Myths and Birthrights

by Tundara


Book One: Chapter Eleven: The Bellerophon

Myths and Birthrights
By Tundara

Book One: Awakening and Arrivals
Chapter Eleven: The Bellerophon


The afternoon train pulled into Ponyville with no pomp or fanfare beyond the shrill cry of a whistle. Gears clattered, the engine rolling to a languid stop, before the doors to the carriages were pulled open by the conductors, and a few ponies stepped onto the platform. The largest group were three of the Elements of Harmony, along with their sisters, and sisters’ friend.

“I tell you, Rarity, that was the worst trip yet,” Applejack groused, shaking tension out of her hind legs. “My teeth have been jittering like ladybugs ever since we left the Canterhorn.”

Putting on a sweet smile, Rarity cooed, “This isn’t because you had to leave a certain beau behind, is it?”

Applejack didn’t react beyond giving Rarity a playful grin. “Yeah, maybe a little.”

“Still not going to share his name?” An exaggerated pout, followed by batted lashes trailed the question.

“Nope. We like keeping it a secret just to torment you.”

Rarity found herself unable to come up with a suitable retort, too busy flagging down a courier service to deliver her luggage home while she walked with her friends. They parted at the market fountain, Applejack and Apple Bloom using the north road, while the others took the south, Fluttershy having promised Rainbow that she’d see Scootaloo home.

“What would you do if there was a pony you liked, but didn’t know how to approach him?” Fluttershy asked after Scootaloo had been safely delivered into her mothers’ waiting hooves.

“Well, darling, that depends.” Rarity giggled, imagining the pony Fluttershy was speaking about. Only a certain red coated stallion came to mind. Though, to be fair, almost all the available mares in town had their eyes on him.

Jumping as if she hadn’t noticed Rarity, Fluttershy gave a little squeak.

“Oh! I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to… I was just thinking to myself. I’ll, um, talk to you later, Rarity.” Head low, Fluttershy darted down an alley.  

Rarity made it to the count of three before Fluttershy sulked back out of the dead end. They shared an awkward moment, followed quickly by Fluttershy once again making her excuses and heading off. Rarity decided to leave Fluttershy alone. Her friend would either share when she was ready, or she wouldn’t. But Rarity had learned that there was no sense in prying. Not when it came to Fluttershy. The only possible result would be Fluttershy retreating further into herself. Their weekly spa day was when Fluttershy would open up, her courage bolstered by the familiar surroundings and scents, and Aloe’s expert hooves kneading out her tension.

Confident in the natural flow of events, Rarity turned down the wide lane to her shop. Only to stop after a few strides as she remembered she had to take Sweetie home.

Chiding herself for her mistake, one Sweetie had noticed from the knowing grin she wore, Rarity turned around and headed towards the lake their parents home sat beside. As usual, Magnum lounged on the short dock, a fishing rod laying beside him, head resting on crossed hooves as he dozed and contemplated the clouds.

“Had a good time?” he asked his daughters without looking up as they approached.

“Yeah, it was great!” Sweetie giggled, jumping onto Magnum’s back. “Scootaloo, Apple Bloom and I were on our extra best behavior, just like we promised. You wouldn’t even have known we were there! Not one calamity or ancient demonic force unleashed, daddy.”

Chuckling, Magnum gave Sweetie a quick nuzzle. “That’s my girl. You make a promise, you keep to it. Your mama will be proud when she gets home.”  

Rarity lingered longer than normal, loath to leave Sweetie. She wasn’t certain from where the feelings came, only that her heart quickened every time she began to trot down the worn path, making her dart back for one last goodbye nuzzle. This went on for several minutes before Rarity finally, with the greatest of reluctance, left, having secured a promise from Magnum that she could look after Sweetie soon.  

Her hooves were slow and sluggish as she made her way to her boutique. There she found her luggage already delivered, the depot porters displeased at having to wait so long for her. After paying a larger than usual tip, and getting the stallions to bring the heavier cases inside, Rarity headed into her composition room.

Covered in sketches of half-finished designs, with swatches of fabric covering almost every available surface, Rarity’s composition room wasn’t so much organised chaos, as just chaos. Normally, the bright patches of colour, the differing and clashing textures of the fabric, they all blended together to spark her inspiration. Especially when coupled with some coffee.

Looking around the room, all Rarity incurred was a headache.

The chaos had been growing for some months, and it was time for a return to order so the process could start anew. Humming to herself as she sorted and organised, lifting the entire contents of the room in a multicoloured tornado, Rarity fell into a simple pattern.

It wasn’t like she had much else to do.

There would be no surprise parties or other antics from Pinkie.

Rainbow wouldn’t come crashing through her window.

And Twilight wouldn’t be showing up needing help or advice on one of the myriad little social problems.

Putting the last basket of swatches away, the room as neat and orderly as if Twilight were coming for a visit, Rarity sank next to her desk, a sense of profound weariness striking her. It had been such a busy few weeks, with Twilight’s sudden need for a new dress, having to put off other orders—and now that she was home, the lost time made itself known with riotous force—worrying about her sister getting into trouble, and a hundred other things great and small. Looking in the vanity mirror set up next to her desk, there to help her envision her works—or so she claimed—Rarity was amazed she looked as radiant and sublime as she did. Not a hair out of place in her mane, her coat almost glowing in spite of the train ride and trotting across town.

Smiling, Rarity retrieved a small glass of wine and a little cheese and biscuits, then returned to her composition room. Taking a fresh sheet of stationery out of her desk, she settled herself with her wine; delightfully dry as it lingered on the tongue. Dipping a quill into fresh ink, she began to write.

‘Dear mother,

‘Well, I’ve had the most interesting few weeks. Before I get to the juicy details, I’ll start with the more humdrum affairs. You will be pleased to hear that Sweetie continues to do well in her studies at school. Her mathematics are, sadly, lacking, and I doubt she could tell Antares from Mintaka—even if Twilight weren’t allowing them to scamper so wildly, but I get ahead of myself. I saw her working on some poetry while we were in Canterlot the last few weeks, and while rough and unpolished, she does have some talent. I don’t believe it is her Special Talent, however. Poor dear is still searching, though Father isn’t that concerned.

‘He was well, when I dropped Sweetie off home. Little has changed since last I wrote. You’ll see for yourself soon enough. He did mention briefly about traveling to meet you when you arrive and asked if I would look after Sweetie for a few days. I of course said yes. How could I not?

‘Now, onto the reason Sweetie and I were in Canterlot;

‘Twilight Abigail Tuilerya, Her Divine Highness of the Taiga, and Goddess of the Stars.

‘My aura shakes just writing those words and I want to squeal in glee. I think I will. She’s why the stars have been acting so odd the last month, mother. Twilight is allowing them to dance. Dance! Have you ever heard of such a thing? And the way her mane sparkles now… It’s not quite like Princess Luna, but the stars are nestled both in the sky and in her mane and tail. Getting her presentation dress just right was a challenge, but of course your Rarity was up to it.

‘I have tried to broach the subject of the havoc the stars antics must be playing on navigation, but I could never find a moment to speak to her alone. Hopefully she’ll shortly realise, that while the dancing is dazzling and beautiful, it could have dangerous consequences. You see, even as I write this letter, she is on a train towards Baltimare where she will take passage aboard a ship destined for Zebrica and the port of Timbucktu.

‘She asked me to join her, and I confess I had to stop myself from crying out, “Of course!” on the spot. Instead, I tried to give her what advice I could. Still, a part of me wishes I was with her, but I can’t afford to lose half a year traveling, not at this crucial time.  

‘Best wishes and I have a candle lit for you. Double check your charts, especially if you take the southern channels. I don’t like how you risk those rocky shoals just to cut a few days off the passage.

‘Signed with love, your daughter, Rarity.’

Dashing off her name with the customary swirls, Rarity stretched and took from her supply cabinet a very special candle. Black with orange lines, the candle was made from enchanted wax. Concentrating on her mother, she first lit the candle and then used it to burn the letter. The smoke curled into a tight ball, then flew out the open window, destined for the candle’s twin.

Ah, you betray them with such casual ease, snickered a voice in Rarity’s ear, making her almost fumble the candle.

“Shut up, you’re not real,” Rarity hissed before blowing the candle out. “You’re just the stress talking, and now I am home, and you will go away.”

Aww, poor dear little lamb, cooed the voice. Can’t accept that you’ve lost your mind?

“Quiet! Just be quiet.” Rarity clamped her hooves over her ears.

She waited some minutes to remove her hooves, giving the room a cautious sweep to make sure she was still alone. 

Baltimare, one of Equestria’s oldest cities, had a charming character that could only be attained by aging gracefully. The city, famous for its houses and bakers as much as its port, was filled with the scent of bread mixing with those of tar, wood stoves, and the onshore ocean breeze. The red brick homes were tall and narrow, their blue-glass windows looking down on even narrower streets. The avenues weren’t much better, just wide enough for carriages to pass with room for pedestrians. Twilight and her friends, new and old, rode in one such carriage, a procession of guards leading the way.

Their carriage trundled slowly down the cobblestone road leading towards Baltimare’s harbour. Within the port, lined up in neat rows, sat the Equestrian Home Fleet at anchor or tied next to one of the wharves.

From the mighty Princess Celestia of twelve and one hundred guns to the Saint Juniper of a mere four and sixty, all the ships carried a grace and beauty lesser only to their ferocious might. The blue and white lines down their hulls were fresh and shining, the figureheads at the prow as finely painted as if tended to by the most precise of artisans. Each shone as a beacon of pride for both the nation, and their crews.

The two dozen ships-of-the-line were dwarfed in number by the merchant ships and smaller craft that darted about the harbour. With the Season looming, the docks were a flurry of activity, ponies scurrying about, loading stores into holds and readying for the long voyage to the far east. Once the Season had passed they would set sail, their final destinations among the spice islands of Inponesia or the porcelain and silk coast of Neighpon.

For these goods the Equestrians would trade silver, gold, copper, magic crystals, dried fruits, vegetables, and coal.

Along the south wharves sat a second merchant fleet. Loaded down with grain until they were on the verge of floundering, they were destined for Prance. From Baltimare they would sail through the turbulent Equestrian Sea to the isle of Saint Cookie where they’d fall in with the Prench High Seas fleet. Without the fleet’s protection, the convoy would be easy prey for the many pirates that inhabited the eastern Marelantic. 

Pinkie’s face was plastered to the carriage’s window as it rolled past the merchant ships on its way to the naval wharf. There, a boat waited to take the carriage’s passengers to an old third-rate ship-of-the-line; the Bellerophon, named for the legendary pegasus hero who, according to myth, had brought the Namegiver to Marelantis where she was trained in the ancient, powerful magic of the lost city.

She had an elegant pride about her, lines sweeping with a fine flow leading up to her pegasus figurehead. Her name was painted in bright gold leaf beneath her wide, grand stern galley windows, and the brass nine-pounders on her fo’c’sle shone with a brilliance that could only be attained through considerable polishing. The rigging was exceedingly traditional, some would argue overly cautious, and very solid. Having been in the final stages of a refit, she carried new sails and cordage throughout, with a copper bottom that blazed when the sun slanted just so through the mid-morning clouds over the open bay. A touch slow, perhaps—especially compared to the newer vessels being produced in droves by the Old Queendoms, and then so callously hurled into battle to be sunk or battered—but a fine, weatherly sailer with a bluff bow that parted waves in great plumes of seaspray.

Her staterooms were large for a third-rate, with ample space for the officers and any guests or important passengers. The uppermost was in the process of being converted, dividing walls springing up to the sounds of furious hammers, with a large cot that swung on the slight roll in the bay. A mighty desk, donated by the town’s mayor on hearing whom it would serve, sat just before the galley windows, the bright mid-morning light coursing into the cabin to make the cherrywood shine.

Even with the end of their work in sight, her crew was far from at ease, the carpenter fretting over the walls dividing the stateroom from the cabins for the captain and guest, the placement of the desk, or a thousand other things.

As hardened and rough a group of mares could rarely be found within Equestria. Many had sailed together through several commissions, following their captain from ship to ship, avoiding the port authority through obscure methods and means known only to those who served on the lower decks, lest they be sent to a ship without their mates.

Equestria hadn’t known war in centuries, at least not at sea, and her navy was mostly a volunteer affair. Many of the ships within the port had barely a third of their full compliment. There simply wasn’t the need to have the ships ready to set sail at a moment’s notice. Whenever a ship needed to sail, the admiralty inevitably either had to perform the unwelcome task of shuffling crews, or unleashing the dreaded press gangs.

Impressment wasn’t the sordid affair in Equestria as it was in other nations, involving at most an officer going to one of the port-side taverns or watering holes to offer additional pay to any mare willing to sign on. There was no blackjacking and dragging of ponies aboard in the dead of night. Not in Equestria, at least. But the offer of an additional few bits pay to ponies drunk on spirits was hardly seen as being any better. Many were the wife or daughter that had woken, hung over, aboard a ship as it made ready to sail, names on the books and unable to leave for the remainder of the cruise, a period that could be months to years.

The Bellerophons were not such a crew, being entirely volunteers.

They had just finished filling their stores with casks of rum, lemons, beets, dried biscuits, and salt beef. Salt beef being a peculiar slushy gruel unique to the navy, known for its bitter taste and lumpiness if improperly cooked, and was the staple diet of the sailor, found nowhere else in Equestria. Concocted by a Hackney admiral centuries ago, its contents were a mystery known only to the Royal Equestrian Navy chefs in the factory where it was produced en-masse then stored in the enchanted casks to preserve what freshness the concoction retained.  

There was a current of excitement, and resentment, throughout the ship. At the stroke of four bells in the morning watch, their captain had been replaced, shuffled off with an almost total lack of ceremony. While Captain Swell hadn’t been the most lenient of souls, she had been a known quantity. A firm hoof, a respectable navigator, but a touch cowardly and timid, too willing to let pirates—the Royal Equestrian Navy’s natural enemy—slip away without firing a single shot.

Only the knowledge that she’d been made Captain of the Marelantian Fleet, that is, Captain of the Blazing Beard, gave the crew any sense of justice. Along with her, Captain Swell naturally took her usual followers, including the officers beholden to her as well as her steward, doctor, and bargemares. All perfectly normal and natural, but it did create a tremor of unease in the old hooves.

Into the vacuum stepped an assortment of new officers, and before anypony could get the measure of the other, the ship was whipped into her present frenzy.

Windfall Hardy surveyed the ongoing work of setting the ship’s stores with a calm, experienced eye. On the whole, while his sharp, blue eyes had a calculating power, his face was open and happy. Only a good friend or long-time acquaintance would have perceived the worry pinching the corners of his lips, or the terseness in his jaw.

He was a stern figure as he moved about his new command, his blonde mane drawn in a tight plait, and his off-white coat sticking out in ruffles around his pristine uniform. Within the service, he was a minor legend, having served among the Marelantian Fleet for the past decade, and in that time capturing or sinking seven pirate vessels, and chasing or fighting a score more. While only sloops and a few xebecs, it was a far sight more than could be accredited to most within the Equestrian Navy, many of whom would go entire careers without ever firing a single shot in battle. The marks of his experience were clear in the scar that cut across his right brow like a bright pink line, and a bald patch on his left hock; both caused by the notorious Prench letter-of-marque, Sea Serpent, a powerful frigate that enjoyed preying on Hackney merchants.  

Along with him came his own first lieutenant, surgeon, steward, coxswain and almost a quarter of the crew from his previous command; over a hundred assorted seamares that put the Bellerophon at her full compliment of fifty and five-hundred hooves. The difference between the old and new Bellerophons was evident to even the most blind and dumb observer. Those that had been with the ship for some time wearing blue vests and snowy white trousers, while those that came with the captain were in an odd assortment of colours and styles. Integrating the two groups would take time, patience, and a fair amount of gunpowder, her new captain was aware, but it was a task he was committed to seeing through.

“Look at him, thundering along, glaring like the princess herself were coming to visit,” grumbled one seamare as she hauled on a line to lower a pallet of provisions into the hold. “And old Swell’s bunk ain’t even cold yet, so it ain’t.”

“Shush, Winch, you want to get us in trouble?” hissed the mare beside the malcontent. “Can’t you see something special’s going on? Look at how the old master has put on her best breeches and hat. They stink of mothballs, she uses them so rarely.”

Before the first mare could reply, the ship’s bosun began blowing her whistle, roaring between shrill cries for the ship’s company to muster. Hardy was unconcerned by all the hooting and shrieking, the great stamp of hooves as everypony was brought up on deck until it looked like a bag of confetti had exploded there were so many coat colours. Unlike the guard or army, ponies within the navy didn’t dye their coats a uniform colour. This inevitably gave even the most grim and morose of ships a somewhat festive air with the bright colours common to pony-kind.

The marines, unlike the crewmares, did dye their coats, the soldiers a mass of white beneath their scarlet uniforms along the rails. Unlike the royal guard, the marines didn’t wear barding, instead they wore heavy cotton uniforms with a sabre at their side.  

“All crew accounted for and present, if you please, Captain,” First Lieutenant Fighting Spirit said with grave dignity, to which Hardy simply nodded, his eye turned from the crew to the approaching boat.

A few of the crew, sneaking glances when they could, noticed the boat loaded with a group of passengers. They were surprised when, instead of going to the Bellerophon’s larboard side, the boat went to the starboard, coming to a halt at the bottom of her sea ladder.

Twilight breathed in the salty, mid-spring air, gazing up at the ship with wonder and satisfaction. Behind her, Pinkie, Rainbow and Fleur were in various states of joy or anxiety. Rainbow gave the ship a look of profound distrust, while Fleur sat in the dead center of the boat, her eyes fixed on the boards between her hooves with the complexion of a mare heading to the gallows.

Pinkie, ever her exuberant self, clambered up the side of the ship before the shrill cry of the bosun’s whistle had ended. The officers and crew all stared at her with open mouths as Pinkie hopped towards the nearest pony, and proceeded to shake her hooves, introducing herself in the process, before moving to the next in line. She would have gone to every pony present, if not for Twilight.

A chair had been swayed for Twilight, but she waved it off, preferring to climb onto the ship herself. Rarity had been adamant that if Twilight wanted to make a good first impression, the proper action would be to use the chair, but Twilight disliked the idea of being winched aboard like dead weight. Waiting for the swell to push the large cutter higher up the Bellerophon’s side, Twilight jumped, grabbed hold of a shroud, and with a push from her wings popped up onto the deck.

“Hats off!” cried the First Lieutenant, the ship’s company complying as one.

“Ain’t that the new princess?” a few of the crew whispered, earning scathing glares from their mates.

Stepping forward, Captain Hardy gave a short bow. Twilight was a little surprised to see a stallion captain. Stallions were rare in the navy, only serving as officers, and never as common sailors, with most relegated to the more protected or calm postings. Given the length and nature of the voyage, Twilight had assumed the captain and senior officers would have all been mares.

“Your Divine Highness, it is a pleasure,” Hardy said before introducing himself.

“For me as well. This is so… fascinating!” Twilight’s entire face shone as she looked about the intricate networks of ropes, pulleys, blocks and tackles. Behind her, first Rainbow and then Fleur were helped aboard, Fleur having to be pulled up in the chair. Twilight’s ‘guards’ then followed, three members of Alanotte’s herd—a daughter and two nieces—and three volunteers from the Royal Guard. Inspecting one of the swivel mounted deck guns, a little brass three-pounder, Twilight added, “I have a sister who's in the navy. She was recently promoted to lieutenant. And a cousin he…” Twilight’s voice trailed off as she turned to the officers and her eyes settled on a particular pony in freshly brushed uniform.

“Polished?” Twilight exclaimed, her cousin continuing to stare ahead, as still as a statue, professional air never wavering.

“You know each other?” Hardy followed Twilight’s gaze.

“Y-Yes…” Clearing her head with a short shake, Twilight motioned towards Pinkie, who was trying to get a response from one of the stone faced marines, and added, “I’m sorry about my friend. We tried to make her understand naval protocol and tradition, but…” Twilight’s voice trailed off, and she gave a helpless shrug. 

“It’s alright, no harm was done.” Hardy gave the first of many low, rumbling laughs, turning to the ship’s company. “May I introduce my officers? My first lieutenant, Fighting Spirit; second, Poetic Verse; and third, Rolling Holler.” The officers touched their hats in turn as named, taking stiff bows, their expressions all firm and professional.

After greeting the Bellerophon’s sailing master, a stout earth mare by the name of Polished Sextant, her face red beneath a pale yellow coat, Twilight introduced the ponies with her, starting with her friends, and ending with the small cadre of guards; the half-dozen unicorns all wearing a dark plum uniform meant to compliment her own coat colour, and lead by Weathered Scabbard. Their presence still grated on Twilight’s nerves.

Twilight tensed when the introductions reached Polished Armour.

“It’s been a while, cousin,” Polished dipped his head. “I tried to speak with you and congratulate you at the gala, but you were busy. I spoke with cousin Shining, however, and his daughter.”

“Ah, yes, her,” Twilight laughed, the sound nervous and forced. “Tyr is… special. I’m sorry I missed you. Things have been so hectic lately.”  

After all the rest of the officers were introduced, including the midshipmares and colt—a couple which couldn’t have had their marks for more than a few months at most, and one who was still a blank-flank—Hardy passed to Fighting Spirit their public orders.

Breaking the scroll’s seal, Fighting cleared her voice, and then read out in that particular roar native to military officers;

“By the Right Honourable Lady Lulamoon, Lady of the Stone, and Admiral of the White and Commander in Chief of Their Highnesses’ Ships and Vessels employed and to be employed off the Home Shores, etc.

“Whereas Captain Counter Swell of Their Highnesses’ Ship Bellerophon is removed to the Blazing Beard, Captain Running Wind retired, you are hereby required to proceed on board Bellerophon and take Charge and Command of her. You are further required to take as passenger Her Divine Highness Twilight Abigail Tuilerya, Princess of the Taiga, and convey Her with all dispatch and diligent haste to the points listed below without delay, deviating only as necessary, or for such causes as Her Divine Highness deems as necessary.

“Furthermore; Their Highnesses’ Ship Bellerophon is necessarily required to fly from her mainmast head the Royal Pennant of House Tuilerya. Her Divine Highness, Twilight Abigail Tuilerya, is to be accorded all Rights and Respects duly necessitated by her station, extended to those who travel as her guest or companion.”  

Twilight visibly winced at every use of her ‘real’ name.

There was a pause after the orders had been read, a low murmur of confusion rippling through the crew.

“Wait, this ain’t an inspection?” said one mare just loud enough to be heard.

“We're transporting a princess, girls,” said another, Jill Place, her declaration, in that unfathomable way of the lower decks, carrying more weight than the Captain’s commission. There was a hooting cheer from the crew, a few going so far as to toss their hats into the air, that rang as far as the shore. It took several minutes for order to be restored, Twilight smiling in her nervous, uncertain way the entire time.

With almost reverent ceremony, the pennant, a long stream of cloth the same colour as Twilight’s coat and with the crest of House Tuilerya embroidered at the mast-end, was raised to the top of the mainmast. As the pennant uncurled in the gentle breeze a second round of jubilant cheering shook the ship.  

“Miss Spirit, see to the princess’ friends and belongings, if you please,” Hardy said as he lead Twilight towards the cabin.

Inside the cabin, Hardy had his steward bring out a bottle of wine for him and Twilight. Chewing on her lip a little, uncertain what exactly she should say to the captain, Twilight accepted a glass, taking just a small sip to be polite. It was far too early in the day to drink, and Twilight didn’t care much for wine anyways.

“So…” Hardy stood by the window, unfazed by the stamping of hooves overhead, the shrill cries of the bosun’s whistle, and all the other general noises of raising and stowing the dunnage Twilight and her friends had brought. “I suppose it is best we get to know each other a little. I’ll be blunt, if I may.” Hardy waited for Twilight to nod consent for him to continue. “I’m not certain I am the right pick for a voyage of this nature, Ma’am. I am a fighting captain, and it is the deck of a frigate where I am most comfortable. I mean no ill disparagement towards the Bellerophon. She has a good, strong feeling about her. A fine ship, I am certain. But not a ship meant for me. I fear I have attracted the wrong kind of attention back at Sunhall, if I am honest.”

Hardy began to pace as he talked, tossing back his wine in almost a single gulp. Twilight cringed at the casual greed he showed towards the wine, and was also wondering if he was the right pick. Twilight couldn’t see herself cooped up for months with the captain for company. At least she had Pinkie and Rainbow, and to a lesser extent the mystery presented by Fleur and Athena. She’d also have her books, and the moments with Celestia and Luna during dawn and dusk.

“Then why did you accept?”

“‘Accept’? Ha-ha! I could not refuse.” Hardy gave his head a rueful shake. He was about to pour another glass of wine, but stopped, placing the bottle away instead.

There was a knock at the door, and before either could call ‘enter’ it was pushed open and the ship’s surgeon stepped into the stateroom.

“Well, come in, Timely. Don’t stand holding the door ajar,” Hardy almost snapped, his voice maintaining a slight pleasant uptick, like he’d said the same words many times before and they’d become a private joke.

“My apologies for intruding, Princess.” Timely made a slight bow to Twilight. “But I was curious, Windfall, if my specimen jars made it aboard.” Timely’s voice held a note of faint hope, his ears hanging somewhat doggedly about his head..

Hardy arched a brow.

“I would suspect they have been taken to your cabin, or barring that, the medicine chest, like on the Marelantis.”

Timely struck his brow, crying out, “Of course! How stupid of me. I should have checked there before bothering you. I should regardless if to make sure all the victuals ordered by my predecessor are properly stored. All this hurrying about and secrecy has left my wits scattered. Celestia! What if we don’t have any Foalsbane! That will create an unpleasant few weeks.”

“Foalsbane? Isn’t that a poison?” Twilight wrinkled her nose.

“Indeed. But a few drops put into the water takes the edge off certain desires and wants. We have over five hundred mares aboard, and only six stallions.”

It was Twilight’s turn to strike a hoof to her brow.

For a short time they discussed the upcoming Season, how the navy went about keeping everything in check and orderly, and from there they moved onto who would be berthed where.

“We have put together a suite of cabins just forward there, we passed through them on our way in. The carpenter and joiner are putting the final touches on them now. Your friends and the ambassador along the larboard side, while we shall be on the starboard. Naturally, we shall mess, that is to say, dine, separately, you with your friends, and I alone. Your guards will mess with the marines, Captain Scabbard in the ward room. Is that agreeable?”

Twilight had no objections, though she did ask after her books, only to have at that moment a group of seamares come in carrying one of her sealed chests.

After the doctor left to find his missing specimen jars, Fighting Spirit entered the cabin.

“Ma’am, Captain, if it would please you to step on deck, I believe the fleet is going to send us off.”

“Very good, Fighting.” Hardy lead the way out on deck, Twilight discovering it had undergone a transformation in the short while they’d been in the cabin.

The grating had been replaced and everything readied to bring in the anchors, bars shipped to the capstan and the lines and nippers set. Twilight couldn’t make heads nor tails of the operation as first one then the other anchor was run up to the bow. There was a great deal of yelling and shouting, a pony dancing on the capstan as she played a fiddle and created a steady rhythm while others heaved on the bars or ran about seemingly at random. Eventually the task was complete, just as the last lingering clouds above parted and a fresh breeze whistled across the beams.

There was no time to rest for the crew, orders being given at once, and, for the first time, Twilight watched in amazement as earth ponies swarmed up the lines into the masts and out onto the shrouds. One by one the sails were loosed, topgallants, topsails, and courses falling in rippling canvas waves. Their bellies filled by the stiffening breeze, carrying the Bellerophon out of the harbour. As she gathered her way, a cheering chorus sounded from the rest of the fleet, each ship firing an unloaded series of guns as the Bellerophon passed, crews at the rails waving their hats.

Twilight grinned as wide as Pinkie, her heart swelling, the cheering following her until the ship rounded the headlands, and she made her way towards the open sea.  

The wails and howls of the dead rose from the black river, lifting into the putrid, fetid air like a fog. The noise was omnipresent, a constant single grind that wore away sanity, hope, and desire. Mortals that found their way to the river’s bank rarely survived long, a slight tingle of magic speaking of the haunting litany's true nature.

There was a second effect, a calling, a whispering undertone that tempted those who heard it closer to the river, to sup of its waters.

Those that did instantly and irreversibly lost themselves, their souls devoured by the Styx.

A pair of ash grey hooves landed with a sharp report on the sole dock. A dozen withered specters gazed up, their open mouths and empty eyes gaping at the newcomer. A few tried to shuffle towards him, drawn like moths to a flame by the energy of life flowing from him. The sharp crack of a whip and acid tongue made them return to their ordered lines. A second crack and they began the long journey towards a distant pale ivory wall, violet lightning highlighting twisted spires that towered above the barren landscape.

The newcomer hesitated a moment as summer-blue eyes looked sadly to the sprawling complex stretching across the length of the horizon.  

“Brother, what have you been up to these last few thousand years?” he asked, his voice rich and rolling.

The newcomer stepped past lines of chained and shackled spirits, their jailers and masters not looking at the intruder as they went about their duty. It took nearly half a day, as the clock would reckon time, for him to cross the empty featureless plain that stretched between the river and the walls. It was slow, plodding work. Sweltering wind and rain assaulted him, the ground a thick, soupy morass that clung to his legs. A road did connect the dock and palace, but it was filled with endless throngs of the marching dead, grist for the palace’s mill.

At last he reached the walls and entered the city beyond.

An endless maze-like complex, the City of the Damned was continually shifting. Entire districts vanishing into the never ending night, taking with them millions of souls only to reappear a thousand leagues away and a hundred years later. Behind each door, one for every damned soul, sat a private torment, each tailored to the sins committed in life. But such was the nature of Tartarus that no soul had to enter their door. They could wander the city for eternity instead, never knowing peace or comfort, vacant eyes staring at the turbulent sky above.

The damned that refused their punishment were not the only souls that wandered the city. Many of those who had gone through their torment remained in the city, shining like silver beacons, proselytizing those who refused to look for or enter their door. The Converted they called themselves to anypony they came across.  

For all its shifting nature, there was reason and thought behind the city, districts devoted to certain sins or races. If not for the omnipresent rain, it could have even been a happy city, juxtaposing form against purpose.

The damned were not alone in the city either. Spirits of every sort, from troops of playful kitsune to the dark forms of the reapers, could be seen. Oneiros, the small silvey birds that carried dreams, perched beneath eaves and on lampposts, waiting to take dreams of the departed to the living. Gargoyles watched from the rooftops, barbed spears held in their long, powerful talons. Occasionally they would leap into the bleak sky to fly to a new perch. With every flap of their leathery wings, the gargoyles shed scales of volcanic rock, the stones creating a harsh crackling din like hail in the background of the rain.

Even archons called the city home. Appearing as nothing more than darting balls of light, they roved in clusters, their purpose as hidden as their true forms. Whether they had been cast from Elysium for some crime, and would only be allowed to return when their task in Tartarus was complete, or they’d been sent as additional wardens, watching over the fathomless prison-pits beneath the city, no being but the archons knew. The greatest of their number within the city, Abaddon, had vanished within her crystal manor and not been seen in decades leading many to suspect that whatever their purpose, the archons would soon complete it and return to Elysium.

One of the Powers, Abaddon’s name was whispered in fear and trepidation in the back alleys. The Lord of Tartarus alone was shrouded in a greater aura of fear. Though, like Abaddon, he had not been seen in years.

All the city’s inhabitants made way for the newcomer, skittering out of his path and attempting to avoid his gaze.

He paid them little attention, focusing on the palace sitting atop a low hill at the city’s heart. It was not the greatest of palaces, and it would have been easy to overlook it elsewhere, being neither very large nor all that grand, if not for a trick of Tartarus making it visible no matter where one stood within the city. Crenulated pillars encircled the walls, with the gargoyles so numerous that nothing of the central dome could be seen through their tightly pressed bodies. The rain thickened the closer he went to the grimy white structure until he entered the courtyard where it ended all at once, like stepping through a curtain.

Crossing the courtyard, the newcomer approached the doors into the palace itself. Before them sat a pale-white alicorn. He was gaunt and sickly looking, his features sunken and his eyes two dull black orbs. Hanging limply about his face and neck like a cloak was a mane of wiry black hair. On the alicorn’s flank was a smiling black skull.

When he spoke, his voice was like the shifting of sand through an hourglass. “Zeus, what a... pleasure, to see you come visit our humble abode. Come to congratulate us for our victory over mother’s slayers?”

“I have come to speak with your father, Achlys,” Zeus replied, his voice thundering across the palace.

“Of course you have.” Achlys emitted a slow, wheezing laugh. “You will find him at the graves, mourning Hecate and Artemis.”

“Alicorn destroying alicorn…” Zeus snorted and narrowed his eyes. “It is fortunate for you I am in a lenient mood. Too many of our kind have been destroyed already.”

“Ha! Only you would presume to be able to destroy Death! Regardless, your wrath is misplaced. My role was slight and confined, merely occupying their attention while Ares and his cohorts did their bloody work.” Achlys slowly stood, a vicious glimmer in his otherwise cold eyes. “You may wish to speak with Niomedes. She was present when Hermes and the Muses were slaughtered." A black aura shrouded his horn as he turned and thrust the door open.

“I have already dealt their punishment,” Zeus said, cold and dispassionate.

Little more was said, Zeus following Achlys into the palace. Braziers, burning with the pallid green of spiritual essence, gave the halls the foreboding air of a funeral parlour. Their hooves echoed among the almost deserted halls, only the occasional servant floating past. No banners or tapestries hung from the walls, paintings didn’t show previous tenants; not that there had ever been any. Even the roof was plain, with no lattice work or carvings etched into the pearly stone. Other than the braziers the halls were completely featureless, devoid of life or creativity.

Both alicorns kept their silence as they passed libraries and grand bedrooms. These rooms, unlike the stark hallways, were filled with individual touches and flourishes. Zeus took in the open rooms as they passed.

The first, and largest, was filled with oil paintings of a soft evergreen toned mare. Her blue mane was pulled back into a tight, almost harsh, bun in most of the pictures, her sickly yellow eyes gleaming above a smirk. In each, her attire was different, some of the styles unfamiliar to Zeus. In the center, hung from thick chains, a bed that took up half the room . The dark plum coloured sheets had a thin layer of dust covering them, and a white dress had been left spread across the lower half.

The doors to the second and third rooms were both closed. From inside the later came the gentle morose tinkling of a wind-up music box.

Like the first bedroom, the door to the fourth was open. A lock on the door had been shattered, leaving a small hole where the doorknob had once been. Inside sat a room of simple earthy beauty. There was none of the extravagance of the first room, just simple brown tones and wood with carvings of forest scenes. Above an empty hearth sat a ruined painting. A knife or claw had torn and ripped the canvass, removing almost all trace of the subject. Only a few yellow and green tones could be seen on the dangling scraps. The small bed showed similar signs of mistreatment, the sheets tossed to one side and the mattress spreading its feathery guts across the floor.

Achlys stopped in front of the room for a few moments, his lips peeling back to reveal broken yellow teeth.
        
“I cannot believe she is gone,” Achlys growled, the moment passing and the pale alicorn continuing to lead his uncle.

“I never met Artemis. From what I have been told she was a decent mare.”

“She alone in this wretched realm understood me, pitied me. Father and Nyx coddled her, keeping her a prisoner.” The God of Death flicked his wings as he stared straight ahead. “Artemis knew my loneliness well, for she shared it. You describe her as decent, but, she was beyond that. She was pure and faultless. The shining light of hope in Tartarus, her mere existence brightened this bleak plane. It has not stopped raining since she was stolen from us.”

 Achlys stopped before a small wrought-iron gate that led into an equally small garden. “This is as far as I go, Uncle. I’ll warn you this once, be careful around father, he is not the alicorn you banished here all those millennia ago.”

Left alone, Zeus waited until Achlys’ hoofsteps retreated into the palace before pushing the gate open. The grey alicorn stepped into an even greyer garden. There was no greenery or life in this place, just the withered and wretched stalks of flowers surrounding the bones of an apple tree. The air was heavy with the stench of rotting plants.

“So, the mighty Zeus has finally come to pay his brother a visit,” chuckled a sour and mirthless voice from behind the dead tree.

Trotting around the tree, Zeus laid eyes on his elder brother for the first time since he had banished him from Gaea.

Hades, Lord of Tartarus, God of the Dead, was a pale sickly shadow of his former glory. Where Zeus remembered a stallion filled with the pride and arrogance to challenge him for the crown to rule the alicorns, he now saw a being broken by grief. His obsidian coat was unkempt and filthy, covered with years of dirt and grime as it hung loosely on a frame as withered as the garden. Likewise, his once silvery-white mane and beard were masses of snarls and knots, clinging to Hades’ hollow face in oily clumps. A crack ran the length of his horn, running like a jagged canyon from the tip to the base. Zeus cringing at the sight of the wound. But it was his brother’s eyes that affected Zeus the most. Gone was the brilliant cunning and ambition that once shone like a beacon, able to find the strengths and flaws, the truths and lies of a soul, replaced by a hollow, vacant stare. Only Hades’ mark remained the same, the golden gate on his flank sitting before the ghostly outline of a pony.

Zeus craned his neck to get a look at the object from which Hades ice-blue eyes never wavered. A pair of mausoleums leand against the garden’s back wall. Etched into their soft stone were only a few words; ‘Hecate; Wife’ and ‘Artemis; Daughter’.

“You mourn for no reason, brother,” Zeus snorted as he sat down beside Hades.

The garden trembled as a sharp thunderous crack echoed throughout, spilling onto the empty wastes of Tartarus beyond the palace. Zeus hadn’t even seen Hades move or felt the build up of magic before the blow was struck and the King of the Alicorns was sent crashing into a wall.

“Do not presume to tell me whether my grief is in vain or not!” Hades howled, eyes bulging from his head. A bident hovered in his golden magic above Zeus. Green runes of sickly magic glowed along the haft as low tortured moans of the damned echoed from the weapon’s prongs. “I care not for your dominion nor your supposed and overly exaggerated wisdom. This is Tartarus, and here—”

True thunder rang across the desolate plains as Hades was hurled away and into the opposite wall. Laughing, Zeus cracked his neck as he stood. Across the small garden, Hades snarled and pulled himself up. Wafts of smoke and singed hair filled the air as the two elder alicorns glared at each other.

“I didn’t come all this way to fight with you, brother,” Zeus finally said, spreading his wings low in a gesture of peace. “I came to ask for your aid.”

“My aid? That is a laugh,” Hades snorted as he drove his bident into the ground. “What possible aid could you need from the lowly Lord of Tartarus?”

“I need to find my daughters, of course.”  

For several seconds the two brothers stared at each other, then a thin smirk began to grow on Hades face. Zeus breathed a sigh of relief, lowering the magic filling his horn.

“Find your daughters, that is all?” Hades’ joints and bones snapped and popped as he slowly returned to his vigil before the graves. “What help do you need from me? They are not in Tartarus; I looked. When the Citadel of Light was consumed by tainted magic, I looked, wondering if any of them would be cast down to my home where I could exact my payment. Only a smattering of their mortal servants arrived, those from the kitchens, maids, gardeners or the like. Only the most sniveling and worthless came to Tartarus, as is the norm. Most went to Elysium. As for the alicorns, there was no sign.

“I cannot help you, brother.” Hades placed a hoof on Artemis’ grave. Tears welled in his eyes, but couldn’t be shed. Zeus looked on his brother with pity.

Glancing up to the clouds of eternal ash that hung above Tartarus, Zeus said, “I do not believe that those at the Citadel perished that night.”

“The mountain was sundered, ripped in half by the magic unleashed. Astraea destroyed herself out of spite, shattering her own body in a final act of bitter vengeance. Ares, Perses, and the rest of his cohorts were flung beyond the horizon by the force of the explosion. How could a bunch of wounded mares and un-awakened fillies survive?”

“You are not the first I have visited in search of answers. I went to the Fates, and the crones told me much of that night that was hidden to all but their eye. While the mountain was indeed broken, that was simply a cover to allow them to save their foals and possibly themselves.” Zeus began to pace as he spoke, his steps fast with agitation and suppressed hope. Hope…  His beautiful niece, Authea, how he longed to see her again, hold her to his chest along with her half-sisters, his little Demeter and Clouthea. The old alicorn cracked a smile as he remember Authea’s infectious happiness and how she always seemed to know what do to brighten even the darkest hour. If anypony—other than a Fate—could have anticipated that terrible night and prevented the worst of the tragedies, it was Authea. “There is a chance that they are out there, still.”

“Out where, brother?”

“There,” Zeus swept his wings indicating the horizon of Tartarus.

“I told you already, they are not in Tartarus. If they were I would know it. It is impossible to step a hoof or flick a wing in this realm without my knowing.”

“No, not in Tartarus, but in a domain beyond.” Zeus’ smile cracked wider.

Hades turned his head from where Zeus paced and instead looked out across his realm. After contemplating everything he’d been told, he fixed a sharp glare on his brother. “You wish me to use The Gates, don’t you?”

“I do indeed.”

“And they say grief has driven me to madness... Clearly, I don’t have it the worst.” Hades shook his head as he stood, a grim disapproving pinch to his lips. Turning to leave the garden, he muttered, “You don’t know what you ask of me.”

“I ask you to help me find our missing fillies! I ask you to make amends for the imprisonment of Nyx and every hardship caused by your lust. I ask you to help me restore stability and harmony to Gaea. Damn it, brother, I beg you, help me.”

Zeus’ plea had the desired effect, halting Hades before the God of the Dead left the garden. Suppressing a grin of victory, Zeus knew he had to be extremely careful, more so than ever before in his ten thousand years of existence, for the next few moments. Wetting his lips, he waited for Hades to slowly turn to face his brother.

“You, Mighty Zeus, God of Storms, King of the Alicorns, you beg help from me and have the temerity to blame the war on my actions?” Hades pulled his face back into an enraged sneer. Zeus felt his heart quicken as his older brother approached. The next few moments sat on the edge of a knife, with failure lurking to cackle its mad laugh. “I brought her here because I wanted to keep her safe. I loved her, I still love her, I will always love her!”

Zeus almost let the smile of victory touch his lips as he said, “Then help me find her missing daughters! Help me find all our daughters. They are out there, somewhere, beyond one of those Gates.”

Hades slumped back in defeat, a weary sigh leaving his body. “The Fates told you this?”

Zeus nodded.

“And you don’t believe they are playing their games, clearly.”

Leaning against the small iron gate, Hades turned to consider Artemis’ grave, the grave he had constructed only a month ago. Zeus’ certainty was infectious. She was alive, his most precious filly was still alive. Standing straighter, his wings tucked tight to his side, not dragging in the dust and ash, Hades said, “Very well, I will take you to the Gates and see if we can re-unite our herds.”

Zeus finally allowed himself to smile again and slap a hoof on his brother’s withers.

Shooting him a sharp glare, Hades cautioned, “They may not be behind any of the Gates, and some of the worlds beyond make Tartarus look tame in comparison. This is almost certainly a fool’s errand.”

“Then it is good we're mighty fools indeed, brother!” Zeus let out a booming laugh.

He could taste the scent of victory on the parched Tartarian air and almost feel his hooves again able to wrap themselves around his eldest daughters. Then, maybe, he could finally figure out what exactly had caused his large and extensive family to feud so fiercely. Arguments and disputes weren't uncommon, and there had been fights, but never before had alicorn destroyed alicorn. Zeus had theories and ideas, a few clues as well, but no hard evidence or facts. He had to know exactly what had happened, and then he would punish those required.

“A pair of Gods out to reclaim what is ours,” Hades agreed with his sharper laugh. "Not even one of the Quus could stand in our way."

Singing

Zubu was singing.

It wasn’t the kind of singing of ponies, with upbeat melodies and chorus lines where an entire town would spontaneously start dancing. One of the most peculiar and odd sights Gilda had ever seen and never been able to understand. Though, curiously, this tendency seemed to only be found in the smaller villages.

No, this song was all harsh, grating squawks that wouldn’t have been out of place coming from a flock of roosters.

Perhaps worst of all, it was just the same line repeated over and over with minor variations in pitch and flow.

"He was big and strong, in his eyes a flaming glow!" Zubu cried, jumping onto his hind legs, his good foreleg stretched out and head thrown back. Gilda cringed in anticipation of the next line. “Most zebras looked at him with terror and with fear, but to village mares he was such a lovely dear,” Zubu warbled as he returned to puttering around his hut.
 
The shaman had been singing the same verse continually for the past day and a half. If Gilda hadn't still been so weak from her injuries she would have knocked Zubu upside the head before winging it towards the plains, Great White Apes or no Great White Apes. That she could barely shuffle around the hut made the idea of trying to overpower the fast and crazy zebra preposterous, to her shame.
 
"Do you have to sing?"
 
"You don't like?" Zubu asked, an amused smirk making his yellow teeth glint in the firelight. Putting on an affectation of false hurt, he added, "I thought everyone from the western continent just loved to sing and dance."
 
"Do I look like some lame featherbrained pony?" Gilda grunted, turning away from Zubu.
 
"No, no, no, you look like a cat-bird with a clipped wing, stuck here in the jungle with the Wise and Wonderful Zubu! Yes, that is what you look like indeed!" His smile grew wider, and then he broke out laughing, turning to speak to a potted plant above Gilda’s cot. “Yes, yes, Orenda, so right. Zubu’s voice is wonderful, yes!”
 
Shaking her head at the mad zebra, Gilda shuffled out of the hut and into the streams of light filtering down through the jungle canopy. She never would have admitted it, but she kind of liked the place. There was a coziness coupled with a sense of danger and excitement. A blend of the comfortable and the unknown. It didn't hurt that prey was plenty and the zebra's garden was overflowing with tasty breadfruit, rhubarb, and sweet-root.

If only her room-mate weren’t a few loaves short a full bread basket.
 
Stretching out her aching legs and wings, Gilda felt a pinch in her side that was quickly becoming familiar. Grumbling to herself rubbing the sore muscles, she began to pace in a circle as she continued through the warm-up routines taught in Flight Camp. After a few circuits around the hut, Gilda found her paws taking her into the jungle.

She didn’t know where she was going, not even sure what direction she was headed without being able to see Sol, the entire jungle seeming to glow in the day, or be the pitchest of blacks at night. Her instincts told her she was heading north-ish.

Her eyes fixed ahead, a helpless rage bubbling at the back of her head, Gilda had a need for action, for doing something. She was finished sitting around Zubu’s hut. There was a griffon out there who had taken everything from her; Talona, her cousin, her pride and hope. Gilda let out a feral growl as the image of the general gazing down on her with such grim dispassion invaded her mind.

After a short while, a half-hour, maybe longer, Gilda found her courage start to falter. She was pretty certain that she’d seen that tree that looked like a crooked ‘S’ at least twice already. Just to be certain, Gilda dragged a talon along the tree’s trunk leaving a nice sized mark. Ten minutes later when she found herself staring at the slash again Gilda knew for certain that she was lost and going in circles.
 
Letting out a long howl, Gilda slumped down next to the tree.

“What is cat-bird doing out here?” asked Zubu, his voice close to Gilda’s ear making her jump almost into the tree’s branches.

“You been following me? Crazy zebra,” Gilda growled as she smoothed her feathers.

“Following? Oh no, Zubu has no interest in following cat-birds. Been watching from his hammock.” With his staff, Zubu pulled aside an especially large fern to reveal his hut not six yards away.

Blinking, her thoughts grinding to a sudden halt, Gilda could only stare.

“I’ve been wandering around the hut? For an hour?”

“Mmm, closer to two, Zubu thinks.” Glancing to his left, Zubu gave a short cackle. “Orenda agrees, closer to two.”

“How?” Gilda tried to ask more, but the word got lodged in her throat. She had been so certain that she’d been at least a mile or two from the hut.

“Hut protected. Keeps bad things out, or in.” Zubu snorted as he turned and limped away, returning to his hut.

He began to mutter and growl to himself, or the kettle, Gilda was never too sure, his voice filtering through the beaded door. "Silly cat-bird is going to get herself, or worse, us killed. Too young. Too angry. So much anger. Reminds his old heart and head of Zimi." Zubu paused as if he was listening to a response. Gilda rolled her eyes as the crazy zebra started talking again. "No, no, no, that is too much to ask, too much, silly fox. Did you not just hear me? 'Teach her' you say! Was also told to rescue the lost pony goddess, and look at how that turned out. Those cat-birds would have made Zubu Soup if they knew the Compact did not protect him, and then where would you be?. Lucky he was, yes, lucky. Mend her bones. Sew her flesh. But teach her? No. Too much. Far, far too much."
 
Silence flowed from the hut following the shaman's short rant, the only noise coming from the bugs and birds that filtered through the jungle. Gilda frowned at the beads serving as a door, wondering just what some lame, crippled zebra could teach her. Once she worked all the stiffness and aches out of her system with exercise and a full diet she'd be up in the air again, and then she'd be unstoppable. She’d fly out of the jungle, and no lame barrier would stop her.
 
"Fine! You have made your point, Orenda. Zubu will teach her. One last apprentice before death takes him."
 
Zubu's voice was defeated and constrained as it tumbled past Gilda's ear. A couple moments later she heard his odd shuffle-hop gait before he stepped out of his hut. His good eye roamed over Gilda, making her feel like a chick again in front of the teachers at Flight Camp.
 
Approaching his hammock, Zubu asked, "Tell me, cat-bird, what do you know of magic?"
 
"’Magic'?" Gilda scoffed, inspecting the built up dirt beneath one of her talons. "Only unicorns use magic. Those prissy dorks in their manors and castles with their stupid parlour tricks. I never bothered with them. They were all so boring and lame."
 
"Ancestors preserve us," Zubu muttered to himself, before adding as he turned away from the hammock, "Wrong! All races have magic. Zebra and Water-backs. Bird-Pony and Ground-Pony. Others too. All the races have magic. All of them. Unicorns just flashy with their spells and supposed mastery. Pah, they've lost so much because they only concern themselves with magic connected to their Marks. Great musicians and artists they may be, but true magic-users? No, slowly they vanish and soon they be no more."
 
Zubu rolled his head and snorted as he limped into his hut only to return a moment later with his staff.
 
"You use magic to fly, cat-bird. Or did you think those pretty wings alone were responsible?"
 
"Well, yeah, I heard all about that in Flight Camp." Gilda smirked, crossing her forelegs and drumming her talons.
 
"Oh, good!" Zubu laughed. "Then why you say only Unicorn has magic?"
 
"Well..."
 
Before she could find an excuse, Zubu cut her off with a sweeping gesture. "No, Zubu really doesn't care for your reasons."
 
In the dirt in front of Gilda, Zubu began to draw and etch symbols and equations, diagrams and pictures. She couldn't understand any of it. After a few seconds, her eyes began to glaze over as Zubu muttered to himself while he worked.
 
Gilda flashed back to the classrooms of Flight Camp. She and Dash spent their time either skipping those lame and boring classes, or goofing off in the back rows. They were fliers and doers. Naturals in the sky that didn't need any of the stupid math and equations the teachers tried to teach.
 
She couldn't believe that the insane old zebra was actually going to try to teach her magic. She didn't want to learn about magic. Spells and studying were for egg-heads and Gilda had no need for them.
 
"Listen, you fixing me up and giving me a place to stay has been great and all, but I don't need some silly spells. What use would I have for being able to float light stuff in fuzzy pink auras when I have these bad-girls?" Gilda showed her claws and slid her wings open with a wide grin.
 
She waited for Zubu to realise his error, but the old zebra just cocked a brow and frowned.
 
"Oh, yes, your talons are sharp and you are fast, cat-bird," he waved his maimed leg in an airy motion.
 
"Gilda," she responded in a flat tone, tired of not being called by her name.
 
"Your name is cat-bird until you are no-longer cat-bird, yes? Good." Zubu hardly paused before sitting back, a wide grin of his own on his face. Suspecting he was up to something, Gilda narrowed her eyes. "So, you think you no need magic."
 
Gilda nodded, opening her beak for a retort, when Zubu rolled his staff down from his shoulder. A green glob of goo shot from it with a soft 'fwump' and fizzle. Like prey hearing the cry of a pouncing griffon, Gilda only started to dodge when the glob caught her and sent her spinning backward into a tree. Blinking, she found her left wing and legs stuck to the tree and holding her just high enough that only the toes of her back-right paw could touch the ground.
 
"Felb's Sticky Blob," Zubu laughed, falling backwards into the dust and dirt to roll around as he clutched his side. "Good for trapping mouthy know-it-all cat-birds, it is."
 
Struggling against the substance sticking her to the tree, Gilda let out a sharp screech.
 
"Let me down, or I'll—"
 
"You'll do nothing but sit and listen," Zubu snapped, his grin dropping into a vicious frown. "Magic flows through every living thing, through the ground and sky, through the seas and rivers, and from the stars, sun, and moon. Magic be everywhere!"
 
 With the butt of his staff, Zubu pointed at the first diagram he had drawn.
 
 "This be the runes for a simple counter to the Sticky Blob," Zubu stated, pausing at the flat glare Gilda fired back at him. "You can read it, yes? No? No, you can't." Grumbling to himself, Zubu returned to his hammock and rolled up into its swinging knotted cords. For almost a half hour he swung back and forth, muttering to himself as he observed Gilda grunt and curse against the spell. At last he pronounced, "First lesson is cat-bird getting out of spell."
 
"I've been trying," Gilda snarled back, heaving again until her entire body moaned in silent protest and she relented with a gasping wheeze.
 
"You try with muscle. Use magic. Any decent apprentice could get out of that spell in ten seconds flat. Everything you need you have."
 
Gilda reeled back as if she'd been slapped. She stared at the crazy zebra, her beak hanging open. Twisting her stare into a glare, she snarled at the zebra before turning to her wings. Gilda had known that magic was involved in flying, every youngling learned that lesson. For all the good that did her.
 
For an hour she strained, cursed, screamed, and issued threats. Zubu sat through them, relaxing in his hammock or drawing and writing in the dirt.
 
"This going to be harder than Zubu thought," he muttered to a chipped tea pot sitting above the fire-pit in the hut. To Gilda he shouted, "You do magic all wrong, cat-bird. It doesn't come from muscle, it comes from heart and head."
 
Gilda was about to issue a particularly loathsome curse when she was struck on the head by the zebra's staff. Groaning and rubbing what was going to a lump, she growled, "What was that for?"
 
"There needs to be a reason?" Zubu laughed, before pointing his good hoof up at Gilda. "Now, calm yourself, cat-bird. Steady your heart and your head. Picture—"

Shooting Zubu a foul glare, Gilda snarled, “I know how to picture magic. ‘A river that flows through the air and into your wings.’ Blah, blah mystic mumbo-jumbo.”
 
She knew antagonizing Zubu wasn’t her smartest idea. Gilda seethed, clamping her eyes tight as she attempted to remember her old flying instructors lessons from Flight Camp. It would have been easy, if not for the sharp whap and burst of pain that accompanied Zubu striking her with his staff.

“Don’t interrupt!” Zubu managed to both frown and grin at the same time. He didn’t say anything else, just looked at her expectantly, much like her flight instructor had after a very similar conversation.

Huffing, Gilda concentrated, searching for the tingle of magic in her wings. Flight was so normal, as simple as walking, and with as little thought. Her wings moved, the magic twisted, and she was airborne. She found her magic easily enough, the usually ignored sensations in her wings a little unsettling. Gilda fought down a slight tremor, nodding to Zubu.  
 
 "Good, now, holding onto the energy of your wings, the rump-thump-thump of your heart, take the magic and bend it, make it look like rune. Picture it as a root, with the second rune as the trunk, and last one as the branches."

“How in Celestia’s mane am I supposed to picture a rune as a root or trunk at the same time?” Gilda snapped, her hold on her magic faltering.

“It is simple enough, for those with the talent.” Zubu smirked as his words dug deep.
 
Feeling utterly ridiculous, Gilda did as she was told. She slowed her breath like she would just before a dive and felt the little tremors of energy that flowed through her wings, down her back to the tip of her tail, and through her legs and talons. She pictured each feather, how they felt as they swam and thrust through the air, the currents of power they touched to hold her aloft.

Above her the wind whispered through the tree, ruffling the emerald leaves and sending little ripples through the yellow lines of magic snaking and zigzagging through the bark. With the image of the runes at the front of her mind, Gilda thrust her magic into them, growling as the runes responded with something close to glee. It was silly, runes couldn’t be happy, and the idea almost caused her to lose focus. Scrambling to maintain control, GIlda directed the energy towards the tree to which she’d been bound.
 
She felt and heard a slight popping, like the cork of a bottle being opened, and tumbled to the ground. Panting a little, she flicked her free wing and tested her legs, the muscles and joints groaning.
 
 "Good, good! You may have some small talent after-all, cat-bird," Zubu nodded, a lopsided, amused grin on his face as he shuffled into his hut. "Now, let's have some dinner. Then we start second lesson."
 
 Gilda limped after Zubu, a little smile of pride at having bested his spell making her carry her head a little higher, and her heart beat a little faster.

Stretching from Vanhoover south-east across the breadth of Equestria's northern border stood a foreboding and almost impassible range of mountains. To the Equestrians they were known as the Crystalspines, so named for their jagged ice capped peaks. Tenochdeerlan had called them the Cecuiztli Tepopoloani Tepetl; Ice Death Mountains. While the buffalo named them the Tkineeha Dzil.

The great sentinels prevented travel by land, while the rocky, perpetually wind-swept shores kept all but the most foolhardy from anchoring and attempting to penetrate the Taiga by sea.

Only a single, narrow pass a days journey from Vanhoover connected the two lands. Winding through the mountains, the pass was snowy even in summer, a swift river running her length with towering falls on the Equestrian side, and a dangerous switch-back cliff on the other. A narrow bridge, rickety and rotten with age and poor maintenance crossed the river at the top of the falls.

Overlooking the northern end of the pass, at the end of the rocky and over-grown road, sat the ancestral fort of the Blizzard Singer legion. One of the earliest pegasus constructions in Equestria, made at the behest of General Hurricane following the unification of ponykind, the fort was part cloud shoved into a nook between two peaks, and half a network of cold, chilly tunnels that wound deep into the mountains heart. From the fort, the Blizzard Singers had stood vigil and excused themselves of the petty politics and agendas of their kin in the cloud citadels nestled so far to the south and east.

The isolation suited the remaining Blizzard Singers. Many of their younger members had left the fort, most returning after anywhere from a few months to years. Very few stayed away forever. It was these traveling young mares that Equestria was treated to the unique voices and songs of the Blizzard Singers.

Imperial Pegasi, the Blizzard Singers carried strong magic within their veins, magic that gave them some of the purest coloratura soprano voices on the disc. While their ancestors had used their voices to summon winter storms, giving the legion its name, the most common use for their gift for hundreds of years had been in opera houses.

Very few Blizzard Singers remained, the line diminished to a single herd, a dozen ponies living in a fort built to house hundreds.

Not that the impending end of their line worried the legion’s Commander.

All things end.

Still, there was hope. It played not far from her hooves in the form of three fillies.    

“Go on, you three,” the old matron said, sitting wrapped in a warm blanket, stones taken from the hearth placed next to her aching body.

In her prime the old matron had been a sight, tall and proud, with broad wings that had been as beautiful as Celestia’s. Now, she was bent and slow, her wings decrepit skeletal things that frightened the foals, having long since lost the last of her feathers. She kept one tied around her neck, the core pure white, flowing to a soft baby blue along the edges. All her granddaughters had her colouration, to the old matron’s delight.

“And tell your mother to come see me, you hear?” she added as the three ran past, each stopping only long enough to give her a kiss on the cheek and say, “Yessem, Grangran.”

Alone, the old matron pulled out her singular vice; a long pipe. Lighting it with a fire ruby, the gem almost as old and faded as her, she leaned back, letting out a stream of smoke from her nose like she were a dragon.

Several minutes passed in silence, only a slight wind whistling between the mountains for company, when something odd caught the old matron’s pale eye.

There, to the north, something moved within the trees, just beyond the bramble walls that served as the boundary between what was Equestria, and what was not. She squinted, peering hard at the spot, but saw nothing more. Shaking her head, she returned to her pipe.

“Must be going senile,” she huffed. “Nothings moved in or out of that forest since…”

Another shake of the head, this one to clear distant, terrible memories. She hadn’t been the Blizzard Singer’s Commander and matron when they’d arrived, a group of Canterlot unicorns on an expedition to find the Halla.

Bunch of book bound fools. But fools that had brought with them a foal, a filly nearing the age of finding her mark. They had entered the accursed forest, despite all the her warnings and pleading. It had been a couple weeks later that they turned up, their mangled and half-eaten bodies deposited in the night at the lower doors into the fort.

The unicorns’ bodies had been returned to their families, those with families, and the years had rolled on with no further activity or sign of the Halla. Among those who hadn’t been returned was the filly. The old matron had for a time wondered if perhaps she’d been rescued and raised among the noble savages of the north. In time the hope had seccumbed to practicality. If the Halla had cared enough to raise the filly, they would have prevented the massacre of her herd.

The old matron didn’t like to think of that failure.

She’d just started to turn to shout for her daughter when somepony emerged from the forest.

The Halla—nothing else civilised lived in the north—stood under the open sky looking up at the pass for a full minute before starting forward again.

“Celestia’s mane…” the old matron whispered, leaning forward in her chair, mouth hanging open in wonder and shock.

More and more halla stepped from the forest. Behind the one that had come first was a banner bearer, the crimson banner waving forlornly in the wind sweeping down the mountains.

“Mother, Aria said you…”

The matron’s daughter, Breezy Guide, stopped next to her mother, spotting the growing line of halla.

“What? But… This… What?” Her words tumbled out, mouth flapping up and down as her mind refused to process what it was seeing.

Hundreds of halla had left the forest. Already their leaders had reached the narrow path up the pass.

“Breezy, in my desk is a box with our legion's crest on it. Inside you’ll find three scrolls with coloured ribbons. Take the yellow one and fly it to the garrison in Stratovale.”

Mutely nodding, Breezy dashed back into the fort, re-emerging only a few minutes later wearing a set of saddlebags. She kissed her mother, and set off, her large wings gliding with ease down the pass. As Breezy vanished, the old matron made out the notes of a song, slow and sad, one of mourning and loss.

Across, across. Winter dells,
And o’er- valley- forge-,
Away, away, we must fly,
To save our sickly kin. 

From land of Sun she came, 
A fawn white and pure,
The wolf of ice at her throat,
Saved by brother bears.

‘neath the Raven wings she grew,
Broken by family lost, 
Alone, alone. A herd of one,
Until she found the Stars.

Wolves taught her to grow,
Bears to fight and stand,
Raven spell deadly and true,
To serve her herd, and lands

‘neath the moon did love dwell,
Purpose and hope grew,
Natured in her heart of gold,
Birthed in hidden vale.

Sick and weak, Her-love-would-not-last,
Three and three they would be,
Away, away we must fly
To save the White Hind.

Beneath the forest she did descend,
To face the dead in their den,
The Crystal of Lust,
She found for the ally of sin.

On the wings of Rocs she flew,
To the Tree of Life,
There to confront,
And to betray.

The Friend slain.
The Archon called.
The Fiend lain low.
The Queen in Stone.

Her daughter saved,
By her sacrifice.

Across, across. Winter dells,
And o’er valley forge,
Away, away, we must fly,
To save our sickly kin.