//------------------------------//
// A Stranger Who Found An Even Stranger War 
// Story: Equestrian Joe 
// by HellRyden 
//------------------------------//

Chapter 11: A Stranger Who Found An Even Stranger War

As it turned out, the Mane Six had a couple more weeks ahead of them that they had planned to spend in Canterlot, what with Twilight wanting to have some time to speak with Princess Celestia and visit her brother and parents while here. It wasn’t something that I had much of a problem with, though - all it did was give me more opportunities to slip through Celestia's watch.

When Pinkie and AJ dropped by the next day to visit, Flash was my guard for the day, and indirectly getting the girls to keep him and Bitworth busy was just as easy as it was yesterday. Once the time for my 'afternoon workout' rolled around, I excused myself from the room again as Flash busied himself with making conversation with Pinkie and AJ, and I quietly slunk through the door before getting my climbing equipment out again.

Ten minutes later I had rappelled down to the same floor as yesterday, and was going about on another data-gathering trip. The royal guards I'd eavesdropped on yesterday had mentioned something about attacks occurring on Equestria's borders, but I had little more information than that. It was time to rectify that.

After about ten minutes of filtering through the chaff of castle gossip, I was finally able to pick up from where I had left off yesterday, eavesdropping on a pair of well-dressed members of the Equestrian nobility passing through the hallway beneath me while I hugged the pipe on the ceiling, keeping as quiet as possible.

"So what's the latest word on that little tizzy going on at the borders?" One of the nobles asked his companion in a high, nasal voice that bordered on insipid, never once taking his nose off the lofty summit it occupied at the very top of his posture. "I don’t suppose the princess finally decided to do something about it by sending more troops over?”

“I hear that most of the Manehatten Iron Guard were mobilized to deal with it. Some dreadful business with hostages at some village in the North-East, close to Stalliongrad… what was it called? Peach-Fjord? That lot of attackers seemed awfully bold!” He sneered with almost disgusting disinterest, like he didn’t care. “Worst of all was the damage to the bridges outside town were destroyed as the brutes tried to make off with their victims. Now I can’t supply my wineries with the Peaches from the farms I own!” The other noble scoffed. 

“Seems ridiculous that the Guard could be so reckless with hostages. I hear they didn’t even bother negotiating with the attackers, they just stormed them and cut them down!”

“Well, as long as there weren’t any fatalities amongst the hostages, I suppose there’s no harm, no foul.” The conversation continued, with both nobles none the wiser about the eavesdropper just a couple of metres above them. “The Guard’s rapid response Storm Trooper teams ARE trained for this sort of thing, after all. I’m just glad that none of the ponies got carried off - most of my paying customers come from Peach-Fjord, and it would be simply dreadful if any of my clients’ payments got delayed simply because of a little kidnapping.”

Okay, I thought nobles were self-serving, ignorant, bigoted sycophants before this, but this was just disgusting to listen to. I’d heard what I came here to find out, and it was disturbing news indeed - more attacks were indeed going down on the border, and yet another corps/legion/whatever the hell they called the various groups of the Equestrian Guard was being mobilized to deal with it. I let the two nobles continue on their way as I quietly stayed where I was, and once they were out of sight I dropped down to the ground and took cover inside the nearest broom closet, digesting the information I’d just gotten.

The question was, then, who exactly was behind the attacks? I still didn’t know if Equestria was just fighting off rogue bandits, or was it actual government-sanctioned assaults from the Griffonian government that we were dealing with here. Granted, from the fact that the two nobles had been talking about hostages, it was unlikely that the attacks were something that were sanctioned by the Griffonian government, but all the same, you never knew. Assumptions were a dangerous business, and I had learned long ago never to make them if I could help it.

I poked around for about thirty more minutes, and was lucky enough to be able to find two more conversations to eavesdrop on that got me the information I needed; one from a pair of overly-talkative Royal Guards, both rookies from the looks of them, and the second from a trio of loose-tongued palace servants who were trading gossip on the matter.

As it turned out, the information the nobles had gotten off the grapevine hadn’t been that far off the mark - the Equestrian Guard’s Storm Trooper teams (damn it, there was that strange sense of déjà vu again) had indeed managed to save most of the hostages that had been the victims of attempted kidnapping; attempted being the operative word. The identity of the culprits, on the other hand, was something totally new to me. I never knew that Griffonians had extremists, but all the same, the news of a Griffon terrorist group making border raids and attempting to make off with loot and hostages, all in the name of ‘reclaiming lost territories and rights’, didn’t surprise me as much as I thought it would.

Apparently, even across worlds, certain things still never changed.

Even organizational names that end up in rather unfortunate-sounding acronyms, like the Griffonian Territorial Freedom Organization.

I had to wonder, considering the fact that they were attacking Equestrian territories that they perceived as formerly belonging to them, if the irony of their name wasn’t lost on them.

That being said, while the Guard had managed to retrieve most of the hostages before the Griffonian terrorists had managed to make off with them, a few raiding parties had managed to escape with their victims, and were now holding the hostages for ransom. The Griffonian Hierarchy, though, was denying any involvement in these attacks, and was giving its full cooperation with the Equestrian Principality in retrieving its abducted citizens, judging from what I had heard from the palace servants who were gossiping as though they had been around when Celestia had been meeting with the Griffon Ambassador.

Of course, I was under no illusions on how long that would take, judging from what I had learned about the bureaucratic process while I had been in the army. By the time both governments came to a consensus, it would already be far too late for the poor victims being held hostage.

And while my mind was in the midst of digesting all of this, I got mite too distracted, and as a result I got blindsided when I turned around the corner and ran into the last pony I thought I would encounter.

“Oof!” The white-furred stallion I had bumped into stumbled backwards a step as he recovered, and he immediately began dusting himself off. “Watch where you’re going, servant! This suit is worth five times your annual pay, and my tailors didn’t spend weeks getting me fitted only for-”

The speech abruptly cut off as the stallion looked down at me and realized just who he was talking to, and Prince Blueblood’s eyes turned as wide as dinner plates. “A peasant!? Filthy commoner swine, how did you get inside the castle!? Who permitted you inside!?”

Aw, fuck me, why the hell did it have to be him of all ponies?

Blueblood fixed me with a baleful glare that was evidently meant to intimidate me and lock me in place, and it utterly failed to do so. Not that he knew it, of course - the empty-headed ponce simply looked down at me from the bridge of his nose as I simply kept silent, my mind racing to come up with a way out, and his eyebrow twitched when he realized that he was being faced with someone who seemed to be simply not impressed or intimidated by his social standing. “Oh, playing the silence game, are we? Well, let’s see how talkative you’ll be when the guards are here!”

Abruptly, my heart rate spiked as the prince turned around, barking out a sharp order to the hallway behind him, where a Royal Guard patrol would undoubtedly be patrolling a couple of corridors away, able to respond to his order within moments, and my frantic mental planning nearly erupted into outright panic. Within a minute or two, they would already be here, carrying the chains and irons that they would most probably be clapping me in before dragging me off into the dungeons, and Celestia was then going to need to make a lot of awkward explanations before getting me out… if she was feeling inclined to do so in the first place.

Which was why by the time Blueblood had finished barking out his order and he had turned his gaze back to me, I was already gone.

I wish I could’ve stuck around to see the expression on his face when I’d given him the slip, but unfortunately I couldn’t observe much from the ledge I was hanging on to for dear life, right below the window that had been conveniently adjacent to us when he had blindsided me. All I saw as I looked up was a blonde-maned head sticking itself out the window for a couple of seconds, looking left and right, and when he didn’t find the unknown commoner that had managed to mysteriously vanish from his sight, he went away, no doubt wondering if he had been partying too hard last night if fanon regarding his character was anything to go by.

I waited a couple more moments after his head had disappeared back inside the window before climbing my way back up, my heart still hammering in my chest at the sheer closeness of the call I’d just gone through. Immediately, I decided that this was going to be the last of the risks I was going to be taking today. No more sneaking around; I had most definitely outstayed my welcome here.

Fortunately, I managed to get back to my suite without any further incident, and re-emerged into the suite’s main room to see that Applejack and Pinkie Pie had already left. Flash was seated on one of the suite’s couches, idly leafing through a couple of the books from the room’s various shelves, but Bitworth was nowhere to be seen.

“Hey Flash,” I called out, and the pegasus’ head snapped upwards to look at me. “Where’s Bitworth?”

“He left to escort ladies Applejack and Pinkie Pie out. I figured he could use something to do, since you seem to be telling him to take care of them instead of you each time the girls pop over.” Flash shrugged as he shut the book in his hooves and looked curiously at me. “Brick told me how yesterday went. You know, you do realize that Bitworth was assigned to you as your caretaker for a reason, right?”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t take care of myself,” I answered off-handedly as I flopped onto the bed and tried to make it look casual, trying to conceal my rising nervousness. Damn it, and I was hoping that they hadn’t begun to catch on to what I was up to. “I am a grown adult, you know.”

“Sure, whatever you say, pal.” Flash shrugged, appearing not entirely convinced but still amicable enough to drop the subject, if only to pick something even worse as he continued looking at me with that discerning stare. “Still, Joe, you were in that workout room of yours for almost an hour. That’s not too odd on its own, but I have a little brother at home who practices his martial arts in his room, and even I can still hear something while he’s exercising. It was awfully quiet in that room when you were inside.”

I tried to keep my expression under control even as my heart leapt to my throat, and fought to keep my voice neutral as I replied casually, “Soundproofing. Privacy purposes, y’know?”

“Uh huh, right…” Flash simply nodded, but he didn't seem any more convinced than before. Thankfully, he didn't pursue the subject any further, and simply gestured at a plate of biscuits and a cup of tea still resting on the coffee table. "Well, Bitworth left out some afternoon tea for us, so you might as well dig in while it's still there."

I thanked the pegasus guard as I walked over to the table and sat down before digging into the snacks, an amicable silence settling down comfortably around us as Flash went back to reading his book. No words were exchanged, but while Flash was probably taking it as some quiet time to relax, I was considering it anything but.

My mind continued churning with my thoughts as I turned over and dissected every scrap of information I'd collected downstairs in my head while I ate, picking the intel apart for the important stuff and filtering out the chaff. As far as I could tell, the situation thus far was that Equestria was being attacked on its borders by an extremist Griffonian terrorist group, Griffonian Councillor Sigrid something-or-other was simultaneously calling for the annexation of the Whinnean mountains, and more and more regiments of the Equestrian Guard were being mobilized to deal with the military threat while Princess Celestia was busy trying to fend off the diplomatic one.

It wasn’t a pretty picture, honestly speaking, but now that I had a more-or-less complete idea of what was happening out there, I could finally start thinking about my next course of action… the options for which were woefully limited, unfortunately. In fact, only one reasonably feasible option was open to me, since I really didn’t feel like having to sneak out all Solid Snake-like every time I wanted to foray outwards from my suite.

Unless I was able to strike a deal of some sort with Celestia, I was going to be stuck inside here, confined to my room, for the foreseeable future… which probably included the point in time when the war actually broke out, and the proverbial shit had finally hit the fan. Call me paranoid if you will, but I preferred to actually have freedom of choice and movement on my side when the Griffonians inevitably came knocking.

So now, all that stood between me and a potential messy end at the hand of a group of Griffonian warmongers that I could do absolutely nothing about, was an audience with a millenia-old goddess who embodied the power of one of the most primal forces of nature, asking her for what amounted to letting a tiger roam free in her beloved city.

Yep, definitely no biggie at all.

I spent the next several hours just thinking over it wordlessly, trying to figure out how I would gain that audience with Celestia without arousing suspicion about my recent activities, and then how I could frame my request such that she wouldn’t immediately reject it out of hand. Flash spent the rest of the evening sitting in the corner, reading quietly, and I took advantage of the silence to try and concentrate on my current predicament.

Hours later, when I finally gave up on the twisting circles I’d been going in within my mind, the pegasus guard was still up reading, and I went to bed with the knowledge that by the time I woke up the next morning, Starfall would have somehow silently swapped places with him the way they always did whenever changing shifts.

The unicorn lieutenant wasn’t one who was much for conversation and idle chatter, but that was just as well. I was probably going to be spending a lot of time thinking rather than talking tomorrow. It was also probably for the best that I’d decided to hold off on any further forays downstairs right before Starfall was due to start her shift. She would definitely notice if anything was amiss, and I didn’t think I would have been able to slip anything by her. A low profile would do me a lot more good right now than actively skulking about, and I went to bed for the first time in days not worrying about what I was going to be doing tomorrow.

---

The next few days passed by uneventfully - there wasn’t even a peep from any of my guards about a certain prince kicking up a fuss about some unidentified commoner lurking about in the castle. Rarity, Twilight and Applejack dropped by a couple more times to visit, with Pinkie Pie hanging on to their group every single time, though Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy were both nowhere to be seen during both occasions.

Once, Twilight even brought Shining Armor along to introduce her brother to me, apparently having sought Celestia’s permission for it. Though, I doubted that was really necessary - as the commanding officer of my three personal guards, he probably knew all about me and what I really was already, even if he had never personally met me. I didn’t really speak with him that much during the one time he visited, but from the first impression I got from our conversations, I felt that the unicorn captain was someone I could definitely trust during my time here.

Overall, the quiet lull of inactivity over those few days was more than welcome, as I continued formulating my strategies on how I would approach Celestia. In fact, it was so quiet that I was starting to think that I’d managed to get away clean with my escapades downstairs… that is, until I woke up one morning to find the Solar Princess standing right next to my bed.

“Good morning, Joseph,” Celestia greeted me with a bemused grin while I untangled myself from the sheets I’d gotten myself caught in via my surprised, uncontrolled tumble from the bed. “I trust I’m not interrupting anything?”

“No, no, by all means, do pop up right next to my bed unannounced whenever you feel like giving me a heart attack in the morning,” I deadpanned before my brain caught up with my mouth, and the look of chagrin on my face was more than enough to widen the smile she was wearing at my expense. “You know, a little bit of advance warning would’ve been appreciated, Princess.”

“And spoil the surprise?” The white alicorn answered with one of her infamous Trollestia grins, and she stepped back to give me some space as I got up, grabbed a change of clothes and went behind the changing screen to start getting dressed. “Besides, I do believe I owe you an answer by now about how the search for a way back to your homeland is going.”

“Yeah, I was wondering what had happened to that after all these weeks.” I remarked dryly as I stepped out from behind the screen, wearing one of the sets of clothing Rarity had tailored for me - a black pair of tough, leather pants, paired off with a white fitted silk shirt that hung comfortably off me like a second skin. Damn, but that seamstress knew her work, I marvelled silently - just a few glances and she already had my measurements down pat. I seriously had to thank her for it more sincerely the next time I saw her. “So, what’s the word on it?” I prompted the princess, already half-expecting what I knew her answer was probably going to be.

“I am deeply sorry, but other matters of national importance have occupied our attention lately. I have just been unable to spare the ponypower to mount a search.” Celestia bowed her head towards me in a surprising show of humility that almost took me aback. “I understand that after so long, you must have started feeling rather frustrated and cooped up inside this suite of yours no matter how luxurious it is, no?”

“You know, actually, apart from the fact that I’m probably millions of miles away from home and am going to be stuck here for the foreseeable future, I could actually get used to living here.” I deadpanned, smirking wryly. “I mean, the food is good, I’ve got stuff to keep me occupied, and I don’t have any obligations whatsoever! What’s so bad about being stuck in a castle with your every need being taken care of, even if you’re the only one of your own species around?”

Celestia laughed at the little jibe, and she gave me a matronly look. “Come now, Joseph, let us be frank and call a spade a spade, shall we? Your conditions lately have been nothing more than that of a bird being trapped in a gilded cage - I suppose that is why you went on those little secretive excursions out of your suites while Twilight and her friends were visiting, correct?

The princess’ knowing smile only got wider as I visibly blanched and looked at her sheepishly. “So, you knew about those, huh?”

"Well, it was rather entertaining to watch you skulk about in the shadows trying not to be seen, when I would have explained the situation to the guards and gotten you pardoned if you had been caught." The immortal princess chuckled, giving me an amused grin. "I also thought it would be a good opportunity to see just what you thought you could get away with when nopony was watching. I saw how good you were at evading our patrols, and the little slip you gave Prince Blueblood that left my nephew thinking he hallucinated the whole thing - I enjoyed that little display, by the way. You showed a remarkable amount of restraint. Given your skills, you could have had almost free reign of the castle, yet you chose to try to disrupt it as little as possible. I respect that sort of prudence in an individual."

"How do you know what kind of skills I have?" I raised an eyebrow at her, not quite believing what I was hearing. Celestia actually wasn't mad at me for breaking the rules she had set and sneaking out of my suite? And she had actually been watching what I was doing the entire time? If I didn't know better, I would have called 'stalker' on the whole thing, but my gut started telling me that when a millennia old goddess who ruled over an entire nation had been watching you enough to take note of your 'skills', more likely than not it was going to be for some sort of purpose.

I already had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that I knew where this was headed.

“Let’s just say that I’ve been around long enough to be able to tell at a glance when somepony has already been baptized in the fires and shadows of war,” Celestia answered simply, still giving me the unreadable expression of the practiced dissembler. Whatever was going on in her head, I couldn’t even come close to getting a read on it. “And it is exactly the sort of thing I am in need of right now. I shall be frank with you, Joseph, so let us not waste any more time mincing words. I came here to ask for your help.”

Great, so the stranger to the magical land which he stumbled into by accident is now the only one who can save it. I groaned internally as the tropes continued piling up. Why am I not surprised? I couldn’t even get out of Equestria without getting dragged into some epic conflict of some sort, huh?

 However, as much as the entire situation sounded like some sort of bad fantasy cliché, I still had to face the facts. When I thought about just what Princess Celestia was going to be asking of me, I couldn’t deny the fact that deep down, at least some part of me, probably the part less connected with reality, had wished for exactly this sort of thing to happen to me at some point during my life. Granted, I hadn’t exactly envisioned it to be occurring under these sort of circumstances, but beggars couldn’t be choosers, right?

“And what could you possibly need little old me for?” I asked Celestia innocently, trying my best not to start sweating bullets. If what was happening here was really what I thought was happening, then I might just be on the precipice of a chain of events from which there would be absolutely no return. “I mean, you know that I know about the border raids you’ve been suffering thanks to that griffonian terrorist group, but don’t you already have entire contingents of soldiers and royal guards for this sort of thing? What difference could I make?”

“The right pony in the wrong place can make all the difference in the world, Joseph,” Celestia said, and a slight chill ran down my back as the sound of another man’s voice saying almost those exact same words, but with all the inflections in the wrong places, echoed through my mind. “My sister, Princess Luna, and I have been debating this course of action for many nights now, and though she is more distrustful of outsiders than I am, I believe that it is time we entrusted you with the knowledge of what is happening in our kingdom right now.”

I nodded wordlessly, my mouth going dry as the sensation of standing upon a precipice intensified, and Celestia continued speaking. “As you would probably have learned by now, tensions between us and the Griffonian Hierarchy are high now, given the border raids that we have been suffering, and though we have been unable to obtain definitive proof so far, my agents are very sure that they are operating out of Hierarchy territory. With Councillor Stormbrewer simultaneously calling for the annexation of the Whinnean Mountains and whipping his supporters into a frenzy, diplomatic relations between us and the Hierarchy are… tenuous, at best. The general of the Equestrian Guard has been clamoring for me to grant him permission to send our soldiers into Hierarchy territory to hunt the terrorists down, and it is all I can do just to manage this diplomatic nightmare. Both of our kingdoms now teeter on the brink of disaster. We are standing in a very precarious position right now, Joseph - all it will take is the slightest push to tip the scale, and I fear that war is a very real danger right now.”

“So basically, you’re all sitting on a powder keg, and it’s only a matter of time before somebody lights the match.” I summarized, and Celestia nodded gravely. “Well, sorry if this seems ignorant of me, but remind me who this Councillor Stormbrewer is supposed to be again?” That much was news to me, because there had never been any mention of any named griffons in canonical events save for Gilda. I needed to find out who this new name was if I wanted to have any idea of what I was getting into.

“He is a prominent member of the Hierarchy’s ruling Council of Elders, who are led by the Primarch, and is one of their most outspoken right-wing politicians as well,” The solar princess explained as we shifted the conversation to the sofas around the suite’s coffee table. “Traditionalist, conservative, whatever term you wish to use to call it, he is the foremost individual amongst the griffons who wish for a return to the days before the Treaty of Whinneas. The days before the establishment of the Hierarchy, when they believed themselves superior to us, and sought to prove themselves as the master race of this world.”

“And judging from the lack of fascist griffons walking around, I suppose you guys fought them to a standstill or something?” I guessed, and Celestia nodded.

“It was a long, and costly war, one that nearly brought both of our kingdoms to their knees. It is... something I would not like to see a repeat of. But perhaps I should start at the beginning, so that you might better understand just what is happening here.” The solar princess continued, and I settled myself in for what seemed to be a lengthy history lesson. “The Griffons were originally a very proud warrior race, and they still are, though their pride has been somewhat tempered in the more recent centuries. In the distant past, more than a thousand years ago, they were once a mighty, singular kingdom, and they were thought by many for centuries to be indivisible and undefeatable by any… save for their own pride and greed.”

Celestia’s expression grew heavy, and I realized to my startlement that her expression was one of reminiscence - it seemed as though she had actually been there when the first Griffonian kingdom had collapsed. I'd always known that the Princess had been around for at least thousands of years, but this was the first tangible sign I had seen of just how old she was. 

Before I could say anything, however, the princess quickly recomposed herself, and she continued her explanation. “When their first empire finally collapsed under the weight of its own corruption, the seven noble houses of the empire each formed their own Successor States, and the entire Griffonian kingdom dissolved into a bloody series of conflicts that we know as the Succession Wars. During these civil wars, each Successor State was governed by the House that founded it, and they were responsible for the griffonian citizens under their banner. The Succession Wars lasted for centuries, and much of their technology, culture, and knowledge of the arcane arts was lost in the savage fighting. Councillor Stormbrewer’s family was one of the oldest and most powerful of the Griffonian Houses when the fighting broke out, and after centuries of warfare with the others, they were also the first House to rediscover the innate power of the Griffon species: Furycrafting.”

The princess then looked at me oddly as I recovered from my sudden coughing fit, and I tried to maintain a poker face as I gestured for her to continue. Okay, I had not been expecting that. I mean, seriously, furycrafting? I thought I’d been hearing things when I heard the Griffonian ambassador mention that when I’d been eavesdropping on him and his guards, but apparently my ears had not been shitting me; the griffons really did have a mystical ability that shared the exact same name as the elemental powers of the Alerans from the Codex: Alera - yet another Jim Butcher reference.

Of course, whether this meant that I would eventually be going up against firebenders and the like in the near future, only time would tell, but the appearance of yet another name that matched up exactly with what I had read back on earth had shaken me something fierce. Forcing the distraction out of my head, I continued listening to what Celestia had to say.

“Using their newfound abilities, House Stormbrewer began systematically conquering their neighbouring Successor States and forcing the other clans to bow to their rule over the next several decades.” Celestia continued. “Eventually, every last Griffonian clan was brought underneath the Stormbrewer banner, reunifying the Griffonian Empire, with House Stormbrewer as the acting rulers of their kingdom.”

“So, essentially it was a dictatorship?” I remarked wryly. “You know, those never actually worked out well back where I came from. I can’t imagine that the whole empire thing could have gone very well for the Stormbrewers either.”

“Oh, you’d be surprised.” Celestia gave me a bemused smirk. “The Stormbrewers were actually very competent rulers, for they were the only ones amongst the noble Houses who had any vision at all for what they wished Griffonia to be. Councillor Stormbrewer’s ancestor, Ulfric Stormbrewer, had a vision of a unified Griffonia, and he managed the near-impossible. He succeeded in not only unifying seven different warring states after they had gone through a bloody series of wars, but also led them to prosper… at least, until they grew discontent with the lands they already had, and sought to expand outwards.”

“Yeah, sounds pretty familiar. I get what you mean,” I chuckled as I thought of Hitler’s attempts to rebuild and strengthen post-WWI Nazi Germany, which would eventually led to the eruption of World War II and Germany’s inevitable second downfall. Drawing the parallels between the two, I couldn’t help but think that Ulfric Stormbrewer had ended up leading his empire down the exact same road. “There’s a fairly well-known bit of history back where I come from that goes down pretty much the same way. I assume that Ulfric met a fair bit of resistance when he started expanding his empire outward?”

“More than you know,” Celestia’s smile had a hint of amusement in it. “Griffonia’s expansion was contested by only two other major powers - the dragon clans of Draconica, and us, the Principality of Equestria. Between the two of us, it was rather obvious which nation they would choose to attempt to expand into.”

“Yeah, because attacking an entire nation of badass fully-grown dragons is totally a great idea that will totally not result in getting your ass handed to you on a silver platter,” I chuckled. “So they thought you guys would be easy pickings then, huh?”

“They certainly did have that impression, but we were quick to educate them otherwise.” The humor in Celestia’s smirk disappeared as her expression turned dark. “The Griffonian Empire attacked us in force, attempting to take our lands for themselves. The Equestrian Guard suffered many losses during that war, and much of our lands were ravaged in the midst of all the fighting, but we did not go without a fight. We retaliated against each of their attacks with equal force, responding in kind with every attack to show that if they wanted our lands, they were going to have to pay for it in blood.”

“As the war had dragged on, Ulfric was steadily growing older and his mind growing more unstable. His actions became paranoid, erratic, and by the time we finally ground their invasion to a halt with our victory at the Battle of Whinneapylae, House Stormbrewer had become quite unpopular in Griffonia. Not just because of Ulfric’s growing paranoia, but also for all of the resources and soldiers they had been throwing into a war that was proving too costly to be fought when we would have just as readily opened up trade talks with them. Rebellion was not far behind from there, and soon enough the Stormbrewer dictatorship was brought crashing down from the inside by the other noble Houses they had subjugated.”

“Well, there has to be some sort of catch there, right?” I raised an eyebrow. “I mean, what was to stop them from fighting over who gets to rule over the empire once they’d overthrown the Stormbrewers? Nothing would have changed then.”

“Well, we were the catch, young Joseph,” Celestia answered, smiling. “Once we had managed to reach an armistice and begin negotiating a peace treaty with them, we offered our services as mediators and peacemakers to the Griffonian Houses to… how you say… ‘sweeten the deal’ with them.”

Celestia grinned to herself at that, as though enjoying some private little joke, and she continued with her explanation. “Once we had helped them to settle their differences, we aided them in forming their new government in exchange for trading rights and a formal alliance to be established between the two of us. The new Griffonian Hierarchy’s ruling government was formed out of each of the original families, ruling together in concert with the head of each House taking a position in a ruling Council, headed by a single Primarch who would be elected from the ranks of the Council every five years to serve a tenure of leadership.”

“So, instead of them fighting wars over the position of top dog, you turned them towards the games of words and politics.” I smirked, impressed with the way the Equestrians had so cleverly turned the Griffonian government around on its head without even firing so much as a single shot. “Very clever of you, Princess.”

“Oh please, you give us too much credit,” Celestia laughed. “We merely gave them the ideas and inspiration that they needed - the noble Houses did the rest on their own. Once the Council of Elders was established and a Primarch was chosen, we left them to their own affairs, and relations between our kingdoms have been peaceful for centuries.”

“Until now,” I pointed out, and Celestia nodded gravely.

“Yes, until now.” The princess of the sun sighed. “House Stormbrewer was faced with a lot of opposition when we suggested that they have a seat on the Council of Elders as well. The other noble Houses had originally meant to exclude them from the Council entirely, and it was only through our counsel that the Stormbrewers were allowed to rule alongside the other Houses to begin with. Yet even then, ever since the formation of the Hierarchy, not a single Stormbrewer has ever been elected to serve as Primarch. This has left Ulfric’s descendants bitter, disenchanted…”

“And wishing dearly for the days back when they were in charge,” I finished for her as it clicked, and Celestia nodded in affirmation. 

So, I thought to myself. That’s what Councillor Stormbrewer’s motive is. He thought that if Griffonia could be brought back to its supposed glory days before the formation of the Hierarchy, if he could sway the like-minded portion of the populace with a sufficient display of strength to win them over to his side, he might be able to install himself as Primarch... or better yet, stage a coup to overthrow the Council of Elders entirely and rule as a Stormbrewer dictator once more.

No prizes necessary for guessing what he would be doing next once he was top dog amongst the griffons once again.

“So, this Councillor Stormbrewer is the one inciting civil unrest in the Hierarchy, and at the same time, you’ve got this terrorist group tearing up your borders. Your general wants to get permission to invade Hierarchy territory in order to hunt down those terrorists, yet you can’t do so without inciting more of the Hierarchy’s wrath and giving Stormbrewer even more cause to go to war with you. Am I right so far?” I asked, and the princess nodded.

“Yes, but that is not all. There is something else that you should know, and it is the same reason why I have come to ask for your help,” Celestia replied. “The timing of these attacks on our borders, coupled with the sudden show of local griffonian support for Councillor Stormbrewer’s political movement, is too convenient for it to be credited to sheer coincidence. I have a feeling that things are not quite as much as they seem, and I suspect that there might be another party at work behind the scenes trying to play us against each other. It is for this reason that I hoped to enlist the aid of an outsider, one who would have the benefit of an external perspective, to examine this situation from the outside, and hopefully discover who this mysterious third party is and what their motives are.”

“And let me guess, that outsider would be me,” I guessed with a wry smirk, and Celestia returned it with a bemused nod. “So, how much did your sister dislike this idea again?”

“Enough that she won’t be speaking to me for the next few days once she finds out that I went ahead with my decision anyway, but she’ll come around eventually.” Celestia chuckled. “So, young Joseph, what will it be? I cannot order you to do this, nor can I offer you any form of payment or reward, because I know that material possessions would mean little to you in a world that you are a stranger to. All I can do is ask: will you be willing to aid us in this respect in our kingdom's time of need?

And there it was. My chance to dive headfirst into the brewing storm that was hovering over Equestria, to make a mark in the events that was Equestrian history in the making, and to bring to life one of the fantasies of grandeur I had spent years privately entertaining in my head, having resigned myself to the fact that those dreams were never going to come true… until now.

All it would take was my whole-hearted commitment to a cause that would most likely get me killed eventually, the forfeiture of a return trip back to Earth any time soon, and the fact that I would most probably be stuck here for good.

Okay God, it’s been a nice psychedelic trip so far, but could I please wake up now?

Conflicting thoughts and desires raged about in my head in such chaos that my mind was practically a battlefield, as my thoughts wrestled and fought with one another. As much as my more delusional side wanted to grab at this chance for its fantasies to be fulfilled, my more rational side still managed to keep enough of a grip on its sense of self-preservation to remind me that this whole thing was just insane, and that getting myself involved in their affairs was probably going to be a very bad, very dangerous idea.

Unfortunately for me, I also had a track record of going along with very bad, very dangerous ideas.

Faces began to flash through my mind, names that meant the world to me, and I realized that if I decided to go through with this, I was going to be leaving behind a lot more than I thought I would be. Friends, family, my loved ones… If time had been passing through here at the same rate as the real world, I would probably have been missing for months now. 

My family and friends were probably worried sick about me, and I was most probably presumed dead. Common sense dictated that by all rights, I should have been doing my damndest to try to get back to them - people were waiting for me back home. If it weren’t for the fact that the portal was in some undetermined location in the Everfree forest that I would probably die before ever reaching, I would have left Canterlot myself weeks ago and searched for a way back on my own. The circumstances weren’t exactly in favor of me returning to Earth here, no matter how much I wished I could go back.

And besides, if somebody in need asked me for help, and I felt that it was within my capacity to do so, I couldn’t have turned them down any more than I could have forced myself to stop breathing. Celestia wasn’t ordering me to stay in Equestria to help her - she was asking. Nicely.

Orders that she could have given by throwing around the weight of her crown were something I could have easily dismissed out of hand by simply telling to her face that she had no sovereign authority over me. But when she had requested for my help instead of outright forcing me to do it, impressing upon me how dire the straits Equestria was in were, it made it that much harder for me to turn her down. I couldn't turn my back on her, on an Equestria in need - I just couldn't.

You are so going to regret this one of these days, My more rational side reminded me one last time before he quieted down for good, and I braced myself internally for the metaphorical leap I was about to take. "All right, Princess, you had my curiosity, but now you have my attention. Let's say that I agree to help you and place my skills at your service - what exactly would you have in mind for me, then?"

I had to give the Princess credit. Even as I gave her the answer she had more than probably been hoping dearly for, she kept her composure and didn't show any outside sign of relief whatsoever. "What I would have in mind, young Joseph, would be for you to be given the authority to roam the castle and the city as a guard would without being questioned, so that you would be able to serve as my eyes and ears. Listen to what you hear and watch what you see closely, and should you spot any anomalies or strange patterns that you can interpret, I would need you to bring them to my attention immediately.”

“Hmm, sounds easy enough.” I stroked my chin thoughtfully as I mused over the circumstances. All in all, she was just asking me to just keep an ear out and report any unusual findings to her - not undertake a one-man stealth mission deep within Griffonian territory to take down the terrorist group or assassinate Councillor Stormbrewer, which honestly speaking was what I had been half-expecting to hear from her.

Compared to that, the mission Celestia had given me seemed laughably easy. Adding on the fact that I would be given the freedom to roam about as I saw fit, which was what I had been planning on asking Celestia for to begin with, if I took Celestia up on her offer, I would pretty much be killing two birds with one stone... Albeit with a decidedly higher risk to myself now that I was obligated to put myself in harm's way if completing the task Celestia had given me necessitated it.

Although, when I really thought about it, I realized that whatever the choice entailed, it was still better than being stuck inside this suite every single day, that was for sure.

With the faces of my family and friends hovering at the edges of my mind, whispering to me of just what I was consciously leaving behind, I took a deep breath and pushed past them, extending a hand. “All right, Princess. You’ve got a deal. I am at your service.”

Placing a hoof in my outstretched hand, Celestia shook on it with a knowing smile as though she had known all along what I had been going to say, and her horn sparked as a small, badge-sized token flashed into existence next to her.

“Then thank you, Joseph Ryan, for agreeing to aid us. It is a decision I know that you have not made lightly,” The princess thanked me as she levitated the token towards me. As I plucked it from the air to inspect it, she continued speaking as her voice took on a decidedly official overtone. “Thus I have decided to ensure that the gravity of what I am about to bestow upon you appropriately fits the magnitude of the decision you have made. This badge has been marked with my personal seal of authority, and you can use it to bypass almost any security barrier or form of bureaucratic red tape that might otherwise impede your investigations. I trust that you will not misuse or abuse the power that I have just granted you."

The princess couldn't have made it a more blatant Test of Character even if she'd tried. Still, as I looked at the badge-sized medallion that she had given me, embossed with the emblem of a blazing sun, I couldn’t help but think about all the things I could do and get away with just by using this token alone… Right before I viciously quashed the urge as I thought about the gesture of trust that Celestia was extending to me. If I broke it, that would just be the epitome of dick moves, not to mention that I sure as hell didn’t want to piss off the supreme ruler of a nation right when I was right in the seat of her power.

No, this token had the kind of power and authority that I had to respect when using it. There was no telling what I could screw up if I went around mucking about with things that I hadn’t been meant to find out. If I wanted to keep Celestia’s trust and not royally screw anything up, I was going to have to use it as Celestia had intended it for me, and nothing else.

“You have my word that it shall be used as you had intended.” I promised as I pocketed the token. “So, when do I start?”

“You may begin your investigation tomorrow,” Celestia replied. “Since you will be seen quite often in the castle and Canterlot from now onwards, you will need an alternate identity that the guards can associate with you, should anypony wonder where this new stallion has come from. Once I have put on the finishing touches for your alter-identity’s background, you will receive the details for it tomorrow morning, and you can get started with your investigation once you have familiarized yourself with it.”

“Fair enough.” I shrugged. “Any ideas, suggestions or leads that I should begin with?”

“Nothing as of now, but I should have something for you to start with by tomorrow,” Celestia answered as she stood up to leave, with me following suit a moment later. “In the meantime, I would suggest that you read up on Griffonian history and their current government's organization to orient yourself so that you have an idea of what to expect. There are some historical events between Equeatria and Griffonia that are considered common knowledge, after all. It would be ill-advised for you to seem ignorant of these things."

"Yeah, that sounds like a great idea, Princess." I nodded as she opened the door leading out of the suite and stepped outside. "There's just ah, one little problem there."

"Oh?" The monarch cocked an eyebrow at me. "And what might that be?"

"I can't exactly read Equuish."

Celestia simply gave me an unreadable smile. "Oh, I'm sure you'll find a way around that. Bitworth is teaching you how to read it, isn't he?" And before I could say anything about how abysmally slow my progress was in that area, she shut the door in my face.