurry continued. All four Aquileians leaned back and groaned. “You want us to work with him?” Altiert sighed, and rubbed her eyes with a claw. “He has rallied a lot of Nova Griffonian support,” Jacques rebuked his fellow griffon. “Alexander even got the griffon supremacists and the communists with Redtail to form a coalition, and they shot at each other in the mountains for years.” He reached over to Fierté’s bowl, which she had left untouched. “You don’t mind, do you?” he asked as he dug his claw into the noodles. Fierté’s lone eye glared at him, but she shoved the bowl over. “Well, if he’s on board, we’ll easily outnumber Blackbeak,” the admiral remarked to Flurry Heart. “What did he want?” Jacques mumbled. “He had to want something.” “He wants to be president,” Flurry shrugged. “Kemerskai will reinstate the elections?” Altiert asked. “Doesn’t see the point,” the alicorn snorted. “Thinks he would win.” There was a round of swearing and more groans. “He was always such as asshole,” Altiert chuckled. “His father was too, but he had some charisma,” Fierté retorted. Jacques set his second bowl down and slurped up a noodle hanging from his beak. “He’ll ask for other things, once he’s in charge,” he burped. “Do you trust him, Little Flurry?” he asked genially, but there was something in his eyes that made Flurry consider her answer. “No,” Flurry replied. “I’m hoping he hates Blackpeak more than me or you.” She wiped her muzzle with the tablecloth. “We’re based out of Evergreen. I can teleport some griffons with me back. Our militia commanders are coordinating from there, but we only have a few days. Can I count on your help?” “Of course, Little Flurry!" Jacques slapped the table. Altiert scowled. “That’s not much time.” “We’re already on high alert,” Eagleheart shrugged. “It won’t take much effort to swing the militias around. I'm in.” “I’m in, but I'm more concerned about the Reich launching another landing attempt while we’re fighting,” Fierté commented. “We’ve been barely holding them back.” “That's why we need to do this before Chrysalis sends reinforcements or accepts his offer,” Flurry replied, “and we need to end the fight quickly. Surround Weter and the coastal armories and cut him off." "I have ships docked in Weter," Fierté stated. "My sailors can take the harbor." "I will go,” Jacques proclaimed and eyed Eagleheart’s half-finished bowl. She snorted and shoved it over to him with a hoof. "I know every griffon worth knowing, and they know me." "Because you're a spy?" Flurry guessed. "Because I delivered their mail for years," Jacques replied with a shrug. “I have to stay,” Fierté said, casting an apologetic eye to Flurry. “I can’t just up and leave inland, not without it being clear something is wrong.” “We’ll fill you in when we return,” Eagleheart nodded. “I’ll go.” “You’ll need a radio,” Flurry advised. “We have some, but the Republicans brought their own.” “They don’t want you listening in on their transmissions,” Jacques explained. “Sophie should go too,” he said and pointed at Altiert with a claw. "She commands several of the coastal militias." Altiert paused but nodded her agreement. “Of course. Let’s meet up here in an hour and you’ll teleport us?” she asked with a bit of hesitation. "The teleport will be disorienting," Flurry warned and dispelled the wards around the shop. Eagleheart took to her hooves with Altiert and the pair left. Fierté stood up, but paused to look at Flurry. “We lost a lot of ships yesterday,” she said in a low voice, “but the only thing any sailor is talking about is how you came from the sky and saved our griffons.” She gave Jacques an a withering glare. “Don’t harass her. Don't you have anything you need to get?” “I’m all set,” he said proudly and patted at his pants. His eyes widened and he tugged out some lint out of his pocket. "As long as I don't have to bring any money." Flurry laughed. Fierté suppressed her own laugh and left, still trying to scowl at the messy griffon. Jacques set down his third empty bowl and gestured to Flurry’s. “You have hardly touched your pasta,” he complained. “I had two bowls waiting for you,” she answered. The griffon leaned across the table. “I know it is undercooked,” he whispered. “We do not have much rations here. The old couple outside are very poor. They once ran a similar place in Aquila and sheltered our meetings before the revolution. Their sons died fighting for us. And replace your wards.” Flurry scooped some noodles into her mouth with a wave of her horn, disguising the shimmer along the walls for a brief moment. Jacques nodded with approval and retrieved Altiert’s half-finished bowl. “Do not think of it as a waste, but a small kindness,” he said at a normal volume. “You went to Kemerskai yourself?” Flurry nodded and chewed. “What did he ask of you?” Flurry swallowed and raised an eyebrow. “He must have asked something of you.” Jacques waited patiently with clasped claws. “I swear loyalty to him and renounce my crown,” Flurry said. “Right there?” he asked, surprised. “Once he’s President of Nova Griffonia,” she clarified. She swished her tail as she spoke. “He’ll make me a captain and give me an air wing.” “Generous. Did you agree to it?” he asked with a flippant tone. “Yes,” she sighed and waited for the next accusation. Jacques studied her. “Do you think he believed you?” Flurry blinked. She was caught off-guard, but she didn’t have to think about her answer. “No.” “I would not believe you either. You are a threat to him.” Jacques examined his claws. “We have few heroes left, few great figures to rally behind. Blackpeak is scum,” he spat and waved his claw at Flurry. “There is you, and Alexander. Your submission would do him good, but great generals win more popularity than great presidents in war.” “Do you think he’ll risk a civil war or try to kill me?” the alicorn asked. “I think he’s already tried to kill you,” the griffon replied with a shrug. “They shot at me when I entered the town and had me keep a shield up,” Flurry summarized, “but I don’t think they were goading me to attack them. They have to know it's suicide.” “Your air missions are dangerous,” Jacques chided. “You are sent over the ocean frequently, to face three or four times your number. We are outnumbered, true,” he admitted, “but you are sent out too frequently.” “We haven’t taken a loss in three weeks,” Flurry boasted, “and I’m an alicorn. It makes sense I'm in the thick of the fighting.” She scooped more cold pasta into her maw and gagged slightly. “And you haven’t been awarded or promoted. Your victories are credited to others,” Jacques answered and slurped up his own bowl. It was almost impressive how well he could speak with a beak full of food. “The Republicans own the air force, and Kemerskai is not stupid; he knows you take risks. If he makes you captain, he will place you in the thick of the fighting and hope for the best. Your death will serve more than your life.” “He’ll be disappointed,” Flurry snorted. Jacques lashed across the table and punched Flurry Heart hard across the muzzle. She twisted partially and raised a hoof to block, but didn’t react quickly enough. The alicorn took the hit and flung him back with her magic. He skidded across the floor. Flurry rubbed her nose. It stung, but nothing was broken. She glared at the griffon sprawled out across the floor. He had spilled noodles on his trousers. “One mistake,” Jacques coughed. “One bullet. That is all he needs.” “I don’t trust him,” Flurry growled. She double-checked her spells. “I have Thorax watching Sunglider. I think Skywatch shorts us on fuel and ammo when he's not insulting me to my muzzle. You’re not telling me anything I don’t already know.” “Good.” Jacques sat up and picked a noodle off his pants. He sniffed it before dropping it into his beak. Flurry crinkled her muzzle in disgust and sat his chair back upright. She spread the bowls out on the table to look like everyone had eaten their fill, and levitated some of the spilled pasta over to her muzzle. Flurry stared at it for a moment before burning it to ash. She blew the ash away with a breath. “I forgot you could do that,” Jacques sniggered and clutched his stomach. “I can do a lot of things,” Flurry echoed. “Tell Thorax what you told me.” “You have a plan?” he asked with approval. Flurry nodded. Jacques didn't ask what it was.