"And, as yoo see, ve've prepared de great hall ov both de Universitet and de Prazda for de visit ov de Prinzesses."
"You sure did!" Twilight replied with a smile, looking at the decorations: banners and flags everywhere, bearing the symbols of every region of Equestria that celebrated the Winter Festival, with aesthetically arranged furniture, and, what was most unusual, long chains of beads and pearls shaped into the symbol of the Triarchy - the sun with the crescent moon on it, surrounded by a dark ring symbolizing the eclipse -, and the more traditional symbol of the Union within the Equine Federation - star-shaped (and, of course, five-pointed) steel gray snowflakes.
The stallion showing them around - Скучной Лекци - was keen about revealing every detail to his guests.
And I do mean every detail.
Trixie (as swiftly as she could) suppressed a yawn, while Sunset failed to suppress a twitch that ran trough her face. Meanwhile, Spike had given a whole new meaning to "sleepwalking". They've already traveled through the whole university complex - twice -, but information was one gift that Professor "Boring Lecture" just kept on giving...
"Ve hav' even reconstructed Prinzess Celestia's staute in de courtyard, vhere eet was thorn down during the revolution. Ov course, ve'ev also added de sculptures ov her tvo sisters as well."
"That's great!" the lavender unicorn cheered "Are the pupils here preparing something as well? Other than a presumably well-deserved holiday break?"
"И'м afraid И cannot tell yoo dat." the professor replied "Mой time ees short as eet ees."
Twilight frowned, mostly because she thought she saw, in the corner of her eye, her friends sitting in a pool of light, looking towards the heavens with starry eyes, as a chorus sang "Hallelujah" ambiently from afar.
"OK." she muttered, smiling at him once more "It was nice talking to you, professor. До свидания!"
"Likewise." he replied, smiling back "Прощайте!"
As the professor trotted away, Twilight turned to her friends...
...Who were glaring at her...
...Very intensively...
"What?"
They kept glaring...
"I'm gonna freakin' staple your ears and mouth shut!" Sunset hissed.
"Oh..."
The buildings of the university were unique, as they offered the a wide variety of architectural and aesthetic design. The main building - known as the Building of Twelve Colleges -, which the four now left, was a beautifully done, with red walls and cream white plasterwork decor encasing the walls, with arching windows and small, delicate, almost cheeky curves along the roof. The row of trees in front of it, though now barren, still gave it an air of... Ease, for lack of better words...
It sat on an island near the city, moving it slightly away from the noisy metropolis, giving it the perfect atmosphere for mental recuperation and education - retired from life, removed from time... The perfect location...
As Twilight dug deeper and deeper into her own philosophizing, she didn't noticed the large, brown body which's path she was unfortunate enough to cross.
"UGH!"
"OOOFF!"
She fell into the snow.
"Mmmh..."
"OI! Watch were you trot, dweeb!"
Her eyes popped open immediately.
"...Dweeb?"
Gazing up, she saw a sight that stirred deep emotions in her. Well, one emotion: FEAR.
It was instinctual, hard-wired into her brain, as it was into the rest of her kin. She tried to reason, rely on common sense, knowing full well that this ages-old rivalry has long since faded into oblivion...
But still...
Above her, towering over her body from her perspective, was a tall, female griffon. A classic, lion-eagle breed, she had purple hair feathers and rings around her eyes of the same color, contrasting her white-feathered head and craw. Her plumage and fur dissolved into one another somewhere around her flying ribs. Under her wings was what she (correctly) guessed to be a gas mask bag - they were quite popular at one time among city dwellers in the Union's former satellites.
Coincidentally, said city dwellers were usually the ones who had relates in the countryside, that lived near military compounds and were good friends with the "temporarily stationed" soldiers.
"Eh... You alright?"
Twilight blinked.
She had been staring at the griffon (griffoness?) for five minutes straight. Without blinking.
Ouch.
While she buried her head in the snow (so as to make her eye-sockets NOT feel like sandpaper), her friends decided to converse with the avian.
"I'm guessing you're a student here..." Sunset began, rather bluntly "Hi."
"Ummm... Hello." the griffon replied "Can I help you?"
"No, not really." the fiery mare went on "We were just leaving, sorry to bump into you."
"No problem."
"OK, then. Goodbye."
And with that, she turned to leave.
"NOT SO FAST!"
There was a ring of fire, that appeared in the garden, fainting as it spread distant from it's center.
An irate Sunset, a rather singed Trixie and Spike, and a slightly frostbitten Twilight sat in the middle of it.
"Don't. EVER. B*cking. DO THAT!" the orange mare hissed.
"...got it..." replied the blue unicorn.
"OK... What in the name of Victoria has gotten into you?!"
Looking up, they saw the griffon, floating above them
"Sorry about that!" Spike called out to her "She's a bit tense... We had an incident this morning..."
"Incident? Oooh, a dragon!"
Spike blinked, looking bemused, as the griffon landed besides them.
"Oooh, a griffon!" he sneered "Not funny when it happens to you all the time..."
"Ummm..."
"I'm Spike. You are?"
"Gilda." she replied, glancing around. Suns just sat, sulkily, on her patch of charred ground, Twilight was rubbing her face to get rid of the frostbite, while Trixie was still dazed and surprised, tumbling about as if she was inebriated.
"And... They are?"
The drake looked over his friends...
"Would you believe if I told you that these were the delegates that the Princesses have sent to observe the Festival preparations?"
Gilda stared.
"AND that they're their personal students?"
"...Now you're messing with me."
"Eeeeenope."
"Wow."
"Yep."
"I didn't know being the Princesses' "special" student means that you ACTUALLY ride the short bus..."
"Hey! That's rude!"
"Oh, great! You finally recovered..." Sunset growled, before trotting over to Trixie, and giving her a firm knock on the noggin.
"So, uhh, Gilda..." Spike began "You study here?"
"Yeah. History, mythology, technology, magical arts, martial arts, and a metric dungtons of extra-curricular activities..."
"Wow..." Trixie mumbled "That's... A lot..."
"I'm studying to be a polymath."
"Isn't that a bit... Excessive?" Spike asked "What, with specialization being in full swing."
Gilda looked away.
"Let's just say, that... Certain aspects of my home require me to be competent in as many subjects as possible."
"Oh... Demanding parents?"
"Just a stepmother."
"Ah." Spike leaned closer, quietly motioning towards Twilight "I know that feeling. She's my stepsister and my boss in the same time."
"Huh. Is that so?"
"She hatched me."
"Figures. In fact, I'd expect that from the student of the Princesses."
"Princess. Singular. She's mentored by Celestia, while Sunset - the grumpy one, over there - is studying under Princess Opscura. And Trixie's studying under Princess Luna."
"Uhhuh... Say, what was that incident you mentioned earlier..."
"I... I'd rather not..."
"Out with it."
Her tone was demanding. She looked him straight in the eye.
He was getting more pre-pubertal tension than ever before in his entire life so far.
What can a young dragon to do?
He sighed.
"...we reanimated Linen..."
"...Whuaaat?"
***
While they where back in Mosscow (obviously), they've decided to visit Linen's mausoleum. It wasn't among their original tasks - after all, why would you look at a dead horse that has been preserved through some rather disgusting methods (unless you have deep admiration for that horse, and/or you're into that particular kinky stuff)?
But they needed to air out their heads after their encounter with Rarity, and the Mausoleum was just across the square. What's more relaxing than looking at a delightfully preserved, peacefully dead revolutionary from nearly a hundred years before?
Entering the dark room, decorated by a zig-zaggy line on the walls, a reminiscent of the crimson banner, with the unbreakable glass case in the center, they feasted their eyes on the prominent features of leader of the world's first councilist country.
"He seems kinda soggy today..." Spike muttered "The preservation spells may be wearing off."
"No, he was already a bit soggy when they first embalmed him." Twilight uttered. She felt... Ambiguous. This stallion brought forth what many at his time thought to be impossible. He created a communalist state. He was there when a democratic regime was established in the place of a tsarist autocracy, and he was the one who led the revolution into victory. He was the teacher of his people, the key figure of the small council that was first established in Pitrograd.
And yet...
He was also a murderer.
His actions brought forth a civil war, which led to thousands of deaths, and scrambled the already shaken economy of his country. Like many of his successors (especially his direct successor), he had blood on his hooves. Although, he rejected the cult of personality that arose around him, trying to make the people focus on the ideology itself instead... When times grew desperate, he intended to allow the masses to have a market once more, so as to restore the economy. Taken down by sillifillis, he would never witness the sheer brutality and mercilessness of his successor, Steel Ink.
"I wonder what would he thing of his country now..." Trixie quipped.
The others exchanged looks.
Sunset trotted forward, announcing the phrase "We'll soon find out..."
The others now cringed. They knew it all too well what this rather infamous sentence of the orange mare meant.
As she got into a battle stance, her horn began to low and glower with a dark red aura, unlike her usual turquoise--yellow. The aura spread out like cigarette smoke, enveloping the case.
Slowly seeping inside.
"Not exactly air-tight, I see..." she snickered, grinning as she focused her magic even more...
Linen's glass display coffin was completely filled with the red mist, the Old Leader's body just a dark silhouette within the crimson cloud. The mare's eyes turned red as well.
"Ummmm... Twilight?" Trixie squeaked.
"Y-Yes?" the lavender unicorn asked back, stuttering.
"W-What is this?"
"...Uh... It's magic, but one of the most arcane ones, and... Oh, sweet Harmonia..."
"Whu-Wha-What?!" Spike stuttered.
"This is one of the spells that requires the caster to..." Twilight gulped "Sacrifice a portion of his or her soul..."
"No..."
"Sunset, why...?"
"Don't worry, girls... I'm in control..." she didn't even sound like herself, now "I can get away with it, scot-free...
"H...How?"
"I am in control here..." she whispered "So I can get away with it..."
They gazed at her, waiting for further explanation.
Her grin turned malicious.
"By sacrificing a Demon instead!"
For the first time, they saw an implosion, as every puff of red mist got sucked inside the body trough it's orifices and pores, illuminating it with a ghoulish crimson light. However, the light soon cleared out becoming a blinding white instead, reducing visibility within the small, dark room to zero, and also annihilating all sounds and noises. In the white silence, the sound of breaking glass still comes trough.
Soon enough, the light dims, leaving behind a room with bleached walls, a broken glass case, and a pony with a very prominent, very distinctive facial hair. The stallion seemed to be around 50 years old, and in perfect health for a pony of his age. He wore a dark, coat-like suit with a white shirt under it, his simple, brown coat and reddish brown tail and... What was left of his balding crest. He blinked a few times, his eyes focusing once clearly once more. He gazed at the three mares (one utterly exhausted, the other two utterly stunned), and one young drake (equally stunned) before him. Their colorful furs revealed that they were foreign. He mused over their cutie marks. His own was a large, five-pointed red star with an anchor in the middle, and smith's hammer and judge's gavel laid across it in an 'X' shape, right at the center of the star. It was said that he got his cutie mark at fairly late age, as did many other great minds (and infamous personalities) of equine history. Gazing at the orange mare with the fiery mane and tail, and deeming her to be the most competent of the bunch, he just went ahead, not even hoping an answer:
"Где я?"
Presently, the selected mare gathered her wits, and replied:
"В вашем собственном мавзолее, товарищ..."
***
"...Long story short, Comrade Linen is now back from the dead, alive and well in top health, with absolutely NO hunger for brains..."
"Trixie managed to make an exact copy - even if ersatz version - of him..."
"Hey!"
"...So the Commissar Comrade is will be safe until the next embalmment session comes around..."
"...They embalm him every other day..."
"..."
"Like you've pointed out, that glass case wasn't exactly bulletproof. They somehow always manage to... "Misplace" the money that would be required to upgrade his coffin of sorts, and recently, the politburo has been kind of pushy when it came to the subject of actually burying the Teacher of the Ponies..."
"..."
"Embalmment sessions usually happen sometime after closure. For example, at 11 p.m. today..."
"Well, this sucks..."
They walked in silence for some time...
"So, uh... What field are you interested in?"
"None, really..." came the bleak reply "I'm just... Docking here... Waiting for my final exams..."
"I heard they were extra stingy about the amount of points they give you here..." Trixie quipped "...I mean, in the various engineering courses..."
"That's true..." Gilda replied, smiling wryly "Our tech teach is especially brass-balled. His family was sent to the Vupos when he was just a foal."
The others winced collectively.
"Now, he hates just about anyone... With burning passion..." the griffon gave a dark chuckle "Can't really blame him."
The mares gave her a puzzled look.
"Hey, his only relatives wound up in the camps, and his old man, in Llyubjanka. And while the Vupos weren't as bad as, let's say, Ouschwitz, bucking Llubjanka is still a one-way ticket to Tartarus! Besides..."
She gazed at them, intensively...
"The system was crooked back then. And it hasn't really straightened itself since..."
"What do you mean?" Twilight asked.
Gilda looked away, gazing at where they were heading for.
"Wait and see..."
The mares looked forward as well. Spike knew, why. It was their greatest fear when coming here, thought they kept it hidden - even in front of the Troika.
Getting sent to the Vupos...
"ВУпос", or VUpos, were the "nicknames" for the labor camps all over the more hostile, but resource and mineral-rich areas of the Union, set up by the Supreme Directorate of penitentiary settlements - Высшим Управление по пенитенциарных поселений in northern tongue.
Gilda was right. These camps were set up with one intention: execution through labor. Still, work had to be done, so the prisoners were kept alive, but just barely. Unlike in Ouschwitz, where the main point of the whole complex was to systematically destroy those who were unfortunate enough to enter it - and there were many of those.
All in all, both systems had their "death combinates" that were used to churn up the "waste". But in the Union, the first winds of change after the Supreme Secretary's death brought their closure.
And in the case of the Gearmane Reich... The whole system itself ceased to exist.,, After some coercion, that is...
Gearmaney has learned from it's history, and made up for it.
The Union didn't fell.
Nor did it took responsibilities...
...Well, not on an international scale...
"Well..." the dragon's voice made the others jump - all that they've been listening to in the last five minutes were their hooves (and paws, and claws) crushing the fresh snow.
"...What about your electives?"
"Huh?" Gilda was still befuddled.
"What did you took as an elective?"
The griffon smiled. Grinned.
"I took up Tankery."