Twilight Sparkle shifted a hind leg so that she could get comfortable while laying down. Noon was approaching and the sun had warmed Equestria for a few hours, although some dark spots remained in the sky above her and the grass surrounding her was still damp with the morning dew. The young unicorn had taken the precaution of taking a large towel with her to Ponyville's park, in order to protect her book rather than her fur.
The book was a heavy tome, with roughly six hundred carefully printed pages containing detailed descriptions and illustrations. Its title, An Essay On The Human Race's Inequalities, Tome I ,was marked in golden letters on the brown leather cover. The essay was one of the first books Twilight had acquired after Princess Equestria had lifted the isolation spell and exposed Equestria to the rest of the world.
Most ponies had been cautious about the end of the Equestrian Isolation. This human world was unknown, dark, and dangerous to them. It was to reassure her people that Princess Celestia had established diplomatic relations with their new neighbours, something which would bring about her demise thirty months later.
A tearing sensation. There was no other way to describe the feeling that hit Twilight when she learned about the death of her mentor. Her quill had dropped to the floor, tainting the floor of the library with black ink, but she ignored it along with everything else when she ran out of her home. She had been writing a friendship report when she heard that Princess Celestia, co-ruler of the kingdom of Equestria, had been murdered during a visit to Austria-Hungary, one of the first human countries to befriend the pony nation.
Ironically, the friendship report she was writing tackled the issues of death and grief: young Pipsqueak's dog had passed on during the previous night and the young colt had been depressed for days, before his friends helped him overcome his sadness and move on. Twilight had meditated on the meaning of friendship during those times and intended to share her thoughts with her teacher. The followings events, however, stopped those plans dead in their tracks.
When she thought of Pipsqueak's dog, Twilight couldn't help but think that she would have liked her friends to cheer her up when she was grieving. But seeing as how Celestia was a mother to every Equestrian citizen, nopony had taken the time to sit down and truly realize what her death meant. Instead, the nation had risen up in arms and allied itself with other forces in a conflict the likes of which made the fights between the Three Tribes look like petty squabbles.
Twilight might have handled the situation better if her group of friends hadn't been shattered by this catastrophe. Between those who wanted to fight, those who didn't and those who wanted nothing to do with the war, tensions had escalated quickly to the point where the six friends had gone their separate ways. But that's the way things were, and with the departure of her friends -starting with Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash – the young unicorn had turned to those who had always been there for her, ever since Canterlot.
Her books.
Twilight had always loved reading and writing; it was part of her personality while leaving room for her friends. But, with the end of her friendships, books returned as the dominant interest in her life.
The last straw, however, was when Rarity had declared to her, Applejack and Pinkie Pie, that she had obeyed Princess Luna's orders and joined Equestria's diplomatic body. At that moment, Twilight felt as though she had taken a hoof to the gut. Rainbow Dash's decision was unfortunate but expected, as her rough and tumble lifestyle had helped influence her. Fluttershy's decision had been harder to digest, even though the pegasus had calmly and politely given them her reasons. But Rarity ? Having her leave for the battlefield would have been easier to understand than joining a group of diplomats, and not with Luna's express orders.
Twilight didn't like Luna for one simple reason: she was the one had taken the decision to engage Equestria in warfare. True, everypony had demanded reparations for the death of their ruler, but this was blind anger brought upon by the pain of losing her sister. If Equestria had taken a break for a few months, had calmed down a bit, ponies would have understood that the best thing to do would have been to overcome this and not start a massive war that looked more like a collective suicide rather than a crusade for peace.
Luna was the most devastated pony of all after the death of her sister, which is something Twilight understood, but her way of ruling didn't seem right to her. The alicorn had rallied the populace in an effort to start a total war and had solemnly sworn on her sister's grave that the Principality would not rest until the Triple Alliance had won the final battle.
Well, 'principality'...'Empire' was more fitting. Luna was the self-proclaimed “Equestrian Empress” shortly after the beginning of the war. She had also announced her decision to follow the regime of her allies, Germany and Austria-Hungary, which were both under the rule of emperors. Later on, the adddition of the Ottoman and the Bulgarians to the conflict had reinforced her policies.
Twilight had quickly found the error in this train of thought. By acting in such a way, the heads of the Triple Alliance wanted to give their war an air of authority, to suggest an alliance of empires against the rest of the world. Except that wasn't true: the English king Georges the Vth was at the head of the British Empire, the tsar Nicolas II was the emperor of Russia, and France, the only republic to participate in the war, had mobilized her colonies. It wasn't the empires against the rest of the world, it was empires fighting one another, which made the whole ordeal that much more ridiculous. Ponies had nothing to do with humanity's business.
That being said, Twilight had to admit that these human were fascinating. She already knew a good deal about manticores, hydras and cockatrice, but not much about humans, which is why the book written by the count of Gobineau had quickly become one of her many books of reference when studying this mysterious race. As months went by, the unicorn had amassed an impressive collection, but An Essay On The Inequality of the Human Races remained her favourite. She had yet to grasp every concept and disagreed with Gobineau on certain elements, such as the idea that there were several sub-races of humans on Earth which were recognisable by the colour of their skin, but she couldn't help but read it again and again in order to milk it of all its knowledge.
Earlier that morning, Spike had practically thrown her out in order to really clean the library, but she knew that it was an excuse to make her get some fresh air. She had therefore accepted his demands on the condition that she could bring her book and a bottle of water.
The unicorn found the roads to be almost empty, which was the case in many of Equestria's cities. Indeed, the ponies who hadn't directly left for the battlefields had gone to the human world in order to help. Those who had refused to participate in any way were few, to say the least. Here and there, Twilight had come across a few familiar faces, but that was nothing compared to the usual amount of habitants of her new home.
The only thing which gave the town a strange appearance were the propaganda posters, which encouraged the people to fight or contribute in any way possible. Apart from the fact that it was calmer, Ponyville hadn't changed that much, and that's what Twilight hated. The war had become a regular, normal thing, it had become omnipresent. You couldn't go through one day without hearing about the troops' movements, announcements of this victory and that defeat, of great patriotic speeches, and so on and so forth...
Twilight never thought she'd have to live through a time like this. She'd had given anything for this nightmare to end and for things to go back to the way they used to be. But it seemed some things had a limit...
She was finishing a paragraph from her book dedicated to the blending of races and its consequences when she felt a presence behind her shoulder. She didn't even have to turn around to know who it was, as that familiar crystal perfume gave it away.
“Good morning, Twilight!” tried Rarity.
“ 'lo there, Rarity,” mumbled her fellow unicorn.
Without waiting for an invitation Rarity sat down on the towel, next to her friend. Like the previous night, Twilight chose to ignore her and focus on reading. After a few awkwardly silent minutes, Rarity decided to break the ice.
“Twilight, darling,” started the diplomat, “I understand that you might be angry after what happened. When Cel-”
The unicorn quickly paused, knowing that mentioning the name of her friend's mentor would not help her situation, as she had learned last night.
“After the Princess left,” continued Rarity, with hesitation in her voice, “everything went sour. We both know that.”
Twilight gave the tiniest nod, which was good enough for Rarity, who continued on.
"You have every right to be mad at something if it helps you feel better, and if that 'something' is me, I can take it.”
Rarity gave a pause, slowly extended her hoof and placed it on Twilight's, who tensed up but didn't pull away. After giving a heavy sigh, she closed her book and, for the first time Rarity's return to Ponyville, looked her friend in the eye.
“I'll stay mad at you as long as you're working for Luna,” said Twilight, not with care or iciness in her voice, “but I think that I can forgive you, as long as you leave your current job.”
“It'd like for it to be that simple darling, I really do. And I swear on my honour that I'll end my duties towards the Empress the second my diplomatic mission is over with. But for that to happen, the war needs to end.”
“War, war, war, war, war...” muttered Twilight, “are you going to go on about this too?”
“As unfortunate as it is, this isn't something that can be set aside,” said Rarity, giving a shrug. “I'd like to talk to you about the history of magic and the latest hats in Canterlot Fashion, but we just can't. Things will go back to normal, but until then we are bound to our duties.”
“Oh, what duties?” snapped Twilight, “killing as many humans as possible while sending ponies to their death in Celestia's name? Do you think this is what the princess would have wanted for her subjects?”
“What the princess would have wanted is unfortunately not the subject here, Twilight. She is gone and we must follow her sister's wishes.”
“Great, a tyrannical alicorn to replace the best ruler in history, we can sure say we're lucky!” sneered Twilight.
“The Empress isn't that bad, darling. You know, you were the one who helped her socialise during Nightmare Night. Luna may be more stoic than Celestia, that's true, but she cares for her people just the same.”
“You're not going to change my mind, Rarity,” stated Twilight. “As long as Luna doesn't understand that signing a peace treaty with the humans and getting out of this whole mess while she still can is the best thing to do, I won't trust her.”
Rarity stopped, curious.
“You support Blueblood?”
Prince Blueblood, Celestia and Luna's nephew, had been one of the few rare ponies to turn his back on the war, saying that Equestria was a nation too evolved and developed to stoop down to such “peasant conflicts”. As months went by, Blueblood had declared his wishes for peace many times before ponies who were disgusted by this Great War slowly started joining his cause.
The prince's faction had even tried to stage a coup against Luna while she was visiting Manehattan on official business. This was a complete and utter failure, as he and his troops ended up running away from the Empress' forces into the Alps. Rumours were that a full-on guerilla was happening in the mountains in order to weaken the regime and try to stage a second coup, after which Blueblood claimed his first step would be to sign a peace treaty.
People also said that he was nothing more than a puppet controlled by his counsellors, who had been shamed after Luna's ascension to the throne, and whose motives were more to serve them than the nation. But people said so many things these days...
“I am neither for or against the prince and Luna,” spat the lilac unicorn, “I'm all for the end of this horrible war which takes away the people who are dear to us.”
Rarity simply nodded, having nothing to counter her friend's arguments.
“You know, Twilight, I had a meeting with the Empress this morning, and she said she would agree to cancel Applejack's exile.”
Twilight suddenly stood straight, and she seemed to have a more colourful coat and more life sparkling in her eyes.
“Really? You're serious?”
“Very. But she did set a condition.”
“Which is...?”
The diplomat hesitated for a bit.
“This isn't going to please you...promise me you won't interrupt me and that you'll let me say what I must, okay?”
“I promise,” she replied, lifting her foreleg to her chest.
Rarity took some time to steady her breathing, and then she babbled as fast as she could.
“Trixie just died in Budapest and the Empress thinks that you're the best unicorn in Equestria so you should take Trixie's place in the battlefields in the Eastern fronts.”
Twilight just stood there, blinking a few times as if to clear a fog in her mind. Surely she must have misheard that. By all the hairs in Starswirl's beard, Luna wanted her to WHAT?! Seeing her friend's reaction, Rarity decided to repeat herself.
“Trixie died in Budapest and-
“I heard you the first time. So it's official: Luna is bonkers. She wants me, who must hate this war more than anypony else, to join it to defend our flag. You know what? No, she isn't bonkers, she's actually INSANE!”
“Twilight, darling, please calm down?”
Around them, some curious bystanders had stopped to stare at them.
“I told you you wouldn't like it,” said Rarity with a sheepish smile, “but for what it's worth...I agree with you.”
She hastily continued to explain before her friend could interrupt her.
“You're the most gifted unicorn in all of Equestria. Celestia knew it, Luna knows it, and you know it even if you have a tendency of down-playing it. Unicorns aren't many to serve directly on the front-lines and most of them are like me, diplomats or propaganda leaders, who serve the throne from a proverbial backstage. As far as I know, Trixie was the only one to have directly asked to go in the battlefields, and on the front-lines no less. Now that she's gone, our troops will be deprived of their most valuable weapon: magic. I'm sure she was a good tactician and a capable leader, but it was her magic that helped us the most, that is undeniable. But you are better than her, and with your magical prowess we could have a huge advantage!”
For a moment Twilight said nothing, before looking at the horizon and replying with a tired voice.
“I don't like this war, or fighting. I don't want to hurt anybody.”
“Who said anything about hurting people? It'll b like Winter Wrap-Up...only bigger.”
“Did you just compare Winter Wrap Up to a war?” she said, disgusted. “That's it. I'm going home.”
And with that, she shoved her book into her bag and got up.
“Twilight, please!”
“No, Rarity,” snapped her friend, taking the towel with her, “I agreed to listen to you but I don't agree with your view of this war. That's it.”
Rarity stood there, watching her friend go away and reach the park's exit. Why, oh why did she have to put Winter Wrap Up and the Great War on the same level! Didn't her job as a diplomat require her to have a way with words?
Gripped by a sudden fit of self-loathing, she was two steps away from smashing a rock with her hooves, just to vent out her frustration. The only thing that held her back was the fear of ruining the magnificent hooficure she had received form Aachen's spa. A lady may get angry, but she must remain a lady before all.
And so it was that with a heavy sigh and dragging hooves that she returned to her home. She hadn't found the time to finishing moving back in, not to mention that she longed to see her studio again. Even if she didn't have the time to work on her dresses these days, she had once told herself that she would dedicate a few hours to the art of making clothes. Doing what she did best, even if it was only for a few days, would be good for her.
The unicorn had just opened the lock and walked into the Carousel Boutique when she stepped on a carefully folded note. She picked it up, unfolded it, and instantly recognised the calligraphy, which belonged to her sister Sweetie Belle.
Dear sis,
I'm writing this letter to tell you not to worry about me; I've gone to Mom and Dad's place. Appleboom is really sad since her sister was banished by Luna, so Scootaloo and I decided to help her find her. Applejack, not Luna. Again, don't worry, once we've found Applejack we're sure to get our Cutie Marks as explorers, like Daring Do!
I have to go, the other girls are waiting for me.
Love,
Sweetie Belle
Rarity let the note fall to the ground and a heavy weight formed in her mind: Twilight had listened to her until she screwed it up, the end of the war seemed to get further away with each passing day, and now Sweetie Belle had run away with her friends in hopes of finding Applejack, who was now a pariah in the eyes of the nation.
A four-letter word, proclaimed loud and clear erupted from the unicorn's mouth and echoed throughout the entire Boutique; a word she had sworn never to say, as ladies worthy of respect would never swear....ever.