I lie upon Cadence’s bed with a wet cloth over my eyes as said princess poured a cup of tea for the both of us. I was still in shock over what I had found out and I wasn’t sure if I was scared, angry, or what. I hear Cadence clearing her throat and I remove the cloth to look over at her. “So you really didn’t know, did you? May I ask what happened to the father?” I feel myself tense up a bit at her question, but I just sigh since I know that she’d be the best of my friends to tell since she knows how I feel to some extent.
“I already told you about how I married into the royal family. Well when I first met him he was known as Duke Okami, though in reality he was the prince of the kingdom and the son of the rulers. At first I thought he was like every other noble I’d met but over time I started to get to know what he was like behind his mask. He was rather intelligent and was rather nice when you got to know him, and it didn’t hurt that he was rather handsome.” I sigh as I think back to all the other little things that I liked about him that I would never see again.
“When I lost him in the war I almost gave up everything, and it was only because of Lady Ogitsu that I was able to continue. She convinced me to go on and do what I could for the survivors by leading them back to our old home. From there I’ve almost given up on doing anything for myself and threw myself into doing what I could for my subjects. Being able to speak with all of you again was just a benefit that came with helping them.” I sigh as I look down at my stomach which did look a little larger than I remembered it being.
“This though? The thought of all this actually scares me. Me, the one that has faced down demons, dragons, hordes of undead, and even armies of the unknown and it’s the thought of being a mother alone that scares me the most. Yet at the same time I’m actually looking forward to this.” I look up at Cadence as I feel a tear roll down the side of my face and I can feel more coming. “It’s like I finally have another chance to have a family again. After losing everyone else that I had ever loved to find that there is still something left of them for me to hold onto, it’s just…” I trail off as the emotions start to overwhelm me.
“It just makes me so angry that they had to die, that he had to leave me alone to take care of all this myself. This is even worse than last time as I not only can’t fight to protect those I care about from a war, but there is actually a good reason holding me back this time.” I was about to continue as my anger and frustration started to increase but it was cut off as Cadence grabbed me up in a hug with her wings. I feel the tension in my body start to drain away as she starts humming while stroking a wing along my back.
“You don’t have to go through all of this alone now that you’ve returned to Equestria. You know that all of us, me and the other princesses, will be there for you if you need it. Selene especially since she always did think of you as family.” She sighs and I look up to see her looking rather sad. “As for the rest of it I know what you are feeling but I can say you are dealing with it much better than I did. You at least threw yourself into helping others in your kingdom. When I lost my Shiny I didn’t take it nearly as well as that. I did some dreadful things and almost destroyed the Crystal Empire trying to get him back. If it wasn’t for the others stopping me and helping me recover then all of Equestria could have been lost.”
I can hear some of her pain over what happened through her voice and I can tell it still hurts her deeply. We just lie there for a while and I eventually start to feel a bit better after having confided in one of my friends finally. I can feel weariness start to settle in as the weight of what happened today starts to settle in. That combined with the humming from Cadence starts to work into my mind until I fall asleep.
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The next morning I was awoken from my slumber by ponies yelling outside of the room I was in. “I told you! I was sent with a message from Princess Twilight for her friend Flarenza. And don’t say you don’t know who that is as she was supposed to be here with the other troops from Canterlot. She was supposed to meet with the other princesses when she arrived.” I sigh as I recognize the voice as Aurora’s and from the sound of it she was here under Twilight’s orders.
Groaning I climb out of bed, noticing that it was Cadence’s, before I made my way to the door with the shouting ponies before opening it and seeing Aurora and a guard. “You can let her in, she’s looking for me and I can guess what it’s about.” The guard looks over at me for a moment before nodding and letting her pass. Aurora looks relieved to see me, but I can tell that she is also a bit pissed based on how her wings are fluffed out.
“It’s about time I find you, what in Equestria did you do to Princess Twilight before she left? She was acting all crazy and wouldn’t leave me alone until I agreed to bring you this letter.” She passes over a letter from Twilight and I open it up to see what this is about. I roll my eyes when all that is written on it are the words ‘Tell Me’ over and over again from the top to the bottom of the page. I sigh as I set the letter down and rub my head with a paw.
“Why do I feel that telling her about that before leaving was a bad idea? Things are about to get a bit dicey here so stay close to me until things settle down. We better go and talk to Cadence about this to see if she has any ideas about this.” Turning to the guard I find that the princesses are up on the roof again making their final preparations. Luckily word had already spread about me through the building so we were able to make our way up without any lengthy delays.
Once we reached the tent on the ceiling we were met with the sight of the generals leaving it with the princesses right behind them. They were surprised to see me and my companion thought they quickly recovered. “Ah, Flarenza. We weren’t quite expecting you to be awake yet. And why is Equestria’s fastest courier accompanying you?” I can see Aurora looking a bit proud over the praise, but I just roll my eyes at the two.
“I really hope you two weren’t planning on having me sleep through all of this. I may not be able to fight directly like I was planning, but that doesn’t mean I can’t help in other ways. At the very least I can help with your healers to save lives or even help direct my subjects from up here. As for why Aurora is here…” I pass over the letter from Twilight to Cadence who looks it over with some curiosity. After seeing who it was from she looks up at me for an explanation as to why Twilight is going crazy.
“Right as the train was leaving I tried to give her something other than the war to think about. So I mentioned the fact that I had managed to help save much of the library from New Sionnach before we fled. I wasn’t expecting her to react like this, and it’s not even hidden that well as we are using the old Everfree Castle library for those books.” I am amused to see Cadence slap a hoof across her muzzle as I explain all of this.
“Oh dear Celestia, tell me you didn’t. Do you know how long it has been since she’s been able to explore a library of books that she hasn’t read yet? Every publisher of books in Equestria knows to send her the first copy of everything as she’s been known to camp out in front of their buildings when she gets word of something new being released. So you saying that you have an entire library of books that span centuries but not telling her where it is is like dangling cake in front of Auntie and saying she can’t eat it.” I wince at the comparison as I had tried a prank like that once which didn’t end well and taught me to never tease Celestia with fake cakes.
“I would have thought that she would have got less crazy over the years. But I guess it’s nice to see that some things never change.” I sigh before coming back to the other topic that they were trying to avoid. “Now, how about the fact that you were just going to let me sleep through this battle? Why would you do a thing like that when not only am I a ruler of a friendly country, but also well versed in spells that could still be of use even without me being directly in the fight?”
The two look at each other before Luna steps forward. “I apologize for that, but I was still thinking of the more reckless you that I remember all those years ago. Back then you would have thrown yourself into harm’s way no matter what and I didn’t think about how much you may have changed since then.” I sigh as I think on that and realize that she is right in a way. I was a lot more reckless back then and it took losing my leg to start me on the path to being more cautious.
I lift my wooden leg up to look at it before I respond to her. “Well you aren’t wrong about that, and it even took losing this to make me a little less impulsive. Right now me being out there in the middle everything would be bad as I would be too focused on protecting my child than helping in the fight.” The two look at my leg questioningly but don’t say a thing knowing that now isn’t the time. “All I want to know now is when the attack will start so I can tell my subjects when to move in.”
The two princesses once again look at each other before sighing and giving in to the inevitable. “Fine, but it’s going to be your job to make sure she stays out of trouble.” Luna points at Aurora who looks a bit shocked at being assigned to do this. “We expect them to attack us within the hour and you can even now see them preparing to do so. Since you haven’t told us what your subjects can do…” She trails off for a moment as she realizes something. “Actually it’s a good thing you woke up when you did since we don’t know how to contact them without you.”
I once again bring a paw up to my face as they only now realize this fact. I bring out the gems I used to contact the two groups and bring them up to my face, activating them both. “Butch, Cassidy; be ready to send up the surprises in fifteen minutes and prepare to attack. Your main objective is to clear out the magic users and free that Ursa Minor. After that you are to pull out and hit them wherever they seem weak while assisting any ponies that seem to be in trouble.” I turn to the princesses as I’m not sure if they have any plans for the other side of the battle.
“Do you have anything prepared to deal with the fleet on the other side of the city?” The two princesses shake their heads before answering. “Unfortunately we don’t. We have cannons trained on the harbor entrance so they can’t rush in, but they’ve effectively bottled us up on that end.” I smile and look at the other gem.
“Did you hear that Admiral, everything is clear on your end so show them exactly why our ships have ruled the oceans for so long.” Rich laughter filters through the gem as the Admiral shouts a few orders before responding. “Aye, lassie, they won’t know what hit them. We already freed the prisoners on those ships and many of them are raring to dish out some payback as well. They won’t know what hit them.” I turn towards the two princesses and gesture towards the side of the building facing the harbor.
“So shall we watch the opening shots of the battle? I’m actually rather curious myself to see the Sea Dog Pirates in action and how they handle four to one odds.” They nod warily as they join me at the edge. They order a nearby guard to bring telescopes so we can get a better view though there isn’t much to see as fog is covering the entire area. Once the instruments were brought to us the fog was starting to clear enough to see, and the view was unbelievable.
The raid over night was obviously successful as the two prison ships were following the back of the fleet of Sionnach vessels. What was amazing though was that all the ships were riding atop a large wave towards the enemy fleet, which we could see only now was noticed the incoming threat. Some of the enemy fleet looked as if they were having trouble steering, no doubt due to seapony sabotage, so some of them ended up crashing into each other trying to get out of the way. More of the ships were slammed together as the wave crashed right into the center of the fleet creating a large area for the Sionnach ships to settle and begin their attack.
Pandemonium reigned for the next minutes as the assault turned into a complete slaughter as few of the enemy ships fought back. Many were too busy trying to regain control of their ships so they were easy pickings for the Sionnach cannons and were sunk without a chance to fight back. Those that were further away from the impact of the wave were either terrified by the ferocity of the assault or they noticed just what they were facing and took to fleeing the area. In the end two thirds of the attacking fleet was sinking with the rest being pursued by the Sionnach ships and seaponies.
I was rather impressed by what happened even if I was expecting a bit more resistance from the enemy. Turning to the princesses I see that they were both shocked by the outcome and were both speechless. Of course they were snapped out of it by the fourth member of our little group reacting to it. “That… was… AWESOME!” We all turn to look at Aurora who was nearly vibrating in place as she continued to watch the retreating fleets. I shake my head as I smile at her acting more her age than she usually did.
“If only the other battle could be as simple, but I would be lying to myself if I thought it would. If anything the surprises I have set should maybe even the odds a bit but there will still be a lot of death to come.” We head over to the other side of the building and peer over at the armies on the land side of the city. I count a few dozen airships flying at the back of the enemy formations and frown when I only see two cloud carriers on the Equestrian side. Large cannons were being drawn forward as well and I even spotted some spellwork being woven over on the enemy side. I frowned when I pinpointed the source of it which was far from either star-bear and I could feel my anger rise when I saw crooked forms start to form along the front of the enemy lines.
“Looks like they are getting ready for battle themselves now. Either they got word from the ships out there or they are getting impatient, but whatever that is looks to be either necromancy or something worse.” I look towards Luna and Cadence, the former nodding while the latter looks fearful, before continuing. “That’s going to make things much more difficult since I can’t go down there and, unless you’ve got a lot more trained to fight them, Luna is probably the only one with the knowledge to counter them.” I watch as Cadence starts fidgeting and I guess it’s probably because she doesn’t want to admit to what she did those few centuries ago.
My train of thought was interrupted as fireworks started to fly from various positions around the enemy lines and I trained my telescope on them. “Looks like the first volley of the diamond dog’s sneak attack. Let’s see if my theories pan out well enough.” The two princesses look as if they were about to ask me what I was talking about when the sky over the enemy army exploded with massive rainbows of light. I smile as I see a few gryphons tumble from the air, those closest to the center of the blasts, while the rest seem to be struggling. Some of the airships even look to be having issues as a couple of them begin to lose altitude.
“I knew it! They were using poorly made enchantments on their equipment to lighten the weight that their flyers had to carry. If those are shorting out then it’s a guarantee that their magic repelling ones are either gone or so heavily strained that it won’t take much more to break through them.” Luna’s ears perk up as she turns toward me with a grin on her face.
“You mean that our unicorns can finally fight back on even grounds once again? Huzzah! Cadence, you take over up here while I go spread the command to prepare to attack. We’ll drive these fiends from our border once and for all today.” I was about to interrupt her until she teleported away leaving us looking at where she was standing. I sigh as I watch the second and final swarm of fireworks fly into the air.
While the gryphons spread out to avoid them, the ground forces did nothing which hurt them in the end. I watched as the fireworks exploded, not into rainbows, but into a variety of objects that I had packed into gems using a variant of the bag of holding enchantment. The sky was soon filled with tens of thousands of arrows flying in all directions as well as a few boulders and even some liquid fire. Many gryphons fell screaming from the air as they failed to flee far enough and even the ground forces were taking heavy losses. The boulders were targeted towards the airships and they had no chance to evade as they smashed through their decks.
When the sky cleared I looked again to see many of the bodies start to rise again while wreathed in necromantic energies. I sighed as I had one last idea but I couldn’t cast it myself and I wasn’t sure if the only one left here would want to. On seeing the enemy encampment start to break out into more activity as the Equestrians began their charge and the diamond dogs began their attack I turned towards Cadence. “We’re going to need something to counteract whatever that necromancer of theirs is doing. Luna won’t be able to last forever, but I have one spell that could help but I can’t cast it.”
I pull a scroll out of my bags and pass it over to Cadence to look over as I look back over to the battle. The star-bears had vanished and on looking I saw them fleeing away from the fight together. The enemy forces are still milling around in confusion but I see many of them starting to form up again as order was being restored. In fact one flank that is near a wooded area looks to be preparing for a count-charge when they start falling apart again. A howling sound reaches my ears and I smile as I watch the woods come to life and crash over the enemy flank. “Great job Rose, bet they weren’t expecting an army of timberwolves to attack them as well.”
I frown as spots of blue appear to be mixed in with all the brown and, using a spell I learned from Twilight, I amplify the telescope to take a closer look. “And it looks like you exceeded my expectations as well.” I lower the telescope as I raise an eyebrow while wondering what the presence of lupus majors and minors could mean. I was about to bring the telescope up once again when I heard a shout from Cadence behind me.
“Are you CRAZY”! What makes you think that I would be willing to cast something like this?!” I sigh as I turn towards her to see her waving the scroll at me furiously. “It’s because you not only have experience with that kind of magic but are also linked to Equestria as well. If I cast that spell then I would get almost no effect from it. It’s probably the biggest weakness of the white side of necromancy in that you can’t force your target to do your bidding.”
Cadence looks at me oddly but doesn’t look any less angry. “I’ve read a little bit about what you did after I vanished from this world so I know you have experience with necromancy, but only the darker side of it. This spell is nothing like that in if you used it back then it would have done absolutely nothing.” Cadence frowns at me as I say this and seems to be calming down some.
“If it would have done nothing then why would it do something now? And what are you talking about with this white and dark necromancy?” I try to think of the best way of explaining this to her so she would understand. “All necromancy is, is magic that deals with the forces of life and death. The darker variety is pretty much all of the bad things you hear about necromancy and often involves forcing your will on your targets. The white variety, in comparison, usually involves countering those forces and even the healing of the body. What it never does, though, is forces the casters will on their targets, it’s all about asking them. While you provide the power for what you want to do it’s the target of the spell that makes all the decisions.”
I look out over the battle still raging on the area outside of the city. “This spell is one of the few that fall under the white path that is used to call upon the dead. If you use it now in the interest of defending Equestria then it should summon all the heroes of the past that wish it to once again help defend it from her enemies.” Cadence still looks unsure, but is no longer angry as she nods and opens the scroll once more.
I watched as she began to draw in energy for the spell. I wasn’t lying about any of it, but I didn’t mention that the spell also could drain the magic in an area dry as well. The rainboom fireworks should have saturated the area with enough residual magic though, so I wasn’t overly worried about it. As she came to the end of the casting I looked around for a sign of it working but I frown when nothing appears. I had never seen the spell in action before, but I would have thought something impressive would have happened.
Looking back towards Cadence I was about to say something until I noticed a golden glow forming in front of her. Cadence stiffened up from something and it was only when the glow started solidifying into a more solid-looking form that I realize why. Standing in front of Cadence whispering into her ear was none other than the form of her husband, Shining Armor. I stood there and watched as he turned away from Cadence and started walking in the direction of the battle, leaving her to fall to the ground with tears in her eyes.
I hear nothing from him the entire time and when he reaches the edge of the building he looks to the side and nods as another form appears holding a trumpet. As the figure brings the instrument to its mouth it blows out the tones for an Equestrian charge. The two figures then leap off the roof and glide towards the battle in the distance, but they are soon no longer alone as more figures join them. Pegasi, unicorns, earth ponies, and more soon were charging towards the battle to defend Equestria.
The all looked rather similar and I was about to turn away when I saw one streak away from the pack, followed at a slightly slower pace soon after, charging right at the enemy airships. I don’t know what drew my eyes to that first figure, but when I noticed the golden streak behind it start to turn more chromatic I knew. I watched as the figure crashed through three airships, creating a shockwave of color between each, before it turned around for another pass and was soon flying over us once again.
“Somehow I should have known you would show up. You never were one to let your friends down, were you Captain Rainbow Dash?” I threw a salute to the passing figure before I turned back to help Cadence up. After making sure she was well enough to continue watching over the battle I made my way down to help wherever I could in the city’s hospital.