//------------------------------// // Chapter 1 // Story: The Blueblood Papers: Old Blood // by Raleigh //------------------------------// The Blueblood Papers: OLD BLOOD Prince Blueblood and the Tomb of Shards Explanatory note: The following extract from what has become known as ‘The Blueblood Papers’ by our close circle of memorialists, archivists, and historians is unusual in that it does not deal directly with the major battles and political intrigue that took place during the Changeling War, though Prince Blueblood briefly alludes to the military and political situation in this extract. I had reservations about the decision to share this particular extract even within our circle, owing to the disturbing revelations contained within that remain a closely-guarded state secret. However, after close consultation with Princess Cadance of the Crystal Empire and Princess Twilight Sparkle of Equestria, we are in agreement that such knowledge should be shared amongst our circle so that you may use it to combat this hidden threat, should it present itself once more. Indeed, it has been a threat akin to a weed or a cancer, always returning when thought vanquished for good. Before you read the following extract, I must make it clear that its contents remain a state secret and must be maintained as such. I am aware that some of our circle are prone to idle gossip about these papers, treating them as one would a series of exciting adventure stories instead of the serious scholarly work that they are, and I have tolerated this knowing that it would be impossible to stop and that I ought to be content that my nephew’s memory is being kept alive. However, in this case I insist on a total prohibition of discussion of the contents of this extract beyond the members of our circle. Any leaks, and I will know who is responsible, will be punished to the full extent of the law. As before, I have taken it upon myself to edit the extract, limiting direct edits to merely correcting minor spelling, punctuation, and grammar errors for readability. Though Prince Blueblood demonstrates startling skills of recollection in putting together these private memoirs, his tendency to restrict himself to events that he had directly experienced or held strong feelings about (and very often write at length about them despite having little to do with the matter at hoof) can prove frustrating for those desiring a more complete examination of the historical events he describes. Therefore, I have added explanatory comments in the text where appropriate, which are in parenthesis, italicised, and written red ink. In the main, however, the text remains Blueblood’s own testimony. H.R.H. Princess Celestia *** If you, dear reader, whomever you are, have paid close attention to what I have written in these private memoirs (and if you are reading them, I’m either long dead or you’ve broken into my home), you would know that what usually happens after one of these instances of accidental or dubious heroism is that everypony present gives me a collective pat on the back, I’m told that I’m a very brave stallion and I am given a medal to show for it, and then I am shoved back to the frontline to do it all over again. This particular ‘adventure’ I’m about to relate here ended rather differently, with ponies in black suits and black neckties whisking me away to a dark cell somewhere, the location of which still remains a mystery to me but I can make some educated guesses as to which S.M.I.L.E. basement safehouse it was, and informing me in rather threatening terms not to breathe a word of what I found down there to any creature one is capable of having a conversation with. They did not, however, stipulate that I could not write it all down in a secret document that, I hope, will not be read until long after my inevitable demise, whether by old age or by the blade of a lover’s husband, and this would no longer be an issue for me. It is a great relief to me, in my advanced years, to finally relay what I saw in the crypts under Fort Nowhere, but I suppose I ought to put things in their proper historical milieu - to set the scene, as it were. I had escaped from Marelacca with a hoof-full of other captured Equestrian soldiers, some slaves the ponies had brought over from the Badlands, and a crew of Changelings who fancied their luck in a cosy prisoner of war camp out in the empty, boring middle part of our fair realm to wait out the end of the war. It was something of a bittersweet farewell, as though I was desperate to return to a place not swarming with Chrysalis’ feared Blackhorns, I could not help but fear for those I had left behind, in particular, Spring Rain and her family. However, when it became readily apparent that our arrival in Equestria would not be the triumphant return Square Basher and I had hoped for, especially when we finally crash-landed in an empty part of the kingdom and were forced to spend an extra two days locked up in the cells of a rural police station, populated by half-drunk yokels who were convinced that the Changelings had singled out their tiny hamlet to be the spearhead for their invasion, I soon found that I had more pressing matters to deal with. I had hoped for a nice, lengthy convalescence in the company of some attractive nurses in Canterlot, as I had done after being flogged half to death, but unfortunately for me, the wounds I had suffered in my latest daring escape were judged to have been ‘superficial’ by a bored doctor who clearly had a long line of ponies to see and wanted to clock off work on time for once, and I was sent packing once again to the Badlands with scarcely enough time to receive the most pathetic and grovelling apology I’d ever received in my life from a village sheriff mortified to learn that he’d locked up the real Prince Blueblood as I left. However, Lady Luck saw fit to grant me one of her very rare boons, which, as ever, was merely a velvet curtain draped over a precariously-stacked pile of horrible misfortune about to fall right on top of me as I admired said metaphorical curtain. Still, most ponies were rather pleased to see me back when I slinked back to divisional HQ, which surprised me, frankly. The others, including Sergeant Major Square Basher, presumably had their own little soiree away from the boring old officers. Major-General Garnet organised a little welcome party for me, overflowing with cake and wine, and had invited, well, I hesitate to call them friends but given the nature of our ‘work’ it somehow felt insufficient to merely call them colleagues. ‘Comrades’ is probably the word that I’m looking for. “Look at him,” sneered Blitzkrieg as I wandered in, “he’s got a bloody suntan. Did you enjoy your holiday, Prince?” “Be nice to him,” insisted Starlit Skies, though he couldn’t contain his amused smile. It was merely the typical Trottingham manner, to be unaccountably rude to one’s own friends; if he was nothing but polite and courteous, it would mean that he despised me utterly. “Not everypony could survive being locked up in a Changeling camp for as long as he did and get out in one piece.” “And blow up an entire Changeling fleet,” said Sunshine Smiles. The intact side of his face mirrored the scar as he smiled with genuine pleasure at seeing me. However, it occurred to me that sometimes ponies spoke about me in much the same manner as Shining Armour gushed about his favourite silly comic book heroes, and that, I considered, might be the real reason behind the irritatingly enduring nature of my supposedly heroic reputation. “My adjutant owes me five bits, now.” “I’m only worth five bits?” I said, in mock outrage. “It looked like a close-run thing.” “I’m always nice,” snapped Blitzkrieg, as he reached up and patted me on the shoulder with some force, the small pegasus straining a little to reach. “Good to see you back, mate. We’ll be in the Queen’s Hive in no time with the Commissar with us.” He, however, was quite abruptly shoved out of the way by the rapidly approaching form of Colonel Fer-de-Lance. Blitzkrieg’s violent outburst of expletives was ignored as she all but threw herself upon me, wrapping her hooves around me in an embrace, and planted a kiss on each cheek in the Prench manner. “A true soldier of Equestria has returned to us!” she exclaimed loudly, releasing me from the hug. A half-empty glass of wine floated close to her, and judging by the slurring of her words in excess of what was usual for her Prench accent, she’d already had quite a few by that point. My cheeks flushed red in embarrassment at the attention. “Ah, Prince Blueblood, your courage and honour is a shining beacon to us all! I knew that Chrysalis could not keep you from us. Here’s to many, many more victories to share!” I would be lying if I said that I didn’t feel touched by the gesture, even if those ponies were ultimately misguided and my entire contribution to both escaping Changeling confinement several times and blowing up Operation: Sunburn was mostly due to being in the wrong place at the wrong time. In truth, the feeling that ponies would actually be pleased to see me, and genuinely so this time, was an odd one that I still have yet to get used to. The rest of the party was spent with me regaling the other guests with what had happened, and though the tale I told was rather less sanitised than the stories I would tell to my fellow nobles in Canterlot, I naturally tweaked the narrative a little to make sure that I came out looking perfectly heroic. They didn’t need to know too much about how Fort Joy was actually rather pleasant, at least as far as prison camps went, and certainly my little dalliance with Square Basher was left between her, me, and now you. I almost, almost, felt happy to be back, until I recalled that once this little party was over, it was straight back to work, which meant even more mortal terror and blood. The war had entered another ‘quiet period’, as the historians of today like to call it. Oh, ponies and Changelings still fought and died, but if the slaughter was to be plotted on a line graph then this particular moment would have been at a small valley next to two rather large peaks. Both Field Marshal Hardscrabble and General Market Garden had been very busy while I was away, and I’d missed out on quite a bit of bloody action. Look it up in a history book if you want all of the gory details, but suffice to say that the two sides had taken turns to bash against one another repeatedly, and now, as I stumbled back to divisional HQ with the apparent expectation that I’d simply return to my duties as though I’d merely taken a bit of time off for Hearth’s Warming, both sides had retreated to lick their wounds, glare menacingly at one another across the gulf of No Mare’s Land, and throw the occasional half-hearted punch to remind the other that there’s still a war going on. All the while, Princess Luna’s merry bands of partisans were up to all manner of mischief behind enemy lines, just as Chrysalis’ infiltrators would pop up every now and again to wreak havoc on our supply lines or disrupt a public holiday. So on that alone, I suppose I could have counted myself lucky, but this was an even rarer instance of luck striking not just once, but thrice. While I was away being pampered at Camp Joy and almost burned alive again in Marelacca, there was an election of sorts. White Hall had been voted out and Fancy Pants was voted in, which resulted in something of a change of direction for the war effort. See, Field Marshal Hardscrabble had been very busy in the intervening time between my capture and my escape; he had hurled Market Garden’s First Army head-first into Chela’s war-swarms again and again with little in the way of appreciable gain, at least in terms of colouring portions of the map liberated by our gallant forces. The strategy of grinding down Chrysalis’ armies to the point where they could no longer resist was working, according to Hardscrabble, but the public, whose loved ones were being sacrificed upon that grim altar of war, had little stomach for the ever-growing casualty lists reported in the newspapers and made their displeasure known in the ballot box, at least those who could vote at the time. I am ignorant of politics, among many things, but with regards to politics I do so wilfully. A prince is supposed to be above such things, aloof and regal, but it is impossible to remain truly isolated from its effects. After all, I’m merely one Commons vote away from losing everything, should they deem my stipend no longer worth it. “Fancy Pants campaigned on finding a new way to end the war,” explained Hardscrabble, as he brought me up to speed on everything I’d missed over brandy and cigars. Well, I drank the brandy and he sipped warm apple juice; like many recovering alcoholics, he seemed to gain a sort of vicarious pleasure from watching others drink, and I was all too happy to oblige him. “The problem, sir, is that some ponies at home still believe that this war can be won quickly without bloodshed, even after Princess Twilight Sparkle’s reforms.” “The numbers make for rather grim reading,” I said. It would be especially grim, I considered, if my name was to be added to those ever-lengthening lists. “To play Tirek’s Advocate, to be clear, can you truly fault them if they lose their stomach for war in this way?” Hardscrabble frowned into his apple juice, which had been poured into a small whisky tumbler, and shook his head. “I know what they think of me,” he said, at length. “That I am throwing away lives with nothing to show for it. I do not waste lives, sir, I am no Iron Hoof. I spend them. Callous as that may seem, I have been brought in to bring a swift end to this war and that is what I am doing. To drag it out by fighting timidly and cautiously would only extend the suffering of ponies at the front, at home, and those still held in Changeling bondage. This war ends in only one way, sir—the complete destruction of Chrysalis’ swarms on the field, and nothing else will bring us the victory we seek.” Now, in a twisted sense, he had a point. I did not particularly care for that point, but, I had to admit, there was a certain sense of cold logic to it. Lives as currency, the price one pays for victory, was the entire morbid calculation of war, and he seemed to prioritise speed over thrift on that account in the hope it would all balance out in our favour in the long run. It was enough to make me feel quite queasy, and not least because my life was very nearly ‘spent’ like that on several occasions, and would inevitably continue to rest in his metaphorical bank account for some time to come. Still, in truth, I have never thought Hardscrabble to be a truly callous general, not in the way that Iron Hoof was, despite his words. I believe, without much in the way of proof, mind you, but I like to think myself quite good at reading ponies to better manipulate them, that these losses affected him deeply, and that in this calculation he truly believed that this high tempo of operations would ultimately save lives in the long run. The truly psychotic commanders tended to be rather poor ones, and, thanks to the Commissariat, tended not to last long. “And just how does Prime Minister Fancy Pants” -I felt even more nauseated saying that; one’s faith in the electorate drops with every election- “believe he can end this war, if not by fighting?” Hardscrabble smirked, as if at a private joke. “By first negotiating. His official position is that Queen Chrysalis is not unreasonable and can be negotiated with.” “He clearly has never met her.” “That hasn’t stopped him. It’s only his official position, sir.” “But Princess Celestia decreed that there can be no peace negotiation with the Hives while Chrysalis remains Queen,” I said grimly, nursing my snifter of brandy. It would be nice, I thought, to have a conversation with ponies that didn’t involve war, and thought to call upon Fine Vintage for an invigorating and detailed discussion about the merits of the ‘92 Neighpa Valley merlot versus the ‘93. “And the Changelings still seem terribly attached to their tyrant of a Queen, for some reason.” “Precisely, sir,” he said, nodding as I spoke. “He knows this as well as you and I, but he must make those overtures to a negotiated peace to satisfy his campaign pledges, even if they are fruitless. Princess Celestia remains our Warmistress, and I have no doubt as to her commitment to our strategy. However, she must still bend to the fickle whims of her ponies, and that is what separates her from Chrysalis.” “That’s all well and good,” I said; a break at the frontline was still a break nonetheless, and I could use that time to try and find a way to find myself promoted out of it. “But what does that mean for us?” “There is to be a pause in the offensive, a bit of ‘breathing space’ to allow our battered forces and theirs to recover, before resuming the push, perhaps with a more limited goal.” Hardscrabble shrugged, but carried on fervently. “But I won’t dare keep the pressure off Chrysalis entirely. We are bleeding her, sir, bleeding her dry. Her best troops are arrayed against us, but they have only the old and the sick guarding their slaves and their occupied land, and soon they’ll not even have that. Then we will have our breakthrough. It will just take longer now.” General Market Garden, however, saw it quite differently, when I finally summoned the wherewithal to call upon her. She had regarded my return with particular disinterest, as though my capture on her watch had nothing to do with her direction of the battle, which I found particularly galling. “Oh, Blueblood, you’re back from your ‘holiday’,” she said, as though I’d merely waltzed in from a brief cruise in the Bahaymas, barely looking up from the various papers and maps on her map table (one that was still larger than Hardscrabble’s, as if to prove something). I almost expected her to ask me if I’d brought her anything. As I understood it, Market Garden had received a not-inconsiderable amount of opprobrium, which might have explained her frosty reaction to my return, as though my capture and imprisonment had been my fault, just to annoy her. It would have been more convenient for her, perhaps, had I not returned at all. “It was about time,” she said, once the other terse pleasantries had been dispensed with and she could speak about her favourite topic - what she had been doing. “The ponies are exhausted and our supply lines are stretched thin. They were thin before we even started this offensive and now they’re even thinner; single track roads in some places, with ponies and mules hauling wagons through bandit-infested country. Push them too far and they’ll snap, ponies and supply lines.” I have to admit that I was quite surprised by her show of care to the poor souls under her command. Well, it was far more than what I was used to from any other general officer I’ve had the misfortune to meet. “It’s my job to win this war,” she told me, with a truly enviable amount of self-assurance, “but it’s also my job to make sure there’s still an Equestrian Army by the end of it, that enough of our colts and fillies can go home.” Judging by the sheer amount of paperwork on her desk, Market Garden had been far from idle during this ‘quiet’ period, and she had thrown herself into it with the same sort of fervour as one would expect from an all-out offensive. Planning, her favourite thing to do, had occupied her entire effort now, and just idly perusing the paperwork (she was also explaining it to me in excruciating detail, but her words merely passed through my ears without being registered at all by my brain) told me that she had something major in the works. The frontline had edged ever closer into the rotten, clogged heart of Chrysalis’ failing regime, and all of the great sweeping arrows on the maps pointed directly to one place: Teratoma Hive. “The centre of Chrysalis’ war machine,” Market Garden explained, when I finally deigned to pay attention. “The Queen’s Hive might be its brain, but Teratoma Hive is where the weapons she cannot buy and steal are made. If we take that, then all resistance will crumble, but I tell you, Blueblood, it will be a brutal fight.” She smiled in an uneasily happy manner. “Fortunately, you have me in charge, and I’ll make sure that it’s done properly.” I’d heard that before from her, and had earned the scars that proved otherwise. Nevertheless, I asked her if it was wise to be speaking so openly about her plans. Market Garden shrugged and pointed out that even though the enemy was always listening, it was patently obvious to anypony with more than two brain cells what her next target would be anyway. That intelligence wouldn’t help them, she assured me, as the force she was about to bear down upon Teratoma Hive would be nothing short of overwhelming. She was, if nothing else, perfectly predictable, and made up for that with the twin advantages of an obsession with planning and a fetish for truly excessive firepower. That, at least, gave me some measure of what I was now hell-bent on avoiding. For the third instance of miraculous good fortune, this all happened to coincide with the time Major Starlit Skies had taken it upon himself to write a pamphlet, in between all of the violent slaughter, apparently, and said book had become something of a bestseller in my absence. This particular screed, titled ‘Harmony Tactics in Theory and Practice’, was one of those types of books that ponies had bought in droves but barely anypony outside of military circles had actually read, and was thus instead relegated to looking stately upon one’s bookcase. Indeed, it did look elegant, being a small, slim book tastefully bound in midnight blue cloth and with its title and author’s name printed in silver. He had gifted me a copy, signed by the author, when he stopped by for a friendly visit; his beady little eyes sparkling with delight behind his half-moon glasses as I opened to the first page to find Red Coat’s name listed first amongst the list of acknowledgements. Mine was fifth, after Princess Luna, his mother, and Colonel Sunshine Smiles, but I let that slide. I didn’t read it, and still haven’t after all these years. I have far more edifying things to do with what limited time I have left on this world than to waste it reading a lengthy and dry treatise on finding more efficient ways of killing Changelings. Drinking and whoring, for one, which I did in abundance with the camp followers who always tag along on the heels of an advancing army. While there were plenty of pictures, they were all boring diagrams of military structure and battlefield manoeuvres, interspersed with far more maths than any book had a right to possess. Instead, I did as any sensible pony ought to have done and instead read what other ponies thought of the book, and I was rather surprised to find that those who did, Market Garden included, tended to have rather a high opinion of it. For those of you who remain unfamiliar with the work that revolutionised infantry tactics during the war and for reasons that I understand perfectly are not inclined to invest the time to change that, I shall do my best to summarise by what I can remember. While Princess Twilight Sparkle had done a sterling job of reforming the Royal Guard into the Equestrian Army from the top down, unit tactics hadn’t changed much since that von Pferdwitz fellow, whose work I also hadn’t read, first put pen to parchment. Well, that’s not exactly true, of course, as they didn’t have muskets or teleporting runners back then [Unicorns have always used teleportation spells to relay messages quickly in battle since pre-unification days, but the reforms were the first to formalise them into an organised system], but the principle remained: the regiment, made up of companies each approximately one hundred strong on a good day and each of which consisted of ponies of one tribe, formed the basic tactical unit on the battlefield. This, Starlit Skies explained in his book and over lunch one day when I was forced to admit to him that I still hadn’t read it, was much too restrictive for the new technologies and larger armies of modern war, and hampered the ability for officers lower down the line to make decisions in response to developing situations. His theory ran that it was precisely this sort of rigidity and inflexibility that led to me being trapped atop Hill 70 in the first place. Starlit Skies’ proposal was for greater integration of the three tribes into almost every layer of the military structure, right down to the platoon level. The idea behind this, as far as I could tell, was that this would allow for far greater flexibility for officers to adapt to and exploit changing developments on the battlefield. The other side of the metaphorical coin in this was that more independently-minded officers in charge of smaller, mixed units would require far greater and closer coordination between them, lest they all run off and do their own thing and the entire battle line falls apart. I wasn’t quite so sure about all of this myself, as the old Royal Guard that I knew seemed to think that officers leading their own units with any sense of autonomy at all was an inherently dangerous prospect that bordered on outright heresy, but I was, and still am, very much an amateur when it came to this sort of thing. It turned out that I was wrong on that account too, and the military establishment embraced that idea with the fervour of a recent convert to a cult. I suppose most of the old guard had either left or wisely shut up after Twilight Sparkle’s reforms went through. “It’s merely an evolution of the old tactics,” he explained, and though I had confessed to not having read his book despite my repeated promises, he showed no sign of irritation or disappointment. “You remember your history, don’t you, young stallion? Your family were there marching with the Princesses as they conquered Equestria, and it was all three tribes working together that made the old Royal Guard such a potent force on the battlefield. Each tribe makes up for the others’ deficiencies on the field, supports one another, and so their efficacy is increased exponentially. And this relationship only becomes greater the more closely integrated the tribes become. That’s harmony at war. Of course, it means everypony has to get along, more or less.” [This is a very brief but adequate summary of the so-called Harmony Tactics adopted by the Equestrians late into the war, of which Starlit Skies’ pamphlet was a key influence, but was mostly a summary of ad hoc changes to tactics and command structure that were already taking place. Blueblood has missed much of the nuance here, in particular the influence of native tribal warfare and their guerilla campaigns against Changeling occupation, which prioritised small, mobile units that would wear down large swarms with small but repeated attacks, as well as rapid developments in weapons technology, particularly musketry and artillery. Furthermore, the proposed changes were in large part a reaction to Hive Marshal Chela’s innovative tactics that did away with the massed, swarm tactics that had previously characterised the Changeling way of warfare. Although his description only skims the surface of Harmony Tactics, it will suffice for this particular entry in the memoir and requires no further elucidation on our part.] Tactics don’t just change overnight, and the Guards Division, which had already been pushed through the wringer in those repeated attacks between that debacle on Hill 70 and my vaunted return to duty, was pulled from the frontline to rest and retrain around Fort Nowhere, which by that point had turned into something of a major logistics hub for the First Army. What had been little more than an ancient fort in which Diamond Dogs once squatted had become almost a small city in its own right, supporting the tracks of rail that brought ever more weapons, ammunition, food, water, and ponies to the front. For me, however, as an independent commissar attached to the Guards Division, it meant a lot of paperwork and reports that, yes, the chap who dreamt up all of these ideas was implementing them correctly and what not. My days were largely spent in the manner that I had longed to ever since I unwillingly donned the commissar’s cap; safely ensconced behind a desk with only paperwork that I couldn’t delegate to somepony else, usually my aide Cannon Fodder, to do, aside from the occasional tedious meeting, and, most importantly, with nothing trying to kill me for once. I had plenty of free time to indulge, and while the environment lacked the sort of louche bars and refined gentlecolts’ clubs that I was used to in Canterlot, it still provided its fair share of adequate entertainment in the form of the officers’ mess, RASEA shows of varying entertainment value, and, as always follows an army on the march, mares of the night. I mention all of this not because it’s interesting, it’s certainly not to me and most sane ponies out there, but merely to set the scene, as it were. For a time I was safe once more, but the war, impossible to truly escape from, was a dark cloud on the horizon that slowly but steadily loomed ever closer, and with each passing day it became more and more difficult to ignore. The reports that piled up ever higher on my desk, endless drivel about how well both the new recruits and the old veterans alike took to the new Harmony Tactics (barring the occasional inter-tribe falling-out that required me to intervene, get everypony sit in a circle, and teach them the importance of working together to kill Changelings), only made the inevitable more and more stark. I was running out of time to find a way to worm out of going back to the frontlines, and my requests to be promoted further up the chain, which I had assumed would be a sure thing considering I was effectively foal-sitting Market Garden already, had gotten nowhere. Ponies seemed to expect me to want to be close to the action, if not actively in it for whatever reason, and I could only assume had conveniently ignored my repeated requests for a comfortable office job a safe distance from the front. Without a clear way out I threw myself further into diversions, in particular the aforementioned drinking, shows, and whoring. I must have put many sons and daughters of bartenders and prostitutes alike through college in those short weeks, and for that I hope they are very grateful. So when a particularly large diversion from the impending offensive swam into view, I seized it, and for that I would not only end up very nearly killed far from any frontline, but also uncover a rather unpleasant secret that I am still not allowed to speak openly about. I’ve made my fondness of the Daring Do series of novels very plain over the years; they’re not things that a prince of my particularly lofty standing is supposed to enjoy, but I found that there is space for pulpy, escapist adventure stories alongside lewd Prench poetry and pretentious musings on the nature of Harmony and Friendship in one’s library. So when I learnt that A. K. Yearling herself would visit Fort Nowhere to read extracts from her latest book to the soldiers there as part of an RASEA show as well as accompany some manner of archaeological dig in the strange ruins beneath Fort Nowhere, I practically leapt at the chance to meet her. It’s a very rare occurrence that I’m thoroughly starstruck; as usually it is I who has that effect on other ponies, it was a rather novel experience to be on the receiving end for once. I waited at the bustling train station just beyond the repaired walls of Fort Nowhere for her to arrive, alternating between sipping from my hipflask and anxiously puffing away at a cigar as I observed the trains coming every few minutes, laden with boxes of supplies that were unloaded by large teams of heavyset ponies and mules, and then carrying on to the next supply stop. It was from one such train that A. K. Yearling herself disembarked with her entourage, and though she was an unassuming kind of mare, the sort to blend into a crowd quite readily, she stood out spectacularly amidst the burly, sweaty loggies carrying heavy boxes of stuff around the station and swearing profusely as they did so. Even then, I like to think I would have recognised her from the photographs in the dust jackets of her published works. I shouldn’t need to describe to whoever reads this what one of the most prolific and popular writers of my generation looks like, but I shall give you lucky readers my initial impression of her: she was a rather small, compact little pegasus mare with hunched shoulders, and appeared to be approaching the wrong end of middle age judging by the mane streaked with grey that peeked out from under her floppy grey hat. Her merlot cloak concealed much of her body, and despite the intense heat and humidity of the Badlands that turned my wool uniform into a sweat-soaked towel she didn’t seem to be suffering from it. As I approached, first tossing the remaining stub of my cigar away onto the train tracks, her sharp, rose-coloured eyes scrutinised me carefully from behind oversized glasses, and I felt more than a little bit like an interesting specimen under Twilight Sparkle’s microscope; it was probably just a writer’s thing, I assumed, as her sort must be constantly looking out for interesting ponies on which to base new characters and stories. “Miss Yearling!” I said, barely capable of concealing my excitement. I felt like I was about to explode with glee; there she was, the A. K. Yearling standing before me! This must be how ordinary ponies feel when they meet me, I considered. “Welcome to Fort Nowhere.” She looked me up and down with that same scrutinising stare, before apparently deciding that I was worth basic courtesy and smiled with a small but noticeable nod. “Prince Blueblood,” she said, rather tersely. I feared I might have insulted her, somehow, but it must have been a long and unpleasant journey here, thought I, especially crammed into a goods wagon for several hours. “Thank you, I wasn’t expecting a royal welcome.” “I make a point to greet each of our honoured guests here when they arrive.” Well, just the ones that I like, at least. “The soldiers are very much looking forward to your reading, as am I.” My breath caught in my throat; I had something important to ask her, but the thought that it would be even more unbecoming of a prince to even consider it and that it might somehow annoy her almost stopped me, however, I feared that I would not have the chance to do so again. “I hope this isn’t too vulgar of me, but may I have your autograph?” Her eyes widened in surprise, very briefly, but her peculiarly detached expression returned almost immediately. “I didn’t know you are a fan, sir,” she said, retrieving an elegant fountain pen from under her cloak, and as she did so I saw a glimpse of her body; from what little I saw, she looked a damned sight more athletic than her posture otherwise implied. If she lost the unfashionable cloak, hat, and glasses she might be very attractive for her age. “My servants recommended it to me.” Blast, that was a stupid thing to say to her, and she was standing there expecting me to give her something to sign. I patted down my pockets with my magic, and realised that I’d left my old, dog-eared paperback of Daring Do and the Marked Thief of Marapore I’d selected specifically for her autograph next to my cot in my office. A moment of panic took me as I tried to find something, anything, that A. K. Yearling could sign for me. All that I had on me was a few sheets of folded paper, which, when I fished them out of my jacket pocket, I found was a draft copy of a letter to be distributed to the soldiers that I had to proof-read and expunge of anything liable to cause offence with some boring old prudes in Canterlot. It would have to do. [This is likely a reference to an incident early in Market Garden’s career where she had distributed to the troops under her command a written warning against venereal disease and a reminder to use contraceptives when visiting prostitutes in the form of a risque limerick. While well-received among the soldiers, and indeed cases of venereal disease dropped after the pamphlet was distributed, it caused a minor controversy in Canterlot as the general seemed to be encouraging prostitution. However, she argued that soldiers will indulge in that particular activity in off-duty time regardless, and that they ought to do it safely to maintain combat effectiveness.] She took the folded paper, and though her eyes widened as she glimpsed some of the possibly top-secret words on it, she scribbled her signature elegantly in an empty space in the corner and hoofed it back to me. Though I felt a little embarrassed, I reassured myself that it was unlikely to be the strangest thing that she had to sign before. Faust knows I’ve had some peculiar items and body parts thrust under my nose alongside a felt tip pen. Still, I would treasure it forever, and find a way to explain to Market Garden why I had a reclusive author’s autograph on her draft letter and why I had to keep it forever. The loud, obnoxious sound of a pony clearing his throat to gain attention mercifully put an end to this awkwardness. I looked past A. K. Yearling to see a doddering older unicorn stallion just behind her, wearing a white shirt already stained with sweat and a paisley bow tie that was playfully askew. The sharp, bright light of the Badlands sun caused his coat to shimmer, and I realised he was a Crystal Pony, and likely very out of his depth in the sort of climate that was the precise opposite of his frigid homeland to the north. He hunched, and appeared to be almost embarrassed when I looked at him, all but shrinking away from my gaze. Behind him were a few other Crystal Ponies, also wearing what looked like a uniform of short-sleeve shirts, ties or bow ties, and pocket protectors stuffed with pens. Nerds, the lot of them. I felt a sudden urge that I had not felt since foalhood to shake them all down for lunch money. “Sorry, everypony,” said the older stallion, with an almost pathetic amount of meekness and embarrassment. I nearly felt sorry for him, but that urge to dunk his head in a lavatory and flush was rising. “I’m Doctor Corded Ware,” he reached into his pocket and produced a crumpled, slightly damp piece of paper. “We’re with the Royal Archaeological Society of the Crystal Empire. Miss Yearling is going to help us with our dig under your fortress.” “Oh, is it my fortress now? I have so many already.” He coughed awkwardly at my silly attempt at humour, so I peered at the paper hovering before me in a deep purple aura and skim-read the words on it, and everything seemed to be in order. I might have spent a bit too long reading it just to make him and his colleagues sweat a bit more, before nodding approvingly. “Yes, I was expecting you,” I said. “Looking for new material for your next book, Miss Yearling?” I could hardly contain my excitement; if I played my cards well, I could be treated to an advance copy of the story, read it before everypony else, and be the envy of the Commissariat’s book club. “I’ll be providing Doctor Corded Ware with advice and technical support in the course of his investigation,” she said haughtily, and then added, “as well as looking for new material for my next book.” I recalled that A. K. Yearling had earned a doctorate in archaeology in her youth, which always provided her novels with that extra sense of authenticity that separated it from the pretenders out there. I have to admit that I felt that minor sense of awkwardness a rich idiot like myself feels when in the presence of one’s intellectual superiors; I hadn’t even passed high school and I was standing before a group of rather clever ponies with many pieces of fine paper to prove it. “I’ll show you to your rooms,” I said. “But first, hold still please.” Though we were rather far from the frontlines, it never hurt to be too careful, especially when enemy infiltrators had been caught causing mayhem as far afield as Vanhoover and the Crystal Empire. So I zapped them each with the Changeling reveal spell. A. K. Yearling barely reacted, but the others flinched as though I’d splashed them with cold water, as the wave of dispelling magic washed over them. None of them were Changelings, which I found a little odd; the enemy, in spite of all of its tendrils in every aspect of Equestrian society, sometimes did a poor job of imitating ponies, and without a detailed description of a specific individual they would often rely on stereotypes that tend not to stand up to close scrutiny. We once caught a Changeling masquerading as a Prench pony in the Prism Guards, and it was the stripy shirt, beret, and the string of onions around his neck that gave it away. Yet standing here before me were a collection of classic nerds, complete with unfashionable glasses on some, hence my unbidden desire to bully them. I could only conclude that some cliches are in fact grounded in reality. [It has been theorised that the infiltrators referenced by Blueblood were intended as diversions, to distract Equestrian security services from the more skilled drones infiltrating Equestrian society.] I had hoped to spend some alone time with our true guest of honour, A. K. Yearling herself. Not only did I have a thousand questions about my favourite stories to ask her - how does Daring Do have time to go on adventures and curate a museum? How much does Daring Do really weigh? There seems to be more to Daring Do and Caballeron’s rivalry, did they ever have sex? - and so on, but, as we walked together and I noticed her athletic form move beneath that concealing cloak of hers, I saw that, despite her apparent age, she was still very attractive and clearly took care of herself, aside from the lack of make-up that I would imagine was due to a reclusive author such as herself not being supposed to care about such things. It was Corded Ware, however, who monopolised much of my time in the walk to their rooms and in the meeting thereafter. His questions, announced in a reedy, nasal tone that grated on my nerves, were all about the battle that had taken place there a mere few years ago. “It’s hard to imagine something like that happened here now,” said A. K. Yearling as we crossed the central courtyard to the keep. Indeed, the memories of that rainy, blood-soaked night, as ponies and Changelings slaughtered one another over the ground we walked upon, were still vivid in my mind as they still are now, and when I looked up at the forbidding sight of the keep looming above us I could not help but picture a certain nocturnal Auntie bellowing war-cries from its highest tower. Still, she was right; the courtyard had been paved over and the shattered walls that surrounded it had been rebuilt, stronger and thicker than before. Soldiers still drilled there, and this time it was the turn of the Prism Guards to march aimlessly up and down the square to the bellows of a Sergeant Major, while Lieutenant-Colonel Fer-de-Lance observed, imperiously sipping red wine from a crystal goblet throughout. The entire area looked so pristine and clean, but each time I blinked I could catch a glimpse in my mind of a ruined square littered with mutilated corpses. “The reports said that the Changelings came up through the tunnels?” asked Corded Ware, as we passed through the main gates on our way from the train station. “Yes,” I replied, though I was far from eager to relive that particular night. “While the main force assaulted the walls, another group infiltrated through the old tunnels under the fortress. We fought them off before they could take the keep.” “And the Diamond Dogs?” “Changelings as well.” There was still a fair bit of dispute about that in my mind; that the enemy would leave the entire place completely spotless, not to mention what that traumatised puppy tried to tell us, didn’t quite mesh with what I knew of the way Changelings do things. I like to think I have gained a fair bit of experience with that, though all of it was against my will. Then again, they were nothing if not unpredictable, at least early in the war when they still had leaders with both imagination and initiative, before Chrysalis had them all removed for lacking both loyalty and the means to bend reality to win her this war. “They came up through the tunnels and killed the Diamond Dogs to lay a trap for the Royal Guard?” There was a current of scepticism in his voice; an academic such as he would be the sort to ask all manner of awkward questions that the military would rather not have answered. “That is the official line, yes.” “Is it safe?” asked one of the other archaeologists, one who, judging by his youth and the abundant spots on his face, was merely an intern of sorts. As far as the Changelings went, nothing could ever truly be considered ‘safe’; the enemy still lurked in the shadows, ready to strike when our most stringent security lapsed even for a moment. Fort Nowhere was still a fortress, and the tunnels beneath it had remained sealed since that fight, but one could not discount the thought of a secret enemy mining operation that would take this vital artery in our tenuous supply line. “Probably,” I said with a shrug, which only made him look even more worried. “We’re far from the frontlines, not that has ever stopped infiltrators, but we’ve had no indication that they’re using the tunnels to get in. The enemy prefer to hide themselves amongst the groups of poor refugees fleeing the fighting, the vile cowards.” [The invasion of the Changeling Heartlands triggered a wave of refugees fleeing north to Equestria to escape the fighting, which provided the enemy with a route to infiltrate Equestria. Nevertheless, Equestria welcomed all fleeing the war with open hooves, and despite some political backlash, Changelings escaping Queen Chrysalis’ tyranny were afforded the same help and protection as ponies, with many joining Odonata in the Changeling Reconciliation And Progress group (later remained the Organisation for Changeling Liberation). Though he rarely mentioned it, Prince Blueblood opened his palaces to house refugees.] “Perhaps you will join us?” said Corded Ware. “Just in case, and I’m sure you’re curious as to what’s really down there.” Join a group of boring nerds poking around ancient, abandoned ruins that might be filled with Changelings? There were better ways for me to spend what limited time I had left before rejoining the fight, but, I considered, it would allow me to spend more time with A. K. Yearling here. I could have backed out there and then, and made an excuse about having some valuable work for the war effort to do and they would have accepted it at face value, but, damn him, Corded Ware was right. Part of me was intrigued about what really lay beneath my hooves, and what really happened to those Diamond Dogs. The thought of joining the author of my favourite series of stories since I was a colt in the closest thing approaching a real Daring Do adventure, only without the morally-bankrupt rivals, lethal traps, and ancient guardian spirits, was a terribly exciting one that the little wide-eyed foal in me could not resist. “Of course,” I said. Besides, if something unfortunate was to happen to A. K. Yearling in those tunnels before she finished her next book, I would be hunted down by a mob of her adoring fans and promptly ripped into ribbons. I’d best make sure that didn’t come to pass. Had I known the truth of what was hidden in those tunnels I’d have grabbed my sword, hijacked a cargo airship, flown straight back to Marelacca, and taken my chances with the resistance there instead.