As is the strange way with the world, the start of it all was a last stand.
When the last guard fell a silence was taken down and then a different silence was raised.
On a pole flags exchanged places.
The attack had come at dawn and ended in three hours. Afterwards the sun had come up reluctantly. Afraid of what it might see.
Toward the steps of the palace the blood was smothered in smears and layers. Like the steps had pulled it on, as if pulling on a red stain. Trails of broken armor formed a foundation for it all. Pinched dying gasps escape the leftovers of the fight, hollow ponies shattered across the red. Those that watched agreed that, yes, it was both a little messy, a little breathtaking and that they would do their best to smother the memory of it.
The absence of guards was total. Many that saw the spectacle remarked at how the black and gold armor of the fallen guard seeped into each other, that it could only be described as black and gold snow melting into one.
It was called the dawn of broken armor. A pretentious name, almost a joke, the punch line being the corpses on the steps.
Five hundred guards were left dead, from both the solar and lunar guard. The attack was fast enough to knock out all centralized leadership and organization. Another three thousand were found in the later months, the rest fled west, submitted to the new authority or buried their armor. A few drops of them haunted the cracks of the forest, patient and hateful.
The aggressors move through the inner doors and tug their shadows behind them. They cling to each other and their weapons, unsure if they are scared or disciplined.
Celestia was recuperating from the changeling invasion in her chambers. A coma had slipped into her body and has stayed there for a good three days. For now an exhausted Luna, tired of pulling both the sun and the moon around each other, is the only demi-god awake in the palace.
Yet it didn't seem it.
Her hair had peeled its luster and dark eyes are pulled into bags. Her haunches have halfway slumped into each other. A loud and depleted smile is left on her face. She would close her eyes and mumble to herself.
She seemed more asleep then awake.
And in a way it was almost perfect because no one could stop them now. The instigators of the coup part crawling, part limping, part bleeding through the palace were nearing the end. Their timing is impeccable.
They billowed through the door.
In a homogeneous sweep they had entered Luna’s room. They held steel in shaking limbs. As a collective handful they hurled their stares at the Alicorn. She was too tired to stare back.
To Luna it was as though Equestria had finally stopped treading water and let itself drown. The return of the chaos cults of discord, out of control dragon populations and migrations, the endless horrors from the Everfree forest and the changelings. It had added a weight to everything in Equestria.
Now it had fallen through. Now the guards are gone and a random nervous crowd has conceived itself in her room. Although to her they were less of a crowd and more of an indicator. That something else was coming.
Soon enough something came. It came through the crowd and was a head shorter then Luna.
It was a pony.
It was a pony who’s main quality was that she was forgettable. She conformed so well to normality, she could’ve been a walking piece of the background. She neither had a wing or horn, and as an earth pony she didn't even look particularly strong. Her brow was softened and her face contained no sharpness. A relentless, enviable peace seeped out of her.
The way the others flowed around her suggested she was the leader. Indeed when she came to Luna they all stared at the pony expectantly. In the pony’s eyes there was none of the expected anger. None of the righteousness that usually flutters around the leader of a revolution (She would know). The pony only had a deep conviction in her eyes, which would slowly reveal an undented tenderness. Compassion is loud on her face.
The pony held a great presence among the crowd.
In-explicitly Luna felt a little smaller when the pony stared at her.
“Where are the guards?”
Luna toppled over her words and the pony looked a little bemused. A puckered smile is strapped to an obviously exhausted face. Although torn and tired the pony’s face said something completely different. Let me show you how it’s done. That’s what it said. Let me show you how to entertain a crowd.
“The guards have fled or died, so that our voice can be heard for only a few minutes. The guards have fled so we count our friends’ corpses. The guards have fled to no longer feel our grief or pain”
She took a breath disguised as a thoughtful pause. She seemed to breathe in the agitation she made.
“So yes. The guards are gone”
Notice the flecks of feeling she could drag into everyone present. They couldn't stop listening even if they wanted to.
“The guards aren't here. Neither are the comrades we lost.”
The pony juggled them, the words that is. Words that had spent a long time on the run and a long time being sharpened. Words that that had been handed out at secret rallies and midnight meetings. Luna had a feeling that the pony could curve words around all the arguments that the god could think of.
A massive crowd of faces now charcoaled into a restless misery. She turned to face the god in the room.
“Please. Listen to us”
“Do I have a choice?”
“Yes”
It was clear she was tired as well. A sort of starving fatigue. An understanding of sorts was passed between them. Behind them, the sun started to climb showing the three entities in the room. Luna to one side, the crowd on the other and the light standing in the middle. Then her words came again.
“You always had a choice and you always ignored us. You and your sister. We waited and loved both of you for too long and too much.”
Luna heard of this pony before, but was always too occupied to follow her properly. Before the unity party came to power Luna's night guard said this pony was the most dangerous creature in Equestria. They pinned words to her like “revolutionary”, “anarchist” or "Nationalist". It was a lie or a generous exaggeration because it was only a mare standing on the floor striking out words.
But it took her a distinctive silence before she struck out the next set of words.
“They said patience is a virtue, but I watched her die for four days. We watched the guards march to a wedding so I could bury my sister while fireworks flew over Cantorlot.”
The voice was sticky with desolation.
It was horrifying how quickly her peace had sickened into a rage.
“Patience is a virtue. But there is nothing virtuous about how she died. Waiting for changelings to kill your family while you sob and weep for gods that will never help us. The patience has left your majesty. There is only us left”
Anger had started to strangle the room. Although of course it had nothing to do with anger. Luna would always know with the vehement ponies that would hate because they had loved. Could you imagine it? Hating someone as hard as you had loved the corpse of your sister, broken and un-alive despite how hard you held her.
It was a strong feeling.
“Can we talk privately citizen?”
A pale furious smile wrapped around a jaw. She shook her head.
“No. This a democracy Luna”
Finally the picture meshed itself together in front of her. The word “democracy” acted as a beautiful unifying clarity. Firstly the crowd consisted of a list.
• International workers in solidarity.
• Young Church of titans of harmony.
• Restorers of the Republic.
• Front for the advancement of the forgotten.
• The old guard.
• New dragons for the reclaimed lands
Lastly and most importantly the crowd consisted of staggeringly massive diversity. Diverse in the feelings of revenge, misery, idealism and inspiration. Diverse in race with griffins, ponies, minotaurs, donkeys and bat ponies. Finally diverse in ages, the child soldier from the bat colonies, the adolescent new dragon party and the war veterans from the old guard. An impassioned group, they were all in the right shape and size to start a revolution.
It was heart-breaking because she remembered doing such a thing with her sister against discord. She remembered doing such a thing herself against her sister.
For three days, the dissenters were silenced and the votes were counted. Fear and pride was passed out to the crowds. It took a week for Luna’s sister to wake.
When Celestia did there was nothing she could do against the reckless power of a one hundred thousand vote petition and a dead heap of guards.