Royal celestial archives, department of military history
Event:
cardinal points war, first war council
Provided by:
Princess Celestia
Alicorn
Female
Solar diarch of Equestria
As she walked us to the central room of Twilights Castle, Pinkie Pie seemed rather cheerful, to say the least. In all honest, I never really understood what was going on in her mind, this pony is an enigma beyond comparison. In all my life, I’ve never met any being that was even remotely like this pony, except Discord maybe. She had expected us, despite the fact, that she simply could not have any knowledge of our coming whatsoever. Twilight once told me about her so called Pinkie Sense, it’s one thing to know of an ability like that, but experiencing it first-hoof is something else entirely. Needless to say, it was kind of disturbing to see her predicting immediate events with such ease.
But in the end, politics and social encounters are always only about two things, charisma and composure. I learned from the best that you don’t need to know everything, it’s enough if your opposite thinks you know everything. Starswirl had a particular liking for this saying.
Anyway, I digress, Pinkie lead us to the throne room. It was the first time I actually saw the map of Equestria in its center, shortly after Tirek’s defeat there were only the thrones of Twilight and her friends. Luna and I were baffled about the gorgeous details, everything seemed like little sculptures made of light. It made me sad that we had to use a work of art like that for war, it was a true waste of beauty.
When we approached the map, we saw tiny red dots moving away from ponyville, heading as fast as they could towards Equestria’s western coast. Twilight sat on her throne and watched the dots with an illegible expression on her face. It stroke me as a mixture of anger, sadness and relief, but with something darker deep inside her, an emotion I rarely saw in one of my little ponies, bloodlust.
I approached her with the same gentle and motherly smile I always gave her when she was still a little filly. She looked at me, tears welling up in her eyes, mere moments before she jumped down from her crystalline throne and ran towards us. The fact that she not simply ran, but rather jumped half the way, galloped the rest as fast as she could and used her Wings all the while to propel herself forward made it obvious that she was near her breaking point.
If you have enough experience reading the body language of other ponies, you will notice even the smallest things. Even though Twilight was now an alicorn and had wings, she normally ignored them. She tended to do things like she always did and this meant simply doing things without using any wings, in that regard, her mind was still that of a unicorn. But in moments like that, when your mind can’t form a coherent thought, your body tends to fall back to it’s own reflexes. In Twilights case, that meant that her body was receiving the Order “Bring me to Celestia!” and carried it out on it’s own, with wings and hooves alike.
I admit, it may be bit exaggerated to analyse a simple situation like that to this degree, but honestly, it comes naturally to me. I’ve seen so many things, knew so many ponies, those thoughts just happen. In most cases I don’t even perceive them consciously at the time, I simply react according to them.
When Twilight slammed into my chest, I just wrapped my wings and forelegs around her, nuzzled her mane and whispered into her ears. “Shhhhhh Twilight. It’s over now. You did good. You protected your friends, ... all of them.”
She started sobbing immediately and we sat like this for about ten minutes. Luna, Cadance, Shining and Twilight’s friends just waited for her to let it all out.
When she had calmed down a little, she locked up at me, the same expression she always had when she thought I was angry at her for not studying enough. Her eyes were bloodshot, the coat on her cheeks wet from her own tears, snot running down her nose and her huge violet eyes filled to the brim with fear, the fear of having failed my trust in her. “I almost killed them ...”
I touched her horn with my own and cut her off. “It’s ok Twilight. You don’t need to apologize. There was nothing you did wrong. Maybe you think you were close to do something you think is evil. You might even be right about that, but there is an important difference between a good pony doing an evil deed and an evil pony. A good pony might sometimes need to do something evil, but they will never feel good about it.”
Luna had approached Twilight from the side and put a hoof onto her shoulder. “Twilight Sparkle, always remember, evil is not sorry for being evil. That you are sorry for what you thought and almost did, show’s all the better that you are a good pony...”
Shortly after Luna had joined our conversation, everypony else also drew closer and one after another we all hugged Twilight and Luna whispered “… one of the best.”
Even though she normally didn’t gave too much thought about her appearance, Twilight excused herself for a few minutes after her crying fit had faded, she wanted to refresh herself. It may have been the fact that virtually every major figure in equestrian politics was present in her home or that I called her cute, after the release of the group hug. But essentially, she felt the need to make herself presentable again.
In her absence, everypony had the opportunity to recall why we were there. The gryphons had declared war on us and this was the first war council since Sombra’s occupation of the Crystal Empire. There was much that had to be discussed.
When Twilight returned, we all sat down around the map of Equestria and steeled ourselves for what had to come.
Luna was the first to speak. “We heard a brief summary of the attempted attack on Ponyville when we landed outside your castle. Would you mind to give us a more detailed recollection of the events?”
Twilight nodded and with a brief flash of her horn, the map in front of everypony zoomed in on Ponyville and it’s surroundings. A moment later, numerous small red dots appeared in the south west area outside the town. “Today, around noon, a force of eighty gryphons reached Ponyville. The main force headed towards this castle to presumably kill me in a surprise attack. Thirty of the assembled gryphons, including their commanding officers, split off and headed towards Ponyville. After their initial assault Rarity managed to establish a defensive position in the middle of the town square, where the present unicorns generated a magical barrier that managed to keep the gryphons from harming a great deal of civilians. After that, twenty gryphons proceeded with their attack on the barrier, while the remaining ten split up and started to search for the former bearers of the Elements of Harmony.”
As always, when you asked her a question, Twilight switched to her lecture mode. It always impressed me, whenever she’s stressed, angry, frightened or on the brink of a mental breakdown, you only need to ask her a single question or request her to explain something and she instantly transforms into the bees knees student she admittedly is. I admit, I often used this little switch in her head when she was a filly and I took her as my personal student. She was frightened of the castle at first, it was so big and pompous and everypony was serious and whatnot. But as soon as I asked her about a book she read or how a spell she studied worked, she simply shut off her bad emotions, explained whatever I asked in great detail and was the happiest filly in the world when in nodded in appreciation.
So, I did what I always did. I smiled at her, like a proud mother smiles down onto her foal when it takes it’s first steps, and nodded.
Rarity was the next who speak up. “These ruffians tried to break our shield, but we had almost twenty unicorns gathered and took turns in providing the necessary power. We were never in real danger, … well except maybe if they had remained there for a few days. After their unprovoked and barbaric surprise attack those uncivilized gryphons were barely more than a nuisance.”
Rainbow Dash nodded and opened her mouth to speak, while she slammed a hoof onto the map. Surprisingly, the crystals that made up the table and projected the map reacted to this abuse with a short, yet impressive, display of prismatic light and miniature rainbows all over the place, quite stunning I admit.
Her own jaw slightly dropped at the sight of the maps reaction to her outburst, but after the small light show was over, she quickly resumed to speak. “It was the same for me. Two of the buckers spotted me and thought it was worth a try to chase the most awesome pegasus of Equestria. But I had my fair share of races against Gilda in flight school, I know how gryphons fly. They may be fast, even faster than an average pegasus, but for starters they stand no chance against me...” The all too familiar cocky grin on Rainbow’s face made me giggle a little. “... and then again, they are large and sluggish. Every pegasus I ever met could easily outmaneuver even the nimblest of those bunch.”
Rarity huffed. “Especially as long as they wear this eye insulting armor of theirs. These things are heavy, brute and make them incredibly slow. Besides, these things seem to be of inferior quality. I witnessed a few of the gryphons taking a buck from ponies and even unicorns and pegasi were able to dent these things.”
A deep harrumph from Applejack made already quite clear what she had to say next. “Mac an’ I dealt with em’ buckers that came for us liquedy split. They thought they the big deal with their mighty fancy armor an’ stuff. Can ya imagine how they turned tail after Mac bucked the first of em’ righ’ in the face.”
Applejack giggled slightly as she remembered how she and her brother defended their farm and family. The Apples had always put their family first and I wasn’t that surprised to see that they would use excessive force to defend their loved ones. Nevertheless, it was strange to see one of my ponies having no trouble with her conscience about having taken a life. I couldn’t decide if I was happy that it seemed that Applejack wouldn’t have to deal with some sort of trauma or if it made me sad that one of my ponies could kill this easy and without obvious remorse.
Shining Armor nudged his sister and spoke rather quiet. “Twi? Do you want to tell us what happened in the castle? You said that almost fifty gryphons attacked this place.”
It was obvious that it was a painful memory. Twilight turned her head sideways and had to fight the urge to break down and cry again, but even with all her will, a few sorrowful tears still rolled down her cheek before she managed to explain. “At first they tried to crash through the windows, but the dense crystalline structure of the castle itself and the fact that the windows are made from the same crystal as the building rendered their efforts useless. Next they gathered at the entrances and broke in. Every balcony, door and even the chimney were used to enter. At first I didn’t know what was going on and searched for spike. I found him in our bedroom, he spat fire on a gryphon in full plate armor that tried to stab him with a sword. My memories after that moment are blurry and incomplete, it feels like I was merely a spectator.”
Luna had walked around the table and put a comforting wing around Twilight’s barrel. “It is fine Twilight. What you describe is perfectly normal. You were filled with rage and I assume a single thought dominated your consciousness?”
Twilight nodded slowly and nuzzled Luna’s neck. “I wanted to protect my friends. I didn’t care what happened to this gryphon, all I wanted was that he stopped attacking Spike.” Another tear rolled down her cheek, this time it carried the remorse for what she did to the gryphon. “I remember that my magic suddenly manifested around my horn. It grabbed the gryphon with telekinesis and simply threw him out the window. I used his body to smash the exact same window he and his peers tried to break in vain.”
Luna nuzzled Twilight and whispered gentle promises of time healing her wounds into her ears. This was what my beloved sister could do best. Since ancient times, far beyond the memory of every pony and history book Equestria had, she was the guardian of the night. I always wanted to be like a mother for my little ponies.
While I nurtured Equestria with the life giving rays of the sun and all the gentle care I could muster, Luna simply protected us all. Many mistake my sister for being silly and childish, but have they ever thought to ask why she is like this whenever she can?
If anypony thinks about Luna and myself, it’s mostly a question of time until the titles ‘bringer of day’ and ‘guardian of the night’ or something similar come up. How I come to be known as the bringer of day should be fairly obvious. In Luna’s case however it’s not that easy. She earned her title by performing two deeds. The first would be that she guarded all our dreams in eternal vigilance since millennia before ponies even started the reckoning of time. And the second one would be her leading Equestrias armies. She always lead and protected our ponies when they marched to war. She willingly shed blood, so I could keep my hooves clean. She gently closed the frightened eyes of dying soldiers, so I had not to look at them. She sacrificed the purity and innocence of her very soul, so that I could keep mine.
When my beloved sister wrapped her wing around Twilight, she comforted her wounded soul in a way I never could. She knew exactly what Twilight needed to hear, what gently promises needed to be made and what terrible deeds needed to be forgiven.
Twilight told us about the rest of her fight inside the castle and of frightening new weapons the gryphons used, called muskets. The unicorns in our guard forces had to be informed of this new weapon. It was a strange device, it was some sort of firing weapon, like a cannon, only smaller. Essentially, the projectiles of these muskets were as fast as arrows, but powerful like a cannon, the only drawback was that they needed very long to reload. Overall I still thought of them as a truly terrifying weapon. Our only option seemed to be that ponies had to keep attention when the enemy was trying to make use of those muskets and then inform the present unicorns to immediately erect a powerful, multilayered magical barrier.
After Twilight and her friends had told everything they had tell about the attack, everypony sat in grave silence, contemplating over what they heard.
Luna was the first to speak. “My sister and I already have deployed our guards to defend positions of strategic importance on our eastern and western coast. If nopony has anything else to say, I would like to explain our plans for the immediate defence and the later counterattack against any external aggressor.”
Twilight and Cadance nodded slowly, with doubts and fear on their faces. I myself, closed my eyes and whispered the answer I had not given my beloved sister for a very long time. “Equestria is your’s to defend.”
Luna took a deep breath, closed her eyes and waited for a few moments in silence. It was an old ritual of ours, in peace I was the first among equals and in war, we switched places. It was something we both didn’t enjoy, but it was necessary and we both cherished this tradition. When she reopened her eyes, her voice was unmoving like stone. “As already said, the royal guard and the night guard have been deployed in full strength to establish a defensive perimeter around certain locations at the coast.”
Rainbow Dash raised a hoof, but had either the decency or simply a healthy amount of fear so that she waited until Luna nodded for her to speak. “You said you send those guys to the eastern and western coast, right?” Luna nodded. “Why do you even bother defending the western coast when the gryphons are living beyond the eastern sea? No living thing ever came from the western ocean, only large rain clouds.”
I turned my head towards my sister and waited for her approval to explain. She knew that I was better at telling stories of old times like this and she recognized my attempt to do so. After an almost unnoticeable nod I turned towards Rainbow. “That nothing ever came from the western sea, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s uninhabited, doesn’t it? In fact, the reason for the deployment of the night guard is also the reason nothing ever came from the west.” I turned towards Twilight. “Twilight, you remember the sirens that attacked your friends at this Canterlot High, you told us about?”
She nodded with a puzzled look on her face. “Yes, I do remember them. But weren’t they just three power crazy lunatics that Starswirl had to banish to another world? Yes, they were quite powerful, but mainly because at Canterlot High, nopony had magic to resist them. I don’t think they would have posed an actual threat to Equestria.”
I turned back to everypony else and couldn’t help but sigh. It felt like only the first of many hard truths I had to share that day. “Twilight is absolutely right. Those three where hardly a threat to us, because they never had the chance to feed on great amounts of negative emotions, but there was a reason why Starswirl banished them and not simply destroyed the source of their power. Here in Equestria, the gem that gives a Siren her power is no amulett, but a part of her body. It’s simply impossible to take their powers away, the only way to deal with them is to kill them. That was out of the option of course, so we needed a different approach. Furthermore Sirens need to be handled with extreme care, if one of them manages to influence a powerful unicorn or even one of us, they would become nearly unstoppable. The most sirens live in the depths of the great western sea and are content with the negative energy they can drain from other sirens. But war always brings forth a huge amount of negative emotions and a few of them might feel tempted to feed on those to gain more power.”
At that point, Luna gave me to understand that she wanted to take the conversation back to it’s main point. “Because of this unique properties of the sirens, we decided that the night guard was best equipped to deal with any potential Siren incursion. My guards are far more subtle than those of Celestia and therefore can take care of a siren faster and easier than any royal guard ever could. A single knife in the darkness can be more devastating than a whole army in broad daylight.”
Shining Armor was the first to nod. Aside from Luna he was the only other pony with actual military experience. Cadance never had to fight and therefore never even attempted to learn how to do so. She could hold her own in a small clash with feral beasts, but a real battle was far beyond her abilities. Twilight and her friends had a similar problem. They almost only had experience in fighting a single opponent or small groups. The only thing they ever faced that comes near an army were the changelings and those managed to take them down rather quickly with superior numbers, although not as easy as Chrysalis might admit. I for myself had only theoretical knowledge. Luna had always insisted that I needed to learn how to fight a real battle, in case she could not do it for me, but I always sticked to the books and never even attempted to get any real field experience.
Luna took a few deep breaths before she continued to lay out our overall strategy for this war. “Now that the discussion about the western coast is done, let me tell you more about your specific roles in my plan. First the obvious, my sister and her royal guard will protect the eastern coast against the gryphons and any of their raids. Since their first attempt to kill Twilight Sparkle was a tremendous disaster they will very likely alter their approach. I do not expect any more assassinations, instead they will try to force us to fight great battles where the general and the soldiers can achieve glory and fame among their people. If they gain any decisive victory early on, their ranks will be bolstered by new soldiers, as civilians will volunteer to also earn glory for their families. That being said, it is clear that we must deny these early victories at all costs.”
She turned towards Cadance and Shining armor. “For you and the Crystal Empire I have a rather easy, but nevertheless highly important task. You need to secure our northern border with the Crystal Heart.”
Cadance and Shining Armor cocked their heads and looked with puzzled faces towards Luna. “Why and against what?” They asked in unison.
Luna cleared her throat and looked at them sternly. “As you may know, the Crystal Ponies have the power to project their feelings onto their immediate surroundings as well as other ponies to spread physical and metaphorical warmth around them. Furthermore, this power can be amplified by Cadance’s magic and the Crystal Heart. With this combination the empire is able to thrive even in an environment like the Frozen North where nothing else can live. But as with the sirens, I believe this war will awaken an old enemy, the windigos. The winter always got colder and longer when we marched to war, a clear sign for the presence of at least a few of these foul creatures. But this war will most likely be longer and more intense than those of ancient times, this leads me to believe that the windigos will arise and that they will do so in great numbers. Unfortunately, the Crystal Empire will be their first target, but with your magic, your ponies love and the Crystal Heart, you should be able to hold them off almost indefinitely. You need to give them hope for the future and then in turn use it to protect us all.”
Twilight was the last to be addressed and she was definitely the most uncertain of all of us. Luna of course already caught up on that and smiled, her expression suddenly warm and reassuring for the first time since she started talking. “You Twilight Sparkle will have two important tasks to perform. The first will be to crush the impending second changeling invasion…”
Twilight jumped up and looked at Luna with eyes as wide as dinnerplates. “Changelings? How do you know about that? Why are they attacking right now? Why...”
Dark blue magic held Twilight’s mouth shut while Luna had put a hoof to her muzzle to emphasize her point. “Shhh, keep calm Twilight Sparkle, I will explain everything shortly.”
The magic around Twilight’s snout faded and she tested a few times if her mouth was still in working order. “You didn’t have to be this rough. I could have bitten my tongue you know?”
Luna giggled slightly before she shortly bowed her head. “I am sorry Twilight, but you were rather upset and this was the easiest and fastest way to calm you down.”
A slight whisper came from a certain blue mare behind Twilight. “Rarity, you should keep that trick in mind, could come in handy when she snaps next time.”
While Twilight graced her friend Rainbow with a stare that was probably as close to being able to kill as possible, Luna continued. “As I was trying to say, your first task will be to crush the changeling invasion which Chrysalis is currently preparing, while the second will be to assist any of us afterwards if the need for reinforcements arises at our respective fronts. As for how we learned about Chrysalis’ plan. After her last attempt to abduct and brainwash Twilight we stationed dedicated scout pegasi along the southern border, which kept an eye on changelings moving in that area. On our way here I have received intelligence that a great number of changelings had started to gather at Chrysalis’ hideout. This assembly started shortly after the gryphons attacked ponyville. Since changelings are able detect emotions I believe that chrysalis has felt the fighting and thought it is a great time to deliver her own blow.”
Luna’s magic erupted over the great map that was displayed in front of us and her plan was suddenly displayed for all to see. “Of course Twilight will not be able to do this alone, even with the help of all the former bearers of the elements. Since Equestria has no military forces aside from the guards we will hold a draft in every city. We must call out ponies to take up the arms and fight with us. Within a few weeks we should be able to provide ten thousand soldiers that can be divided between the royal guard and Twilight’s army. The night guard will remain at its current strength, losses will be substituted of course. The Crystal Empire however has to hold his own draft, you will need every Crystal Pony yourself, so we will not call them to fights where they are are not of utmost importance. There will be no unified high command, so every princess has the sole responsibility for her sector, but we will inform each other regularly about the progress of our operations. Furthermore, I will try to enter the dreams of gryphons to provide my sister with as much intelligence as possible. Sadly, since neither changelings nor windigos have any dreams I can enter, I can’t do the same for you Cadance and Twilight.”
Applejack grunted and gave Luna a defiant look. “Why are ya makin such a fuss about all that? Couldn’t Celestia and yaself not jus’, ah don’t know, use your sun an’ moon moving powers to give em’ gryphons a mighty spank or somethin?”
Luna fixed the orange mare with a fierce glare of her own. “Do you really think we would waste the lives of our ponies if it could be avoided by any means at our disposal?”
Not intimidated in the slightest, Applejack shrugged. “Ah don’t bunkin know, but ah know that ya’ll are the most powerful things righ’ around here. But instead of some mighty fine flank whoopin, all ya do is asking us for help.”
Luna clenched her teeth, while a deep and frightening growl escaped her throat. Before she could vent her anger however I stepped in front of her and shook my head. “Please sister dear, don’t get mad at her. You know that Applejack has no bad intentions and doesn’t mean to insult you. She is just worried about her friends and family. Please be understanding.”
The anger in Luna’s eyes remained, though her posture grew softer and less intimidating. She watched me in the eyes and sighed. “You are right sister, she doesn’t know the full extend of our reasons.”
We both took seat again and Luna started to explain. “Celestia and I might be powerful by normal standards, in terms of raw power we are not nearly as omnipotent as everypony thinks. In our current forms we have the magical capabilities of about fifty unicorns combined. This might sound much at first but think about how many unicorns do live in Equestria. None of us would be able to beat Tirek on her own, even before he absorbed most magic in Equestria, including Discord’s. To be honest, right now we are not even as powerful as Twilight might be.”
All eyes suddenly darted to Twilight and she looked rather surprised. “What do you mean by that? And what does it mean when you say ‘in our current forms’? I don’t understand.”
Luna shook her head. “You don’t need to fully understand, but to answer your questions. In terms of raw magical power you are at least 20 times stronger than any of us. The only reason you never could raise the sun or the moon without our magic is that magic itself isn’t enough to do that.”
Twilight rubbed her neck and laughed awkwardly. “I never tried to raise the sun … or the moon.”
I couldn’t help but giggled at the sight of Twilight’s face. “Twilight, Luna and I are quite aware of your, repeated, attempts to move sun and moon. We found it rather funny to be honest. Anyway, without our magic, which is tightly connected to sun and moon, no pony is able to control them.”
A slight blush remained on Twilights face as she spoke. “Ok, I think I will stop to try that then…” her gaze returned to Luna and became serious again. “but you still haven’t explained what you meant with this ‘current forms’ thing.”
Luna nodded and continued where she left off. “This simply means that the forms of my sister and I, that you see right in front of you, are not our only possible appearances.”
“You mean you can transform yourself?” Cadance interrupted.
Luna shook her head. “No, that is rather easy, I do that regularly on nightmare night to humor the foals. What I meant is a complete change of one’s essence, an alteration of the very core of your own existence. Celestia and I are very closely connected to the celestial bodies we guide. In the same manner you and Twilight are connected to love and magic. Because of those close relations alicorns are capable of drawing power from the very thing they are connected to. Essentially, this means Celestia could draw power from the sun and her light, I could draw power from the moon and ponies dreams and in a few hundred years, you and Twilight might be able to draw power from love and magic respectively. But not for now, you are still very young and do not have the full range of your powers at your disposal.”
Applejack grunted again. “So? Why don’t ya just go righ’ ahead and do that whole drawing thingy ya’ll talked about. Ya get more powerful that way ain’t ya?”
Luna sighed. “It is not that easy Applejack. The power of neither sun nor moon are limitless, for everything we take away from them they need time to heal and regenerate. If we draw to much of their power into ourselves they might crumble and never be able to heal. Besides, it’s not that we are simply raising our own power level by doing that, we also become more and more detached from the world. If an alicorns draws in power, she becomes more unified with said power. Which in turn means that she becomes less and less of a pony. If I for example would draw in power from the dreams, I would sooner or later become one with them, but like this I would create a second consciousness inside the plain of dreams. This consciousness would interfere with the dreams of every living being, which ultimately might lead to the destruction of the plain of dreams itself.”
Twilight gulped and slowly opened her mouth. “That … sounds unpleasant.”
Luna shrugged. “It could be worse.” She pointed at me. “Celestia would simply explode in a brilliant flash of light if she drew in too much power.” Then she pointed at Twilight. “You would become the magic of friendship itself and would likely mindcontrol every living thing to become friends with each other.” Her hoof switched to Cadance and she smirked. “And Cadance might just end up become love incarnate. She would love every pony, animal, plant and possibly even any object she ever lays eyes on and they would love them back.” Her eyes fixed Shining armor. “This would of course include every stallion and wouldn’t be limited to platonic love.”
Shining looked at his wife with eyes wide open and mouth agape. “You would … with everypony … and animals … and ...”
Cadance shoved a hoof into his mouth and glared at him. “I swear if you follow that train of thoughts even one heartbeat longer I will never do … that thing … for you again.”
Shining Armor seemed to try his best to turn pale, but with a white coat his capabilities in that regard were rather limited. So, he simply tried to apologize, still having Cadance’s hoof in his mouth.
Twilight looked over to them and raised an eyebrow. “What is ... ‘that thing’?”
I cleared my throat as loud and politely as I could and looked at Luna. “Dear sister, if you have nothing else you think we need to know for now, I would suggest that everypony is granted an opportunity to think about what was said and make their decision in the matter.”
We had agreed on a thirty minute break so we all could eat something and think about how we would vote. As always, there wasn’t much talking, these sort of decisions had to be made alone, at least for me and my sister.
Cadance had snuggled up against her husband’s side and looked troubled, to say the least. She was obviously worried about many things. Her eyes spoke of fear for her beloved Shining Armor, but also of concern for her subject in the Crystal Empire. She knew exactly that she had no choice as to follow whatever course of action Equestria would decide upon, so she was terrified to lose those dearest to her in a war she herself didn’t want.
Luna’s expression was as calm as it always was when things like this were discussed. While everypony else might have simply took Luna for being cold, I knew all too well what was going on. She was furious, millennia of experience had granted her an unmatched composure, but I knew exactly that she was ready to do unspeakable things to the gryphons, as retribution for what they had done today. She was always eager to protect our ponies, but when somepony she considered her friend was involved, her righteous fury knew no limits. Even though the necessity dictated for the night guard to be deployed at the western coast and thus far away from the gryphons, I was already pretty sure that she had planned to fight them personally at one point. She was not just ready to fight this war, she was willing to show the the world why Equestria had not seen a full scale war for thousands of years.
Twilight sat in a small circle with her friends and they whispered about what they thought would be best to do. She may have been a princess and because of this only her decision counted, but these were her friends, which made them the best advisors any princess could ask for. These ponies were all heroes in their own right and together they were the greatest heroes we had to offer. Their friendships were most likely the key to our survival.
Finally, after the appointed break was over, we all sat down around the map again. I let my gaze wander across the room. I watched at anxious faces, eyes full of terror for what might come and still, I saw the will to fight back. No pony would stand by while others got hurt.
Luna took a deep breath, slowly rose up to her full height and spread her wings. Her steely gaze fell upon Cadance and Shining Armor. “What is the decision of the princess of love?”
Shining Armor and Cadance watched each other in the eyes. A single tear rolled down her cheek and she nodded as the white stallion slammed his hoof onto the map in a declaration of anger. “The Crystal Empire will fight. We are not standing by while the gryphons make cheap excuses for attacking Equestria and slaughter ponies far and wide.”
Cadance put a hoof on his shoulder and pulled him back, even though she was only barely able to contain her tears, she needed to say it herself. “The Crystal Empire, the Crystal Ponies and I are willing to fight. The light of the Crystal Heart will shine in everypony’s heart, love shall protect their souls.”
Luna turned towards me. “Sister, what is your decision as princess of the sun?”
I closed my eyes and nodded. “I will fight for my little ponies.”
Luna slowly turned towards Twilight, but before she could ask the question Twilight and her friends answered with one massive voice. “WE WILL FIGHT TO PROTECT OUR FRIENDS!”
Luna simply nodded and sat back onto her haunches. “You may hear my own vote now. As princess of the night, I will not rest until ponies can sleep safe again.”
I couldn’t help but mumble. “The chains are broken, we let loose the ponies of war.”