Wings of Tomorrow ~ Lament of the World

by Keeper of Jericho

5. The powers that be

“Princess Celestia was overthrown!?” Fluttershy cried out. The poor pegasus had had to deal with and process a lot of information already that day, each new thing she was presented with more shocking than the last. This, however, topped everything. Somewhere, she could understand ponies using a lot of new machines. If they benefitted from it and made their lives easier with it, why not? She could even accept that society and its customs had changed because of changes in time, that was only logical. But why anypony in their right mind would want to dethrone the kind and gentle Princess, she couldn’t comprehend; she doubted she would even if Twilight explained the reasons to her.

“She was,” Twilight confirmed, though she sounded and looked as if she desperately wished to tell her friend that it was all a bad joke. “Three hundred forty-eight years ago, to be precise, at the hands of the first Court of Nobles. They founded the Free Republic of Equestria after their uprising, and seized control of it. The Nobles’ Court has been the highest authority in Equestria for the past three centuries, and has absolute power.”

“But… but why?” Fluttershy wondered, ignoring the pony politics of the new state for the moment. “Why would anypony want Princess Celestia gone? It… It seems so… I just don’t get it!”

“The official reason for the uprising was to ‘free all ponies from the oppression and tyranny of the princess’,” Twilight explained, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “The real reason was far less noble or selfless. They just wanted power. Because the industry took a high flight thanks to the introduction of Steel Gear’s steam engine, a lot of nobles and business ponies found their wealth increasing exponentially. The new technology resulted in a lot of profit for them, but often at the cost of other ponies, who lost their jobs to machines or had to work harder and faster to keep up with the new speed of the industry. Princess Celestia stepped in and made laws and restrictions that the new industry had to follow, to help the commoners and regulate the profits the bourgeoisie and nobles made of off their workers.”

Fluttershy nodded quietly. That did sound like the Princess she knew and loved: just and fair to everypony, especially to those who didn’t have it as easy as the higher classes. It was simple kindness. It was how she remembered pony society, most of the time at least. Love and harmony, and happiness for everypony, even the less fortunate. How could anypony have a problem with that?

“The high class wasn’t pleased with this decision, to say the least. It’s strange, but it seems that when somepony has a lot, they wind up wanting even more, and are never satisfied with what they have. It was no different back then. They wanted to make their profit with the new industry, no matter what the cost, and Princess Celestia was interfering with that. And when there’s a wrench preventing your machine from running smoothly, logic dictates that you remove that wrench,” Twilight continued. “In this case, the wrench was the Princess. And thus, the twenty most powerful and influential nobles united. Together they brought down the Princess and overthrew her, claiming the reign of Equestria for themselves.”

Fluttershy’s jaw dropped as she stared at Twilight in disbelief. Could somepony truly have done away with the Princess just because they wanted more money? It boggled her young mind. The entire idea seemed to go against the very nature of ponies. She knew, of course, that not every pony was as nice as her friends or the Princess, but those were simply exceptions and nothing more. And even then, none of them had been so bad as to harm other ponies to further their own goals or to fulfil their own desires. It was just downright mean! But even if there were bad ponies like that, that still left another question.

“Twilight… how could just twenty ponies overthrow the Princess? I mean… is… isn’t the Princess the most powerful pony in all of Equestria?” It was a valid question. After all, Celestia was an alicorn, capable of raising the sun on her own every day, and she had the strength and magic of a hundred ponies, if not more. The few times Fluttershy remembered the Princess to be outmatched had all been because of extraordinary circumstances, where she had been faced with extraordinary opponents. But against twenty normal ponies? She just couldn’t imagine the Princess having trouble with so few.

“I don’t know, Fluttershy,” Twilight answered. “It’s one of the few holes in my knowledge. At filly school we’re taught it was a great and valiant battle between the Nobles and the ‘tyrant’ Princess. I don’t really believe that, though. Nowadays, even non-unicorns can become powerful forces in their own right thanks to magicite, but that hadn’t yet been invented back then.” She sighed and gave a hopeless shrug. “But it doesn’t really matter, I suppose. No matter how they did it, it doesn’t change the fact that Princess Celestia was dethroned.”

There was a brief silence. Fluttershy looked uncertainly at her friend as she stared off into the distance, a look of melancholy in her eyes. Finally, she dared to break the silence with another timidly-voiced question.

“What… what happened to the Princess?”

Twilight glanced at Fluttershy, and briefly their eyes met, allowing her to see the sadness in Twilight’s eyes. “After the uprising, Princess Celestia was imprisoned in the deepest dungeons of her own castle, held down by chains and every magical seal you can think of. She’s been down there for three hundred and forty-eight years, leaving her cell only once a year, during the night of the Republic’s birthday where she’s dragged through Canterlot in a parade to celebrate the Nobles’ Court’s triumph over her.”

Twilight winced physically, apparently there were some very unpleasant memories. “I went to see the parade only once, when I was a filly,” she whispered, her voice strained, as if it hurt her to speak the words. “It was the most awful thing I’ve ever witnessed in both of my lives. A grand parade of the military, all those soldiers perfectly in line, and in front, the Nobles’ Court, in all their splendour, dragging a chained Princess Celestia behind them…” A shiver ran down her spine as she shut her eyes to prevent herself from crying. “She looked horrible. Her white coat was dirty; her mane no longer billowing and beautiful, but ragged and lifeless. She didn’t have her regalia, and it made her look so… so exposed… so naked.”

Fluttershy looked horrified, but couldn’t bring out a word, for Twilight went on. “And everypony stood along the streets and… and they cheered! They were happy! They cheered for the nobles and they cussed out the Princess! They even threw things at her, and nobody seemed to mind, as if it was normal! As if it was… right.” Twilight sighed again. “And after that one night, she is taken back to the dungeons, not to leave until the next anniversary of the Republic. She hasn’t seen the sun in three hundred forty-eight years.”

Fluttershy gasped loudly, her eyes wide with shock. Hearing that the Princess had been overthrown for such selfish reasons had been bad enough, but hearing of the treatment Celestia had to suffer through made Fluttershy honestly upset. She couldn’t believe her fellow ponies were capable of such horrible behaviour. Even Discord hadn’t been so mean to the Princess!

“How dare them!” she said, surprising even herself with how angry she sounded. “How can they do that to the Princess!? Why would they even do such a thing!? Didn’t anypony try to help her!?”

Twilight placed a hoof on her friend’s shoulder to calm her down. “You have to understand, Fluttershy. After they overthrew her, the first Nobles’ Court started a giant slander campaign to drag Princess Celestia’s name through the mud and shatter her reputation. They showed documents to the public and the press that said the Princess had been involved in all kinds of horrible things behind the scenes. Secret deals with the gryphons, the removal of political adversaries, fraud and theft, conspiracies against ponykind… Said they found these documents in secret archives of the Princess.” She rolled her eyes as she remembered learning about that so-called ‘evidence’ against the Princess in filly school.

“None of it was real, of course. It was all made up, but the fake documents were very convincing,” Twilight said. “Only a member of Celestia’s personal court would have been able to see that her seal on those documents was fake. The problem is that it was said personal court that turned against her. After all these ‘scandals’ were revealed, it wasn’t hard for the usurpers to get the public opinion to support them and view them as liberators, who had saved all of Equestria from a cold, heartless tyrant.”

Fluttershy felt her spirits drop even lower, her heart went out to her beloved monarch, treated so unjustly. She felt angry at those nobles who had brought the Princess down like that, but could feel only pity for her fellow ponies who were seemingly so easily deceived. Didn’t any of them remember the many wonderful things the Princess had done for them and all of Equestria?

“Not everypony fell for it, however,” Twilight then said, as if guessing what her friend was thinking. “The imprisoning of Celestia divided ponies into two groups: those who supported the new Republic and those who supported the Princess. Already on the day after the forming of the republic did the first protests break out all across the country, with ponies demonstrating for or against the new order, and in some cities it even came to blows. The guards could do little to put out these hearths of unrest, they were in disarray themselves, not sure what to do or who to follow now that Celestia was gone. It seemed Equestria was falling into chaos without the Princess to hold it together.”

“Oh my…” Fluttershy whispered quietly, the thought of ponies really fighting each other making her uneasy and uncomfortable. “What… what happened then?”

“Well, at first it looked as if the Nobles’ Court would quickly lose control of the situation. But it turned out they had planned their uprising better than anypony had expected,” Twilight answered. “They had bought a lot of loyalty using their great wealth, creating a new army separate from the royal guard. Once the Princess was overthrown, they quickly mobilised their new force in every major city, and brought a swift end to the unrest. They restored peace and order forcefully, though a lot of ponies were grateful to the Court for bringing an end to the violence.”

She paused for a moment, making sure she had her historical facts straight before continuing her tale. “That peace was tense, and unrest continued to boil beneath the surface. It couldn’t last, and it didn’t. Only a few months later, when the nobles did away with the law that put a limit to their profits, the situation in Trottingham exploded. There already was a considerable rift between rich and poor there, and support for Celestia was always greater in the eastern parts of Equestria. When the new decision of the court became known, the outrage amongst the common ponies was enormous. Led by members of the former royal guard who had remained faithful to the Princess, they marched through the streets and took control of the city, declaring loyalty to Princess Celestia only.”

Despite everything, Fluttershy couldn’t help but smile a bit. It was nice to hear ponies sticking up for the Princess, after all.

“The uprising in Trottingham pulled the trigger for the rebellion. In no time at all, the fires of revolution spread all over Equestria, from east to west, with Stalliongrad being the farthest west they got. Veterans of the royal guard who had defected from the republic quickly seized control to organise the revolution, to ensure its survival. The Nobles’ Court reacted swiftly, mobilizing the greatest force seen since the fight against Nightmare Moon.”

Twilight thought back to how different this story had been told to her at filly school, and scoffed. She wouldn’t tell such lies. No, Fluttershy would get nothing but the real story from her. Seeing that she still had every bit of her friend’s attention, Twilight hurriedly continued.

“The Republicans were higher in number and they were better funded, but the rebels were led by veteran guards and expert tacticians. Despite all odds, the revolutionaries kept the forces of the Republic at bay, all the way from the north to the south, effectively splitting Equestria in half. The rebels then declared their independence, separating themselves from the Republic and continuing the old Royal Kingdom of Equestria. The unrest that had been brooding in Equestria since the fall of Celestia had now escalated into a civil war, one that has lasted to this day.”

Fluttershy gasped when she heard Twilight utter the forbidden word. “W… war?” she repeated slowly, though it came out as a barely comprehensible squeak instead. Twilight seemed to guess what she had said, though.

“Yes, Fluttershy, war,” she confirmed. She felt terrible that she had to tell her friend this, but Fluttershy wanted the truth, and the truth just happened to be ugly and nasty. “For three hundred and forty eight years, both halves of Equestria have been at war with each other. The Royalists want to reinstate Celestia on the throne, the Republicans want to bring all of Equestria under their full control again, and neither is willing to back down.”

Fluttershy squeaked again, and turned an interesting but worrisome shade of white. Looking that pale was decidedly unhealthy, Twilight knew, and she feared for a moment that Fluttershy would succumb to a panic attack. Luckily, it didn’t go that far, though she did look quite ill.

“T… three hundred years…? O… of fi… fighting?”

“Oh no, if they fought every day for three hundred years straight, why, there wouldn’t be a pony left in Equestria to fight in the first place!” Twilight quickly corrected her, smiling awkwardly. “In fact, most of the time there is no fighting, and both sides just stare each other down, waiting for the other to make a move. Many times, decades have gone by during which nothing happened, aside from a few minor struggles. The longest time that the hostilities have gone on uninterrupted was sixteen years, but that was more than a century and a half ago.” She didn’t add that the hostilities had started to increase again in the past few years.

Hearing that there had been less conflict than she had initially feared was but a small comfort, since the war was still a real and undeniable fact, but it was comfort nevertheless. Fluttershy felt a tiny bit of relief; she didn’t like violence as it was, and she had been in a real battle only once, when the changelings had interrupted the royal wedding. Even then, she hadn’t been of much use, the idea of hitting and intentionally hurting somepony else, even a changeling, scared her and made her very uncomfortable.

Suddenly, she remembered what had brought forth this entire tale in the first place. “And… and Rainbow Dash… she… she fights in… in this war?” Fluttershy asked, though she already knew the answer. She doubted she had misheard Twilight a few moments before. She couldn’t help it, though; she had to ask for confirmation. War was scary enough on its own, but the idea of Rainbow Dash, her friend, actively taking part in it was downright terrifying.

If Twilight had felt bad about informing her timid friend about a civil war before, now she felt even worse. Nevertheless, she nodded, sighing deeply as she did so. “I never met her in person, but she did leave us a message years ago, when we were still fillies. Because she was like us and remembered our other lives, she knew that everything the Republic said about the Princess was nothing but lies. She couldn’t stand to live in a country that was built on lies, and she’s loyal to the Princess. So she fled the Republic and joined the Royal Army, to fight for the Princess and to put her back on her rightful place on the throne of Equestria.”

“That does sound like her…” Fluttershy had to admit, Rainbow Dash didn’t represent the Element of Loyalty for nothing. And even though the very idea of war and violent conflicts was frightening to Fluttershy, she couldn’t help but feel a hint of pride for Rainbow for remaining loyal to the Princess. Despite the fact that she had lived a life where she had never truly met the Princess in person, and technically had no way of knowing the things the Republic said about Celestia to be lies. She only had her memories of a different life, but those had been enough for Rainbow Dash to remain loyal.

“Indeed,” Twilight agreed, and smiled a bit. “Given the fact that she’s wanted throughout the entire Republic, I haven’t really been able to contact her to ask how she’s doing, but I wouldn’t worry too much. She’s made quite a name for herself, to say the least.” Her smile widened as she thought back to the reports of all of her friend’s exploits. That would be a story for another time, though. Fluttershy had enough information to deal with as it was. “She can definitely take care of herself.”

“Oh, thank goodness,” Fluttershy replied, letting out a sigh of relief. “I would definitely worry about her doing something so dangerous… even if it is for a good cause.” There was a brief pause, Fluttershy frowned and tapped her chin with her hoof. “But what about Pinkie Pie? You said her reason for feeling so poor had something to do with all this?”

“Well… ‘all this’ is actually the very reason why she feels so bad,” Twilight answered. Her smile from a few moments ago evaporated like snow under the sun when she thought of the pink earth pony. “The civil war, the injustice that’s befallen Princess Celestia, this society that is all focussed on economy, money, and making profit; it was too much for her. Everypony has to work hard to keep their lives comfortable. Work too little, and you drop out of the system, with almost no chance to get back in. Ponies barely have any time for the simple things in life that Pinkie enjoys so much. No time for a smile, no time for a party, no time to simply be good to each other. You work hard or you join the war efforts.”

Twilight sighed again and shook her head. “Pinkie tried to make everypony smile, but she was rejected every time. Nopony ever has time for it. This hard truth, the state Equestria is in now, and her worry for Rainbow Dash her safety; that’s what's made her so depressed. She doesn’t throw parties anymore because she sees no reason to do so. What is there to celebrate? That nopony has time to smile? That ponies have been fighting each other for centuries? That the Princess is unjustly imprisoned and mistreated?”

Fluttershy remained silent, staring at her hooves and hiding behind her mane. She understood; she understood Pinkie perfectly. Thinking about it, it wasn’t even very surprising. It was merely logical that her dear friend was so sad. Pinkie lived to make ponies happy, so when she couldn’t make anypony happy she couldn’t be happy herself. And if she wasn’t happy, then what did she live for? Fluttershy’s heart went out to her poor friend, and she vowed to go to her and try to comfort her as soon as possible.

“Oh… ehm… Twilight, if… if you don’t mind me asking… But… you… you don’t seem to like this republic very much, and you were so close to Princess Celestia, too,” Fluttershy stammered, dropping the subject of Pinkie Pie for the moment. “So… so why didn’t you go and join Rainbow dash? Not… not that I want you to go fight and hurt anypony! I… I’m just wondering…”

Twilight waited a long time before answering. She looked decidedly uncomfortable about the whole subject, frowning and refusing to meet Fluttershy’s inquiring gaze. “I… I have my reasons,” she finally said. “Of course I want to stop that awful treatment the Princess is getting… but there are personal reasons that prevent me from doing so.” She rubbed her hooves together nervously. “I’d rather not talk about it.”

Fluttershy nodded timidly. “O… okay, I won’t pry…” She had already asked a lot of her friend, and if it made Twilight uncomfortable to talk about personal reasons, then she felt she had to respect that.

“Even if I didn’t have those reasons, I don’t think I would be of much help to the Royalists’ cause anyway,” Twilight added after another brief moment of silence. “Since Princess Celestia has been imprisoned for more than three hundred years, I never got to be her personal student in this life. I didn’t join her magic school for gifted unicorns, since it got never built, so I have little practice in my magic. I remember spells from my other life, of course, but magic more advanced than levitation is outlawed in the Republic, except in the army, so I couldn’t practice by using my memories either.”

Twilight glanced at her horn briefly, then looked at the door of the kitchen wistfully. “That’s also the reason why you don’t see Spike here… I didn’t go to magic school, so I never had to take the entrance test, and thus never hatched his egg. It did hatch, though I don’t know how or when. But since the Princess didn’t raise him, and he wasn’t entrusted to my care as my number one assistant either, nopony really took care of him, or kept his greed under control. He developed like a normal dragon would, with a the natural instinct to create a hoard. And with nopony to stop him from doing that…” She trailed of and gave Fluttershy a sad but knowing look. “Well, you know what happened last time he got greedy.”

Fluttershy nodded. She remembered, all too well. It had taken quite a bit of hard work to fix all the damage caused by the rampaging Spike, grown by the greed that came natural to his kin. It wasn’t really his fault, merely his nature, and in the end he had overcome himself, with the help of his friends, and returned back to normal. But if nopony was around to help him remember who he was…

“Well, like I said before,” Twilight finished with a shrug. “Last I checked, he'd taken up residence in the Everfree Forest, resting on quite a sizeable hoard, breathing emerald flames at anypony crazy enough to venture close.”

Fluttershy knew Twilight very well; they were the best of friends after all. And she could see just how hard it was for her to talk about the baby dragon she had been, pretty much, a mother and older sister to all of her (other) life. Fluttershy comfortingly rubbed Twilight’s back and gave her a friendly nuzzle.

“You miss him terribly, don’t you?” she whispered quietly.

Twilight bowed her head, squeezing her eyes shut. It didn’t stop the tears from running down her face. “Every day,” she replied, just as softly as her dear friend. Fluttershy put her hooves around the distressed unicorn, drawing her into a warm and friendly hug. It helped Twilight considerably, and Fluttershy was simply happy that she could be the one bringing comfort for a change. Given her record for that day, it was a refreshing change of pace.