//------------------------------//
// Bridge Prologue 2: Friends of the Family 
// Story: When the Everfree Burns 
// by SpiritDutch 
//------------------------------//

One hundred Years Before the Summer Sun


The sky was cloudy and dark, illuminated sporadically by intra-cloud lightning. Even in the relative protection of the bay, the rough water slapped repeatedly against the hull of the stolid ship. The Tribal Star was one of the largest ships ever put to sail, seventy meters long by fifteen wide, five-thousand ton displacement and packed with griffins and equipment. Her sails, though now furled, was burned into the memory of thousands of survivors of her travels: A star of venus circumscribed by a green circle.

Black Bell, overlady of the great school of necromancers and sorcerers, stood on the deck in defiance of the whipping wind and salty spray. She wore none of her normal ornamentation, wearing only a battered straw hat meant to fend off sun. There was no sun in the sky now, just black clouds that roiled like oil smoke, letting loose gouts of light from the lightning trapped within.  Yet from under that broad hat stared those red eyes, so unlike those of a griffin, that moved in restless surveillance of the island off of which the Tribal Star was anchored. Black Bell had found a new victim.

Godswing, or Gottrakt in the local islander tongue, was a ridged basalt massif poking out of the cold seas like the wing of a desperate god trying to keep from drowning; Hence the name and mystery of the miserable and isolated isle. The only approach that did not end in razor-sharp rocks was from the bay, where the Tribal Star now sat awaiting Black Bell’s command.


One of the acolytes, a lean griffin with a ribbon tied across her eyes and a cut across her throat, approached her overlady with her head held low. She announced herself with a cough before rasping out her entreat. “My lady, the quartermaster wishes to know if the next watch is to wait inside, like the last.”

“The ocean is cold. If we were to try disembarking now we would lose much to the water.” Black Bell appraised, her osft voice competing against the crash of waves. Despite her best efforts to stand solid the biting wind made her shiver. “We will wait. If the food stocks run out, we can eat the prisoners.”

“Yes, my lady.” The acolyte nodded and slunk off.


Godswing would make an excellent home, Black Bell decided. The earth and weather could try their best to stop them, but the school always got their way.







 Twenty Years Before the Summer Sun


Graff Goric von Gottrakt had always had terrible luck. As a young cub his mere presence had cursed his father’s principality to a slow decline, after which its dissolution under Goric himself was mere formality. Goric’s first fiancee, the daughter of a allied duke, had snapped her neck tripping on her bridal train. His second, the sister of a egret prince, had fallen into a coma after their first child.
Goric’s most recent endeavor, the establishment and rule of a county on the island of Gottrakt, had turned into a grinding battle between his soldiers and colonists, the inhospitable land and climate, and the cultists who infested the tunnels of the basalt mountain.

Fortunately the lady heiress, Gilda, had not inherited her father’s cursed fortune. She was a cantankerous and feisty cub, always picking fights and racing the tramps by the docks.

Not that there was much else to do on Gottrakt. A few dozen houses, the warehouse, and fishery took up the waterfront facing the bay, while the modest manor and observatory held the higher ground. The village was dwarfed by the basalt cliffs towering overhead, the wing of the drowning god, poised to crash down and erase the miserable place forever. Not even seabirds had the audacity to make Gottrakt their home, yet Graff Goric and the colonists tried.

The punishment for their attempts were already manifest, for somewhere in the jagged ridges of the massif was the entrance to the island's true owners: the School of the Black Bell.  Heretical necromancers, slavers, sorcerers of the worst sort, the Black Bell had dwelled dwelled in Gottrakt for nearly a hundred years. There was no defeating them, only coping with them. That meant turning away, cowed, when one of their mutilated acolytes wandered down from the massif to inspect the goings on in the village. Thank the heavens Graff Goric's colony was merely a subject of curiosity so far, instead of malice.


But that was to change. The punishment Goric had incurred was not to be exactly what he feared, it would be far crueler than he could have anticipated. 

It was a sunny and cloudless day, though as always the cold shrieked over the massif and rattled the simple buildings on the waterfront. One fishing boat had already gone out for the day, while another bobbed in the harbor, tied up to keep it from smashing against the basalt reef ringing the bay. There wouldn't be another ship from the mainland for a month. Every griffin stayed indoors, reading, cooking, socializing, all somber for there was no rising above the pervasive misery. Perhaps they knew what was coming. Perhaps they saw or felt the figure staring down on them from the cliffs.

In the manor, overlooking the bleak fishing village,  Goric was in his bedroom, reading by candlelight. Whenever trade ships came from the mainland, taking on fish and offloading goods, Goric collected the harbor fee in the form of a book. At least a book would be nice while he had it. Money, on the other hand, slipped through his talons like salt, such was his unluckiness.

A rushed knock came from outside his closed door. “My liege, are you awake?!”

“I am. Come in.” Goric replied. He closed the book and set it aside.

Gomel, the lone remaining servant and friend of the Graff, peeked into the room. "Goric, I'm freaking out! You’ll never guess who’s here!"

Goric scratched his beak. He wasn’t expecting anyone, so he really couldn’t guess. “Don’t leave me in suspense. Who?”

Gomel entered and rushed right to Goric’s chair. He looked over his shoulder then whispered. “Black Bell. THE Black Bell.”


Goric jumped out of his chair, sending the book flying. “What?!” Surprise, then disbelief, then dread ran through his head.

“She’s in the feast hall. She says she wants to talk.” Gomel said hurriedly, jittering in excitement and nerves. “There’s no one with her. We could have her at out mercy, or actually talk as she asks."

“Talk?” Goric murmured to himself. Already it was the shock of the century to find out that Black Bell was a real griffin and not just a legend of the twisted acolytes. Now she was apparently standing just a few rooms away. “Let’s hear her out.”

“D- Directly, my liege?” Gomel said, aghast. “She could turn you inside out. Let me be the go between.”

“She tolerates us. If she wanted to destroy us in some gruesome way she would have done it when we first landed two years ago.” Goric pushed Gomel towards the door. “Go tell her I’ll be there in a moment.”


After giving Gomel a few seconds, Goric leaped into action. He grabbed his simple red cape off the bed and, after a moment of thought, put it back. There would be no pomp. He wasn't kidding anyone by calling himself  'graff', or count. He was barely even the ruler of this, the most inhospitable island in the world. If he put on that cape Black Bell would see right through him.
He would go as he was. Nothing else could help him.

Goric exited his room and crossed to the stairway down, and in his haste he nearly tripped over a small fuzzy cub with a few of her friends.

“Da! Get out of the way!” Gilda squeaked, pushing on his leg.

Goric regarded his daughter, and his train of thought froze. Never did he ever think Black Bell would be in the same building as his dear Gilda.
“Gilda, listen here. Take your friends upstairs and stay there until I come get you.” He ordered firmly. “Do you understand?”

Gilda stuck her chest out, about to give some sassy response, when she saw the look of genuine fear on her father’s face. Though she understood him not to be invincible, that he would be so terrified impressed to her the gravity of the command. “Yes.”

“Good girl.” Goric nodded. He pressed his back into the wall to let Gilda and company pass up the stair. Only when he heard the creak and click of Gilda’s door did he continue on his way downstairs.



The stair exited directly to side of the small feast hall, so that Goric could see the entire room from the last step.
Gomel was directly in front of him, talking to someone seated at the table. That someone was unmistakably Black Bell.
The legendary overlady of the School of the Black bell did not disappoint, with jet black feathers, roc skull headgear, and red eyes unblinkingly taking in everything around her. Her eyes, Goric noticed, had circular pupils, and it gave the unnerving expression of being fully enraptured by everything she looked at.

Black Bell 's attention shifted from Gomel to Goric, and the graff felt more bare and chilled than if he were naked before the winds on the massif. She rose from her seat and pushed Gomel aside. “Graff Goric, we meet at last.” She curtsied.

"I- I- It's an honor. We have been neighbors for so long, it is a right shame we have never talked before.” Goric bowed back, swallowing his nerves. “Then again, I almost feel like I know you already, having contended with your acolytes for two years now.”

“Yess indeed. And I feel like I know you. By little snippets at a time, pulled out of the brains of those that met you then had the unfortunate circumstance of meeting me. I could paint a portrait in that understated grey, of a lord who had nothing to lose and tried the impossible.” Black Bell chuckled, a slow and depraved laugh of she who had no reservation of announcing that she delighted in the torture and murder of others. “Am I coming on too strong? It's been oh so long that I was in normal company. I had almost forgotten how to talk."

“Your prose and voice are beautiful, madam.” Goric fidgeted, unsure of if he could stomach much more of her. “Let us put flattery aside, please. I, um, assume you came to talk about some business between us?”

“Yes, yes I did indeed.” Bell nodded. “A truce.”

Gomel gasped and Goric choked on his breath. “A truce? I- I did realize we were at war.”

Black Bell began strolling the length of the small feast hall, and her low voice echoed slightly. “I should rephrase my proposal. A pact of respect and openness between us. We in the mountain and you outside will integrate into one.”


“That’s…” Goric had to pause and think of the implication.
Black Bell was a name synonymous with anguish and cruelty. Two-hundred years ago the Tribal Star had raided the coasts of Griffany, and for a hundred years still the witches of Gottrakt had haunted the northern seas. Only by a contemptuous disregard for their own lives had Goric and company opted to make the God Wing their home.
Despite all that Black Bell offering her pact was the single nicest thing anyone had ever offered Goric. He could not even begin to calculate the economic benefit the cultist school and their needs could bring to Gottrakt. The current exports of fish and salt was barely enough to keep the colony alive, so perhaps Goric finally had the means to see his hold grow and thrive. At last, his mad dream in the north seas would be vindicated.
On the other hand, the School of the Black Bell were a force far above counts and princes. Sadistic and arrogant would hardly capture it, for the acolytes treated all other griffins as mere prey.
“I don’t know what to say.” Goric mumbled.

“Then I will say it for you, my liege.” Gomel interjected. “Such a truce is absolutely impossible!”

Black Bell slowly turned to the griffin. “Sir, your feels have no place here. This is between me and your liege lord." The dark griffin said, polite but with an unspoken warning to her tone.

Gomel shook his head. "My graff, if the mainlanders find out that we consorted with the witches our banishment would be made permanent! There will be no future for us if we surrender ourselves to this demon. Your daughter could never set claw on the motherland, forever." Gomel met Black Bell's gaze. "Cast thou wicked eyes off me or my graff. You've come alone to a house that does not welcome you. You will leave or pay dearly."

"Your sense of the future is misplaced, griffin. What political power that does spurn me or you will not last forever, and I will not have petty stewards invoking distant laws at me on my own porch. Begone.” Black Bell snapped. She lifted a claw into the air, and a silken string of indigo magic formed in her palm. Clutching the magic, she physically gestured at Gomel.
The poor chancellor had no time to react. The string of magic struck him through the head, and simultaneously every hair and feather on his body was set aflame. Within moments, his every mote had dissolved into nothingness.
"Ha. Now there is no future for you." Black Bell dispersed the smoke with a wave of her claw.

Goric clacked his beak in utter horror, fixated on the empty air that had once been his servant.

Black Bell relished in Goric’s shock. “Oh dear, getting ahead of myself, aren’t I. I forget that foreigners are more tolerant of such insubordination.”

“Have you come to do more than torment me?” Goric whispered, trying to control his fear. What unbelievable sorcerous power!

“Ahem. Please, consider how your mourning imposes on others. Do it later, in privacy.” Black Bell scolded softly. “My offer stands, and I urge you to consider it. Would you like to be the Lord of Gottrakt in more than just name?”

“I... I would.” Goric choked out. "Spare them, I beg you." Black Bell's demonstrations of power would kill more of his griffins. “Whatever you want, we can negotiate.”


“What I want? Goric, think of what you want! This is very good indeed for the both of us!” Black Bell chirped, approaching him eagerly. Goric shied away but she pulled him into a hug. “How wise you are. How strong you are! I can feel in your bones that you and I are of a same blood, a same soul. You know as I do that justice is not found in cloister, but an embrace of all the parts of life!"

Goric tried to wriggle away, supremely uncomfortable. "I- I can not attest to what you're saying."

Black Bell brushed the roc skull off her head with a wing, letting it clatter to the stone floor. "Don't be a prude. You know what I'm talking about. Let all the silly notions of 'morality' die." She nuzzled his neck. "Be my husband, Goric.”

Goric’s heart seized and his mind stopped. It was an even greater shock than Gomel’s disintegration.

“Yes, you heard correctly. I desire to cement this pact with a marriage between us! Yes, more than a pact, an alliance! I see great potential in you. Your current wife, catatonic as she is, will be be healed by yours truly and then sent back to her father.” Black Bell stroked the back of Goric’s head as she whispered in his ear. “This will be the best for all of us. I will be the new Graffina of Gottrakt, but do not fear overmuch. I have space in my heart for you and your subjects.”

Even honeyed, it sounded perilous. “My daughter goes with her mother to Griffany.” Goric asserted weakly.

“No no no. No, indeed. She stays.” Bell shut him up with a claw on his beak. “Your daughter will be be brought up by us both, as the heir to our two systems. You love her, right? There are such powers she could have.”

Goric could do nothing but stay still, frozen by the awful things she said. Why was this happening to him? Why here? Why now?

“I must confess now, my dear husband, that it is because of little Gilda that I was prompted to come to you. Usually nobility are such stilted cretins, but both you and your daughter have great potential. Oh yes, Gilda has GREAT potential. I would just take her, but I would be remiss to take her from such a loving father. Thus, I enter her life in a role best to teach her.”

What terrible luck I have, Goric thought morosely to himself.







 Seventeen Years Before the Summer Sun


Almost ninety years since the arrival of the Tribal Star, and five years since the colonists came, the cruel black isle of Gottrakt had been remade.
Two sturdy towers sat on either side of the entrance of the basalt bay, and between them was a heavy chain to block any unwelcome ships. The towers were recent constructions, made of crushed basalt aggregate mixed with imported cement which the witches had used a little magic on to create black concrete walls that stood against the cold north winds and colder seas. Narrow walls snaked from the towers naked across the uneven basalt ridges, providing providing an even path from one edge of the bay to the other- And between them, where the bay met the massif, that same black concrete had been shaped into the formidable walled city of Gottrakt, a veritable dark fortress, upon which stood silent watch dozens of cannons pointing out to the choppy seas, a constant vigil against the forces of propriety and good.


From the top of the tower on the left of the bay, Gilda had an excellent view of the bay and harbor, and could even partially see over the city wall. It was far from silent on the parapet, for the north wind shrieked incessantly around the silts and embrasures. Sometimes Gilda pretended the wind was speaking to her, trying to drive her crazy by the noise and clatter it made.
Still, the wind was a measure more tolerable than the madness on the ground level. The walled city was a never ending barrage of sounds that drove Gilda wild: The clucking tongues of her teachers, the droning of her fellow student, the shrieks and whops of acolytes and citizens. The worst were the sweet and twisted songs of Black Bell, and the whispers of her father Goric. None of it made her happy, all of it infuriated her, and there was no way to make it go away. So she was the one who had to go away, finding her rare moments of solitude in isolated spots like the tower.
What a life, Gilda thought. Her gripe with the School of the Black Bell and its control over her life was less that it was a deeply evil and wicked institution, which she realized on some level, but rather the demands it made on her life and time. In typical childish fashion Gilda desired to rebel for selfish reasons.

Gilda wondered to herself if she would face punishment when she got back to the walled city, before returning to her lazy spying.  

It was a busy day as usual on the Gottrakt waterfront, with holks laden with food and goods offloading. The Island was booming, with thousands of new settlers arriving in the past three years. A wretched collection of fisher's cottages no more, Gottrakt had laborers, artisans, professionals, and bluebloods.
But no griffin was under any delusion that this was a normal griffin town. The traders who supplied Gottrakt its necessities weren't filling their holds with basalt craftwork for the return trip. The staple of all commerce on Gottrakt, the horrific commodity that underpinned the whole island, was slaves. A whole stretch of the bay harbor was dedicated to it: Acolytes led gangs of slaves, usually mixed groups of griffins and ponies, off the boats and into the city. Solo slaves, the survivors of the brutal experiments and tests of the school, were led back out for export. Who'd first had that horrible idea, to resell the byproduct of their dark poking and prodding? Be they unfeeling soldiers, masters of magic, or administrative geniuses, the chattel commodities of the school were in high demand. No decent lord of Griffany could admit to wanting or needing living tools that Black Bell manufactured, but nor could the tools be done without. 

Watching the movement on the docks made Gilda think of ants. There were no ants on Gottrakt, but she had a vague memory from life before the island, when she was just a cub. She remembered trees and grass and farmers in their fields.

Black Bell might as well have thought the chattel slaves were ants, but she didn't think much better of her free subjects. Progress came at the cost of great cruelty and depredation- At every turning point in history was there a redistribution of power and wealth, the facilitators of life. One gained, another lost. Sometimes, a great many more lost than gained. Such was progress. The enclosure of the commons, violent, cruel, and barbaric though it was, set the groundwork for the manufacturing and trade revolution on the Equestrian coasts, Anterpwren, and elsewhere. Everyone shut their eyes and pretended the new wealth wasn't stained by the blood of the powerless and exploited, but they knew deep down by what viscus lubrication two coins slid so easily across each other.
Operating under that historical TRUTH, Black Bell aimed to give Griffany progress. It was a mere trickle for the moment, and the products of Gottrakt were luxury items that came in small quantities. Some day, that might change.

Gilda was largely apathetic about the slavery situation. The acolytes dedicated to slave testing were among her most loathed, for they were either dull busybodies or psychotic careerists, and in either case were very rude to the students. Gilda, so far as she could reason in her youth, realized that the slaves made most things in Gottrakt possible, and she was conflicted to be resentful or thankful for enabling her lifestyle.

In her most escapist fantasy, Gilda imagined leaving the island. Could she just slip aboard one of the ships and let it take her away to some other shore? She yearned to see firsthand what life was like in the rest of the world.
But not all Gilda's dreams were pleasant. The culture of cruelty was so pervasive Gilda couldn't keep it out of her head all the time. What if she left Gottrakt, not to get away from Black Bell's control, but to spread it? Many of her daydreams featured another fixture of the waterfront: At the far end of the harbor was the decayed hull of the Tribal Star. That ancient hulk had been raised so recently from the bottom of the bay that the seaweed on the bug-eaten deck was still fresh. Gilda imagined taking the helm of that accursed ship, taking it on a tour of Griffany like the days of yore to sack and pillage the arrogant mainlanders. How cruel could an adolescent mind be? Gilda daydreamed...



After several hours of watching ships come and go, Gilda felt the her stomach rumble. It was late in the day, almost dinner time for students. Thinking about life and junk was no substitution for a good meal.

Spreading her wings, she let the sea breeze carry her towards the city. Some of the acolytes on the docks saw her and waved, but she ignored them. Flapping a few times to get altitude, she landed on the city wall. She rested there for a while, as she had only been flying for a few months and it still tired her out.

All the guards and soldiers on the island were products of the school, former students or experiments. They nodded to Gilda as they passed on their patrol of the wall. “Lady Gilda.” They uttered respectfully. The slave-soldiers were programed for absolute loyalty, and the others feared and revered Black Bell too much not to respect the daughter-in-law adopted as Black Bell's own.
GIlda began to ponder what she had many times before, of if she deserved the treatment she received. It was the reverse of the griffins in the school, who as teachers or fellow students gave Gilda endless trouble. No, the griffins or ponies in town were respectful, demure in her sight, making sure to give no reason to offend the daughter of the graff and overlady. Being treated in two very different ways naturally provoked Gilda to question which was more deserved, more appropriate, or more just. But she didn't question it too deeply, and always Gilda was saved from her introspection, this time by more stomach rumblings.


After her minute of rest, Gilda took to wing again, flying over the city towards her father’s castle. The humble manor that had stood on the sight for two years was no more, replaced by a structure as grand and solid as the rest of the 'new' Gottrakt. It overlooked the entire walled city, but was still dwarfed by the massif. No normal town of a thousand ponies could justify a keep of such size, with its great towers enshadowing whole blocks of city below, but for the true value of Gottrakt that and more were needed. Without the deterrent of the castle, a mainlander might make the foolhardy decision to grow a moral backbone and attempt to shut the island down. For all their mystic power, sometimes griffins needed a symbol in black stone of the powers they were wrestling with.

Gilda landed atop one of the shorter towers of the castle and and entered from there. Most interior spaces were frivolously vacant- Gilda felt a possessiveness over the empty space, because if anyone came to decorate them it could only mean more competitors for attention.
Gilda went down a level to cross over to her own personal tower, then went up three to get to her sleeping chambers. Her tower was more whimsical than the entire rest of the island put together. Maps of faraway places were plastered over every wall. Fantasy and adventure books crowded her bookshelves. Specially made figurines of her favorite storybook characters sat lined up on her shelves, and woven into her blanket was pattern of a compass rose.

Gilda had hunger on her mind. A hungry griffin was already a dangerous creature for prey species; A hungry griffin of Gilda's ilk was a threat to everyone. She reached under her bed for a tool she’d stashed there after her last guilty indulgence: A knife, with a cruelly twisting blade, designed for special rituals. Gilda, not even an adolescent griffin yet, didn’t have sharp enough claws for what she had planned.


With the knife tucked under her wing, Gilda rushed out of her room, only to collide with another griffin waiting just outside. 
Gilda jumped away from the facefull of black feathers: Black Bell herself had been coming up to look for her.

“Hello GIlda.” Black Bell smiled broadly. The overlady of the School had didn't have the roc skull that usually adorned her head. She could almost be mistaken for a normal griffin, but her round red eyes gave her away. They never blinked, and in the dim light they seemed to glow with a light of their own. “You're shivering. Have you been outside?”

“Yeah I guess.” Gilda looked at the floor. Even when she didn’t have anything to hide looking into Black Bells’s eyes made her feel jittery and cold. “My dad’s not up here.”

“Oh I know. He’s at city hall. But I’m not looking for him.” Bell tittered. “I heard you weren’t at your history class this afternoon.”

“I know all that stuff though. I read way ahead in the book.” Gilda explained truthfully. She had a passion for history, though she tried to act flippant to her mother-in-law. “I was going to say sorry my teacher later. I- I just-”

“And your cooking class? Why did you skill that one?” Bell arched a brow.

“Why'd you even make that class. None of us do our own cooking here.” GIlda muttered, scowling at the floor. "I hate cooking."


“Hee hee. Don’t we all.” Bell ruffled Gilda’s crest playfully. “We eat to survive. There’s no joy in it, is there?”

Gilda thought about the knife under her wing. “No.”

"But the cooking class is not about cooking. If you attended, you'd understand that. It's about fostering a certain kind of thinking." Black Bell said, adopting a lecturing, teasing tone. "Don't you trust you elders to teach you the right way to think?"

Gilda fluttered her wings nervously, declining to answer the question.

Bell snorted, then stepped out of Gilda’s way. “Go on then, kiddo.”

Gilda tentatively stepped past Black Bell. It occurred to her that she should ask if she was going to be punished later for her truancy, but when she turned around her step-mother was gone.


So, Gilda quickly descended the tower, slipping out a side entrance into the city. There was no one one around, griffin, pony slave, citizen, or sailor. They knew some danger lurked around the castle in the quieter hours. It was unsafe to be alone, unless you were GIlda. Her wing began to tingle where it pressed on her knife, and she felt she would soon be using it. She would check all the dark alleys around the taverns and inns, and perhaps, she would find some sailor too drunk to defend himself from the voracious hunger of a little griffin girl.






Ten Years Before the Summer Sun

The frigid seas north of Griffany were dotted with islands. Most were cold and rainy archipelagos, covered in dunes and grassy bluffs, settled by the solitary Gull griffins. Gottrakt was unique for its total isolation far north of the other islands, and for its desolate basalt cliffs. Trottingham, though technically a north sea island, had been considered its own region after its colonization by Equestria.

The shores of the Griffany mainland shared a climate with the islands, but while the Gulls idolized a traditional way of life, the shore birds embraced modernity in many forms.
As money replaced blood and honor as the only currency of the civilized, the furtive coastal Egret traders had transformed their quiet towns into engines of commerce. With easy access to the river mouths that wound down from the forested uplands, arteries of goods and travel, the Egret cities began to forge cross-continental trade links- No one drove a bargain like a griffin, and the Egrets grew rich. None richer than them prince city Anterpwren.

Anterpwren was, without a shadow of a doubt, the most prosperous city of Griffany, and perhaps the world. 
Every day hundreds of ships from every corner of the earth arrived laden with exotic, then departed with weapons and manufactured commodities ready for trade. Grand armadas slowly gathered off shore, equipped to fetch Griffany's needs from across the seas, by coercion or bargaining, until finally swirling into the horizon like a flock of birds. Canals snaked up from the river for nearly a kilometer inland, making one huge dockland of the city. Tens-of-thousands of members of all races came and went with nothing but business on their mind. Rings of fortifications, moats, and castles protected the land approach from covetous uplanders, and while cannon batteries built on the shoals technically guarded the grand harbor Anterpwren's naval reputation was too fearsome for anyone to dare test it.


Splendor sustained by the promise of violence, gold exchanged under the shadow of cannons, spice and amber delivered by warships...   Gilda could see that Black Bell's adages about the duality of history were true.
Gilda had read about it all in books, but being there was an experience the book could never truly capture. The hustle and bustle on a truly monumental scale eclipsed anything a girl from a tiny island could dream of. She had only been off the boat for a few seconds and already she was feeling overwhelmed.

"What a show." Gilda's gaze traced the richly ornamented gables of the trade houses facing the piers. Her fellow passengers brushed past her as they disembarked, mumbling their goodbyes after the journey. None of them wanted to admit they had all just come from Gottrakt.

In the natural wandering of her gaze, Gilda's attention settled on a pony standing on the pier, stock still among so much movement and bustle. They two were the only creatures not running or working.
It was a young pegasus mare. She was teal, with scraps of yellow and gold mane peeking from under her broad-brimmed sunhat. Her flank was adorned with three white stars and a golden lightning bolt. On her back was a worn saddlebag.

Gilda was wondering if she should approach the pegasus mare or run away, but the teal mare made the decision for her, trotting up to her with a strange look in her eye. “Hey, are you okay?” The pegasus asked.

“Y- Yeah, I’m good.” Gilda stuttered. She felt a sudden paranoia that the mare knew who she was and therefore intended something malicious. "It's a nice day."

However the young mare was persistent. “You’ve only just arrived right? Where are you from?”

Gilda was now certain the mare knew she'd just come from Gottrakt. “Um, yes. That’s the ship I came in on right there. I'm from the islands.”

“Cool. I’ve never been to the islands. I hope to some day. You don't have an accent like most Gulls so-"

"I'm not a gull." Gilda said sharply.

The mare scratched her chin. "Oh sorry. Is it insulting if I can't tell you apart? Some griffins tell me they can tell Egrets from Kestrels or whatever, others tell me they can't."

"Hey, I'd love to talk phrenology, but some other time, eh?" Gilda chuckled, trying to break off the conversation. "If you could point me in the direction of the ships going to Equestria-"

"Going to Equestria? There's jobs and opportunity right here in Anterpwren. Not that Equestria doesn't have upsides, like peace, stability, and rule of law." The pegasus said. "But Equestria isn't a place where mercenaries can keep employed, no ma'am. Peace is the enemy of the mercenary."

Gilda was starting to get unnerved by the mare, and tried to step around her. "Okay thanks, I'll keep that in mind, but-"

The mare stepped back and blocked Gilda's way again. "Even if I didn't know where that ship came from, I'd be able to tell just by smelling you that you've had blood on those talons. You're young, fresh, rippling with muscles, and no stranger to the hunt." The mare said eagerly. "Haven't you ever thought about getting payed for what you do best? If so, I know some good places where we can talk it out."

Gilda was silent for a while. If they weren't so busy with their work the creatures milling around them would surely have gaggled at the stare-down between Gilda and the mare.
"I'm going to Equestria. Sorry, but you won't be getting your recruiter's bonus off me."

The mare licked her lips. "Ahh...  That's a real shame. I can tell you're brimming with talent. If you want to succeed you have to get better at hiding that. Change the way you walk, change where your eyes settle, obscure the fact you're a predator."

"That's, um, good advice. I'll remember that." Gilda glanced away. "Now please, I have to leave."

The mare nodded. "As sometimes we do." She motioned to a pier across the harbor. "A couple Equestrian ships are docked over there. You'll find your passage with them." Gilda tried to pass her again but the mare stepped in her way again. "If you find yourself lost in Equestria, try out Cloudsdale, my hometown. If that place is the way I left it, it deserves a griffin like you."

"Cheers." Gilda mumbled, self-conscious from the pegasus's recommendation. Was she a curse to be unleashed on a 'deserving' city? "Until next time."

"Let's not kid ourselves. We won't remember each other. There's too much space in our brain taken up by the faces of the dead." The mare laughed, a pained, almost gruesome laugh. "Get on then. I've got a job to do."

Gilda finally went on her way, hopping into the air and flying towards pier where the equestrian ships were docked.


The mercenary recruiter tugged at the brim of her hat. "Damn shame. Whelp, back to work it is for Lightning Dust." It was an exhausting exercise to work all day and go to bed hungry. It was feast or famine when you were payed by commission. She'd thought she'd hit pay dirt but another prospective grab had flittered away. "Is it because I'm a pony? I need to find a griffin to scout with. I wonder what Mac's up to these days."

But losing one chance didn't mean Lightning Dust was going to sulk the rest of the day. Passengers were still trickling off the boat from Gottrakt and Lightning Dust knew that's where the coldest killers came from.
Another few minutes passed, and it seemed like all the passengers had disembarked. Lightning Dust had watched them all and none of them had as much potential as she'd detected in Gilda. Waste of time.

"Well shoot. I'm gunna have to scrounge in bars again for drunken dregs." Lightning Dust spat. "That is, if the competition didn't comb through the bars already."

She was about to turn and leave the pier when another griffin caught her attention. A lean tom in a heavy concealing cloak jumped off the ship onto the pier, saying a few words to the captain then leaving. He had no baggage, and it was hard to make out his features under the cloak, but Lightning Dust felt the same energy from the griffin as she had from Gilda.
"Hey." She waved to the cloaked griffin as he passed. "I said hey. Have a moment to talk?"

The griffin stopped and half-turned to her. "I was about to say the same to you, mis." He struggled to speak, betraying an old injury across his throat. "You have something to sell. But have you ever been sold to?"

Something about the griffin's cryptic question ticked Lightning Dust off. "I got sold this job I guess. I thought I'd be on the frontlines but here I am hocking to random-ass griffins! If they're not little girls scared of themselves they're weirdos who try to philosophize at me!"

The cloaked griffin laughed with difficulty. "You have read me wrong. I will give you my time if you give me yours."

"Fine. Great. Love it." Lightning Dust said tersely. She'd already written the cloaked pony off as a recruit, but if he disappointed she could just mug him. "I know an out-of-the-way place we can talk."

"Lead." The cloaked griffin said.


Lightning Dust trotted off the pier, away from the waterfront, into Anterpwren. It was a nice day so griffins were in on their porches and in the street, talking, shopping, and socializing. Dust and the cloaked griffin arrived at a park secluded from the street by trees. A few paupers noticed Lightning Dust coming and vacated the area, afraid the pony was going to abuse them.

"So..." Lightning Dust turned to the cloaked griffin. "Have experience killing?"

"I think that is the wrong question. I have been the cause of many deaths, but I have no skill with a sword anymore." The griffin lifted his claw, showing that it trembled. "My wife promises me that I'll be repaired as soon as she has the necessary materials. That is where you come in."

"Where I come in? Excuse me?" Lightning Dust scoffed. "Okay boyo, I don't know why I got good vibes from you, but you're no use to me."

"Oh, I believe we could be of great use to each other." The cloaked griffin said. "I am a recruiter myself. My name is Goric, and I approached you on behalf of the overlady of the School of the Black Bell."

Lightning Dust, as a pony, did not have the visceral reaction she would have if she had been a griffin. She only knew a little about the School of the Black Bell, like that they controlled Gottrakt, were magicians, and were feared by all other griffins. She understood enough to be worried that she'd been picked out by one of their agents. "Uh, okay. Y'all are slavers, right? Are you going to sell me slaves so I can fill my quota?"

"Don't think of your current job. Instead, I offer that you help fill quotas for us." Goric said. "We are not slavers. We buy from slavers."

"So if I get you, you're asking me to be a slaver for you." Lightning Dust blinked. "Uhh, where is this coming from? I was literally the first pony on the dock. Not going to shop around?"

"You came to me." Goric said. "If you say yes, you begin immediately. I have a list of griffins to acquire, and I would like to have one with me when I return to Gottrakt."

"Wow, 'acquire'. And I suppose I get the targets to you by any means necessary." Lightning Dust said.

"As long as they are alive and intact." Goric confirmed.

"Wow. That... sounds like way more fun than what I'm doing now." Lightning Dust said to herself. "And they pay?"

"The pay will keep you coming back to us." Goric promised.

"I like the sound of this. I really do. I deserve this break." Lightning Dust laughed. "Screw working my way up through other mercenary outfits. I'll just buy my way into the Princes!"

"Whatever your ambition, let it drive you, but if you work for the School of the Black Bell your desires come second." Goric said. "The list is finite. Bring us all of them and you will be in our good standing."

"I'm sure that'll come in handy." Lightning Dust said. "Ha ha, why the hell not! I'm loose, I'm feeling good. Show me the unfortunate bucker I need to introduce to you."

"Near the waterfront. A dispossessed Kestrel princess is living there with her mistress, Gunda. Bring me the princess. Do what you will with the mistress and any other witnesses." Goric said. "This list will not be easy to furfill. They are all nobles, knights, and lords. If the School of the Black Bell wanted scuts it could find them anywhere. The School wants the highborn, and you will be payed for it."

"So I will, my lad, so I will." Lightning Dust nodded. "And I know the drill. You guys are getting help out of house for the sake of deniability."

"Under normal circumstances the School would not care if a plot were discovered. However it would make it harder to get the targets if they knew they were targets. And I promise you, they are sorely desired by us." Goric hissed, lifting his trembling claw again. "How you get the princess onto my ship is for you to decide. The gold is waiting."

"I'll see you tonight then. Have a nice day, Goric." Lightning Dust said.

"Get used to calling me Lord Goric." Groic pulled the hood of his cloak down.

"I will sir, if you get used to calling me Lightning Dust."
Dust galloped away, heading in no direction in particular. After several loop backs and checks to make certain no one was following, she beelined back to the crumbling inn where she was renting a room.

Lightning Dust couldn't believe her luck. She wasn't totally convinced Goric was legit and she wasn't being pranked. But she chose to trust her first instinct that had told her Goric was a dangerous creature.
Besides, if the pay really was as good as he'd hinted, that money could get her into a real mercenary troupe, the kind that wouldn't stick her on recruitment duty. The mercenary company she wanted to join had no recruiters, because its name and legacy spoke for themselves: The Princes of Equestria.






Three Years Before the Summer Sun


It was a cold winter morning in Prance, outside the city of Os. What what once been a capital of Prench culture and politics had been devastated by war, to the point that now any lord with a few thousand levies and enough bits for a middling mercenary band could march in and proclaim himself king.
Today, however, the siege was being set by the king. Or at least a king- It was never clear which claimant someone was talking about when they said 'king of Prance'. Two month prior, a rebellious duchess had muscled her way into Os with the help of Friesian border lords to crown herself. The sitting Prench king fled to the countryside to gather his vassals, only none of them showed up. By pawning the royal regalia and promising the royal treasury, the king raised a mercenary army.

That mercenary army awoke to another snowy day and reluctantly went about the buisness of the siege. The perimeter was scouted and siege cannon were intermittently fired, but mostly they huddled around their fires to keep warm. Only their dreams of plunder and wenches kept them from deserting.


"God damn, it's colder than it was yesterday." Lightning Dust griped to herself. "The Princes of Equestria are brawlers, not sappers! What in the hell was Captain Shark thinking, taking this contract. The payout better be buckin' worth it."

Lightning Dust had been detailed to the woods upriver of Os, guarding a battery of cannons overlooking the river. The captain had said the cannons could be used to sink anypony trying to get messages into the city by barge, but Lightning Dust hadn't been given enough troops to use even one of the cannons, let alone a battery. So she'd resorted to flying over barges and shooting them up from above, which worked well enough.
Though they'd been assigned to other lieutenants, Lightning Dust's friends had come to join her, while all her other troops had wandered off to find their own pals. So it was the Dust was shivering that day with her two closest companions, Grace MacGriffitosh, AKA Mac, and Rosen Bright, AKA Red-Black.

“Did I already say how bucking stupid this is? It’s the bloody Winter! There’s nothing to forage, and Os is stuffed full from the harvest! We’re going to starve out here while the chums up there laugh and feast. BUCK!” Dust swore, throwing pebbles into the half-frozen river. She was swaddled with thick wool coats commandeered from a nearby farm. The sheep there had been none too happy about her theft; Take it up with the king, she'd said. On top of the coats all was her vest, with a half-dozen knives and guns strapped onto it.

“I hear ya Dust. Tha god’s dinna bless tha ol’ prenchy king with near nothin akin to a brain.” Mac agreed. The little griffin was dressed poorly for the weather, insisting on being fashionable in a noblemare’s pettycoat she’d stolen the month before. Nor did she have any weapon, instead having taken it upon herself to take up the job of artillery officer. She was leaned against one of the wooden gun carriages, holding a botefeux in a parody of vigilance. “Not but propper bucked! That’s what we are!”

“Quit your bitching!” An muffled yell came from under a snowdrift. Red-Back had, as he always did, made the best of the situation. He'd crafted himself a little snow cave. “I’m trying to hibernate, to conserve fat.”

“Your quirkiness is going to get tiring one of these days. You're lucky it's not today." Lightning Dust kicked snow in his general direction. "How're you supposed to hibernate with your body fat, Red-Black? You're build like a pine tree.” She snickered. “I don’t know how you keep the ladies interested, looking as you do like you’d kill them for a scrap of bread.”

“I like larches. Iffin I had to say, I’d confess tha larch is, exceptin course tha magnolia, tha best tree ever.” Mac ruminated.

“Shut up already!” Red-Black's pink furred head with long blue hair popped out of the snowdrift. “You mares just can’t stop talking, can you!”

“I literally can’t keep my mouth from moving.” Dust said.

“If not talk, what't we come ta do, Red?” Mac agreed.

“Anything.” Red-Black rolled his eyes. He pulled the rest of himself, done up in thick coats like Dust, out of the snow. “How Porgy gets any sleep with you two yammering on.”

All three of them turned to look at Porgy, frozen to the side of one of the copper cannons, his face stiff in a horrific grimace.

“Rest in peace, lad.” Mac held a claw over her heart.

“Maybe he’s just hibernating.” Dust snarked.

“Yeah, laugh it up featherbrain. He died on your watch which I'm pretty sure makes you the lieutenant with the highest casualty rate.” Red-Black shot back.

"I can't control the weather. Hardly my fault that chumps like Porgy can't swaddle up." Dust countered.

Red-Black waggled a brow. "How long before Captain Shark demotes you to bars again?"

"Shut the hell up Red. Shark Storm knows I'll tear a manticore's throat out to keep lieutenant, and he is a lot softer than a manticore." Lightning Dust muttered angrily. "But there sure as hell isn't any opportunity for promotion in this damn siege. We need action!"

Red-Black shrugged and retreated back into his snow cave. "You need action. I need some bloody peace and quiet. Afraid of starving, Dust? Take a nibble off Porgy. He isn't complaining. Honestly, that puts him above you right now."


Lightning Dust pursed her lips. Red was annoying, but he was right. All they were doing was standing around arguing, slowly freezing and starving to death. If the defenders of Os made a sortie they would have an easy time against the weak besiegers.
Yes, instead of sitting around complaining her situation, Lightning Dust would rather have been doing something about it. However that would mean leaving her post, and her orders had been clear- Shark Storm hadn’t been made Captain of Princes of Equestria by letting insubordination go unpunished.

“You know what? Buck it.” Dust announced. “I don’t see why we can’t redistribute the agricultural stockpiles of Os to those in need, namely ourselves.”

“Where would we even begin to do that? Going to take on the whole city, tough guy?” Red-Black scowled.

Dust looked over the embankment to freezing river. It had been a while since the last barge had passed through. They were due another attempt. Lightning Dust could think of other uses for a barge besides just target practice.
“I know how we can do it, quickly, covertly, and badass-ly.”



As night fell the temperature dropped even farther. The sentries on the walls of Os preferred to huddle behind the ramparts than look over and expose themselves to the wind. Even from the towers, where one could peer out from arrow slits, certain angles were out of the line of sight. 

The Seicercus River wound its way quite ferociously through woodlands before the run around which Os was built. The clean white walls of the city were too short to see the water over the treetops. Only from the top of the tower could anyone, for example, have seen a barge be waylaid by a pegasus, griffin and unicorn.



Dust and company pulled the barge up to the riverbank, tying its lines to trees to keep it from drifting off.

"Empty grain sacks. Now they're just taunting us." Lightning Dust griped, kicking at the limp pile of fabric sacks.

"I thought all our enemies were penned up in the city. Whoever keeps sending these messengers is pretty persistent though." Red-Black dragged the unconscious barge pony onto land and tied her to a cannon. "So what do we do? Wake this gal up and torture her for information?"

"Nah. We go now. There's a chance they're expecting the barge at a precise time." Lightning Dust said. "So strip down to futs to look like her. Mac, that means you dress up."

Red-Black shook his head. "But you do realize that we won't be able to supply whatever password the guards set up. There's a siege on. They'll start asking questions and they will realize who we are."

"Iffin they donna blast as quick as we’re in sight.” Mac said.

“That too, since the usurper doesn't have any griffin allies.” Red-Black huffed. “But I think they will capture us, flay us, then hang us off the the cathedral tower as an example.”

“Shut the buck up you two.” Dust snapped. She slipped off her weapon vest. "I told you guys orders."

"You're not even our commander, Dust. The only pony here under your command is Porgy." Red-Black said. "So that means you have to play nice and tell us the plan, so we can be more confident we won't just die right away."

Lightning Dust made a sour face. "Fine. Geeze." She grabbed one of the empty grain sacks and stuffed her vest with all its weapons in. "We have a whole battery of cannons here, with enough gunpowder to match. Powder is the one thing the guards in Os are never going to pass up."

"Ah haa, come in with gunpowder, sneak out with grain." Red-Black stroked his chin. "I think the city powder magazine is close to a granary as well. But I still don't see how they let us in, especially with Mac being a griffin."

"This is where I have to make a guess. See, I don't think the ponies in Os know that it's a mixed mercenary army besieging them. We haven't made any assaults, and we've set up a pretty wide perimeter. For all they know, the king managed to call up his vassals and is attacking with an all-pony force." Lightning Dust explained. "And that's why I think somepony upriver is trying so hard to get messages into the city. They're trying to send a warning about the mercenary army."

"That's a pretty big guess, Dust... But it would be brilliant if it's right." Red-Black mused. "Well, I'm game." He dropped his weapons into the empty grain bag. "Mac, suit up."

"Innut better a stay here?" Mac fidgeted her wings, trying to sound helpful.

"You can put on a pretty convincing Egret accent when you try. There's some egret villages in Friesian horse territory, so that'll be the play." Dust said. "Red-Black, grab some powder. It get's dark fast on these cold winter days.


A few minutes later and the trio were polling away from the riverbank. The grain bags were filled with gunpowder, and one of them also hid their weapons. Mac had reluctantly put on the barge mare's wools, though she'd brought alone her botefeux for some reason.

"Red, up front." Dust ordered.

Red-Black begrudgingly cantered to the front of the barge to push away any chunks of ice in their way. The air was still, and a light powdery snow began to fall.


They turned the last bend and entered the Seicercus river’s run. Collapsed fortifications and  stagnant moats littered the land to either side of the river, epitaphs to Prance’s golden age. The walls of Os were all that remained of the most extensive network of defenses anywhere in the world.


“We’ve been spotted.” Dust whispered. Torches began moving atop the walls. “Okay, umm, here's how were's gunna run this. Mac, act like a pathetic and downtrodden peasant. Red, I need you to let your inflated sense of ego run wild.”

“Message received.” Red-Black saluted. As they neared the wall, he began impatiently strutting the front of the barge. Dust and Mac stayed at the back, toiling in the misery like a poor bargemare deserved.


“Arrêtez!” A unicorn soldier called from the top of the wall. “Déclarez votre affaire!”

“Qu'est ce que vous voulez? Dois-je arrêter, ou dois-je déclarer mon affaire?” Red-Black spat back in an obviously irritated manner. “Lequel?”

The first guard was pushed away from the edge by another unicorn, probably his superior judging by the feathers on his helmet. “Arrêtez dès que vous entrez. Comprenez-moi?”

“Clairement, Monsieur!” Red-Black nodded.  Under the eyes of a dozen guards as they passed between the walls on either side of the river, he made his way to the back.  “Push us onto ground on the right bank. That officer is probably going to come down and inspect us, so act casual.” He whispered.


Dust and Mac obliged, poling the barge onto the shore. A group of guards approached, with the unicorn officer leading them.

“If they talk to you, pretend you’re too stupid to understand.” Red-Black ordered. He jumped off the barge to meet the guards. “Je suis à court de temps. S'il vous plaît être rapide.”

The officer shoved Red-Black aside and cambered onto the barge. She walked the length, looking over the stacks of sacks. When he looked at Dust and Mac, they cowered and averted their eyes like any good Prench peasant would.
Confused, the officer jumped back off and confronted Red-Black. “D'où êtes-vous? Votre accent est très bête!”

“Scandaleux! Nous risquons notre sang, et somme récompensés comme! Notre seigneur, Comte de Mare Sel Sais, envoie ses salutations. N'est pas seulement les salutations, bien sûr! Regardez! Poudre!” Red-Black said, flipping between bombastic and meek intonations. "Les vassaux du nord, du sud, sont aux prises avec la guerre, mêlé!"

Mac, leaned over towards Dust. "What tha hells's he sayin'?" She whispered.

Red-Black kicked at Mac. "Esclave impertinente!"


The officer was clearly a bit taken aback by Red-Black. "Votre seigneur a envoyé ces poudre?" He picked up one of the gunpowder sacks, passing it to a subordinate. "Revérifiez."

Red-Black stood back looking smug while the guards pulled the sack open, slipping gunpowder over the frozen ground. "Puis-je partir? Suis-je détenu?”

The officer glanced back at Dust and Mac. “Zut! C'est imprévu! Vous êtes un champion du Royaume!"


Red-Black and the guard officer began chatting back and forth rapidly, too quick for Lightning Dust to tell one unfamiliar word from another. Before she knew it she was being shoved towards the powder sacks, while Red gestured at her to pick them up.
Dust and Mac grabbed as many of the sacks of gunpowder as they could carry and followed Red-Black onto the embankment. The officer said a last few words and rushed off, leaving a subordinate to lead them up a dirty street.

"Hot damn, he actually did it." Dust whispered under her breath.
They'd made it inside the city of Os.

The part of the city they were in was a crush of wooden houses, streets awash with filth, clearly the abode of the city's poorest. It was lifeless on the street, but light and warmth could still be seen in some of the homes.
Poor bastards, Lightning Dust though. When the besiegers broke in, the poor would not be safe from the sacking.

Red-Black and the guard leading them chatted while they walked, further and further from the walls and the other guards. After they turned a few corners, Red-Black came to an abrupt halt. The guard was confused for a half-second before Mac belted him from the side, knocking him out cold with a curled-up claw to the head.

"Ya! Pal's got'ta thick skull." Mac nursed her claw. "Ya yammered lika goat, Red, but'chya did it. Mad bastard, this un!"

"No kidding. I'm shocked that didn't end with us getting necked." Dust laughed in relief. "Now, the pay off! Let's find a granary and get this bread."

"You girls got the sack with the weapons in it, right?" Red asked.

"Course I did." Mac huffed.

"Let's not show our hand yet. Keep them in the bag until we're ready to rumble." Dust ordered.


Since Red-Black had been to the city before, he led them away from the river into the city. It was evident Os was under martial law. The main streets were dead too, even by the standards of early night, and the only sound was the crunch of snow underhoof and distantly barking dogs.
They moved into another district of the city but the dishabille remained. Most of the buildings were in a slow decline, for each conqueror cared more about the symbolism of Os than the city or its inhabitants. Once grand marble edifices were stained and covered in lichen, and the wooden townhouses of the artisans had by and large slumped into near collapse.

“This place isn’t looking so great.” Dust noted.

Mac squawked in agreement. “I’ve seen gull crannogs more a cleanly set than this pittybul nook.”

"When was the last time Os was sacked? Has this place gotten any loot built up in it?" Lightning Dust wondered. "While we're here, maybe we can stake out a good block to come back to when we break in big time."

“Have some respect you two. Os has been the seat of Prench royalty for two-hundred years.” Red-Black scowled. “And I’ll have you know I have more than a trickle of royal blood myself. House de Baregone, progenitor dynasty of some of the greatest leaders of this continent, and one of my great-great-great-great grandmothers.”

“Too bad they’re all bucking dead, oh high-and-mighty Lord Bright.” Dust snickered.

"Yeah yeah, screw you too. Just don't get distracted. If we pull this off, Shark Storm will give you the pick of the haul anyway." Red advised.

Lightning Dust shrugged noncomittally. "There are brilliant things that he can't give me, but must be taken."

"Huh?" Mac looked at her friend in confusion.

"Don't pay attention to her, Mac." Red said. "She's being being deliberately cryptic." He pointed strait ahead. "Hold on, I recognize that building. I think that's a grain stockpile."

The stone building was circular, and had no windows on any floor above the first. Dust peered through a ground floor window and saw the entry room was occupied by a lone earth pony sitting by the hearth.

"Uhh, this looks nothing like a grain stockpile. For one, I don't see any grain." Lightning Dust commented.

Red-Black scowled, taking a few steps back and looking over the building. "Then, umm, it must be on the second floor."

"Daft bastard. Why would 'un go tay trouble'a heavin' grain upstairs, when there's so much empty city for it?"

Lightning Dust sighed. "You idiot. You're completely lost."

Red blushed in irritation. "Hey, I got us past the guards! I deserve a little more credit than-" He fell silent. "Hang on..."


There was the sound of distant voices echoing up the street, shouting in Prench.

"A patrol, headin' thisaway." Mac warned.

"Just great." Dust groaned. "Fine fine fine. Get in the building, until the patrol passes. Play it cool, act dumb, and take that pony down silently."

"Or just silent enough to not be heard on the street." Red nodded.

“Yup should be easy.” Dust grabbed the sack from Mac and pulled it open. Some gunpowder spilled out, along with one of the pistols they'd hidden. She tucked the gun under her wing. "But just in case..."

“I’ll run interference, and you stove 'em LD.” Red-Black said. “Mac, be rearguard then watch the windows.”

“Rippin plan.” Mac grinned. "Wish I'd brought that botefeux."



Red-Black opened the door and strolled inside, and several seconds later Dust followed him. The lone pony inside the mono-room building  looked up from his solitary meal at the fireside. He was a massive earth pony stallion, heads above Dust or Red, wearing full plate armor.

“Bonne nuit, Monsieur. Tout est calme dehors, ce soir mousseux.” Red-Black said gregariously, taking a seat beside the stallion.

“Hmmm. Nope. It ain’t.” The red stallion rumbled. He spoke Equestrian in a lilting rural accent.
He was probably the largest pony Dust had ever seen, almost thrice as big as the dainty Red-Black. His fur, a vibrant red, gave him a dangerous look in the firelight. His mane and tail were a dirty orange, and his half-lidded eyes a deep green.
His fluted steel armor was painted with miniature moons in different phases, nightime skies, and little folk scenes- the inexpert brush of an enthusiastic amateur. The stallion's helmet, which rested beside him, was topped by a plume of deep blue feathers. His sword, an outrageously large and heavy claymore, rested against the wall just out of his reach.  “Ah don’t think y’all should be here. Get along.”

Lightning Dust was immediately awed by both the physical presence and the contradictions of the stallion. He sounded like a bumpkin but was equipped like some kind of knight! Was he a mercenary? Maybe another Prince that had snuck into the city?
She fluttered her wing a bit, a subtle message to Red that she was planning to use her hidden gun.

But Red-Black didn’t want to give up on charm yet. “Oh, my apologies. I probably came off as pretentious just then, though I assure you I had no intention of doing so. I was simply trying to be friendly.”

“Now ain’t a good time.” The stallion said, staring into the fire. “Besides, your friends there don’t look to friendly. I reckon she’ll shoot me soon as you distract me well enough.”



Dust pulled the pistol out from under her wing, but she was too slow. The stallion headbutted Red-Black and then kicked his hindleg across the ground, sweeping Dust’s legs out from under her.
The red stallion got up slowly, picked up his helmet and put it on, and then fetched his claymore from the wall.  He was completely covered in the thick steel armor, looking like an iron golem with green eyes peering through the slot in his helmet.

“Now I told y’all to git, and ya didn’t listen.” He said. “I don’t know where y’all are from, but you ain’t gettin anywhere near the paintings.”

Paintings? Dust had just enough time to get to her hooves and ponder what that meant before the claymore cleaved the air just above her, nicking the fuzz of her ear. The stallion swung lower as she jumped away, slicing through several layers of clothing but not quite reaching her neck.

“Hey now!” Red-Black was recovered from the headbutt and back on his hooves. “There’s no need for violence!”


Apparently the stallion did not see it that way, and he smacked Red-Black with the flat of the claymore, sending him sprawling to the ground again.
Mac, hearing the commotion, burst inside. However she judged her talons poorly against the massive claymore. “Dust, we guuna need ta high tail it!”

“Au contraire, Mac. I have him right where I want him!” Dust yelled back. She picked her pistol off the floor and pointed it at the stallion’s head.

The stallion, understandably froze. His voice echoed metallicity from within his helmet. “How y’all know my name?”

“Uh, what?” Dust said, confused.


“My name. I asked how ya’ll knew my name.” The stallion repeated.

“Mac? That’s me own name.” Mac stepped out from behind Dust. “Notta splendidly special one, do there is many a MacGriffitosh or MacMurdove in tha isles. But never've I met'ta pony name of Mac.”

“Macintosh.” The stallion provided. He slowly set his sword on the ground, never breaking eye-contact with Lightning Dust or the pistol in her hooves. “Well ya got me down yer sights. Now I suppose y’all are gunna kill me an make off with all the paintings.”

“You said that before. So this isn’t the granary, I gather?” Dust frowned.


Macintosh was silent for a couple seconds he began laughing heartily. “Huh huh! Nope! There ain’t nothin but canvas, paint, and dreams in here.”

Dust sighed deeply. Mac tisked and shook her head. “Hmm..." Dust glanced at Red, limp on the ground. He would disapprove but she was thinking of the loot potential. "Show me.”

Macintosh stepped gingerly around the unconscious Red-Black and led Dust and Mac up the narrow staircase.  Without windows it was pitch black, until he lit a few candles.
The building was packed with paintings. Some were hung up on the walls, most were wrapped up and padded in cloth, stacked against each other for storage. There was a distinct lack of grain.

“Good grief. Red led us to a bloody gallery.” Dust grumbled. “How ironic, since he was the one telling us to focus.”
She appraised some of the closer paintings. They were of  various sizes hung off every wall, depicting famous battles and historical figures.

“The heart leads where the mind is blind.” Mac chuckled.

“Not a total loss. We should remember this place. Some of these look pretty technical and could fetch a pretty penny." Dust said. "Hey, what'yer'name, Macintoch. Why are these on the second floor. Couldn't you just put them on the first floor?"

Macintosh, candle in hoof, had positioned himself between the girls and the exit. “Cause the river floods sometimes." He glanced down the stairs. "Y'all's friend ain't woken up yet, and you're in close quarters with me.

“Uh, excuse me?” Lightning Dust raised the gun again. “Was that a threat, pony boy?"

“Y'all made a mistake lettin' me lead ya up here. You ain't runnin' now. Sorry for lyin' though.” Macintosh apologized. “Like ya said, little mis Mac, the heart leads."

“Yes, I hear you. But do you hear this?”
Dust’s pistol barked, filling the dark room with fleeting light. Macintosh dropped his candle, and it snuffed itself out on the floor. But after several seconds there was still no sound, especially no death rattle or rustle of falling armor.

“Did ya hit him Dust?” Mac questioned.

“Square in the forehead. His joints must have locked so he didn’t fall.” Dust replied with certainty. “Go wake up Red-Black. That patrol must have passed by so we can get back to-”

At the moment she least expected it, a half ton of stallion and metal slammed into her, tossing her across the room into a wall. As Dust’s consciousness faded, she heard Mac squawk in panic before she too received an iron-shod buck to the side.




Dust didn’t come to until almost an hour later.  She was hogtied with her hooves in the air, laying next to Red-Black and Mac who were in an identical position. 

She craned her neck to see that she was back on the ground floor of the circular stone building. Macintosh was sitting by the fireplace again. His helmet sat beside him, badly deformed by a lead ball sticking out of a dent.

“Y’all are awake.” Macintosh noted. “Feel dizzy? Can you see straight?”

“I’m not concussed, thanks for asking.” Dust sneered. “I’ve taken harder hits.”

“Good to hear.”

“Are you going to turn us over to the guards, so they can flay us and string us up from a tower?”

“I am a might peeved y’all tried to shoot me.” Macintosh said harshly. “What’s y’all’s name?”

“Lightning Dust.”

“That’s a sharp one. Good pegasus type name.” Macintosh appraised. “Well, Mis Dust, I suppose I could forgive, if y’all could find the means to apologize.”

Dust was nonplussed. “Really? Apologize?”

“Eyup.” Macintosh nodded.


If Dust could have, she would have shook her head in sad confusion. Macintosh was either supremely stupid, or far and above the most clever pony she’d ever encountered.
“Who are you?”

“I told you Macintosh. Used to be I was of the Apple Clan. Not any more.”

“And why are you in that getup? You're obviously no knight. You look like you walked out of a history book.”

"Do you like my armor? I sure do, since I ain't dead. About a year ago I got a job protecting a merchant griff's warehouse, fulla old crap. I don't really need much pay, so the merchant agreed that I'd get to take somethin' from the collection after the contract got done. So I took this armor, polished it up and made it functionable. Now it don't matter if I ain't a knight, 'cuz nopony can touch me no how.” Macintosh tapped a hoof on the helmet. “I got the same deal at this here gallery. After a couple years, I get to take home one of the paintings. It's how I do my work. Money don't mean much to me. Having something to protect does. I've got a good reputation with collectors.”

“That sounds like a pretty good gig. Is the job difficult?"

Macintosh shrugged. "I've handled more'na a few thieves. Some were street thugs, some were professional outfits. I stopped 'em all.


Even if he wasn't trained, the stallion's might could more than make up for it. Dust could see how fidgety brokers or collectors would be comforted knowing he was guarding their stuff. "You get to keep a painting, huh? I’m guessing you chose one up front and it's not some priceless classics.”

“Good guess, mis Dust. Ya sure figured me out quick.” Macintosh shook his head. “How's it happened, I saw the painting I and then asked for the job.”

“Must be a pretty special painting.” Dust hummed. “Can I see it?”

Macintosh stared at her for several seconds. “It’s up with the other. I could take y’all to it, iffin you promise not to try nothin.”

“I promise.” Dust would have put her hoof over her heart, if her hooves weren’t bound.

Macintosh’s armor clanked as he got to his hooves and cantered over to her. He pulled one of the tails of the knot and like magic the bindings loosened and fell away.
Dust cautiously rolled onto her stomach and stood up.


“Now, if y’all would humor me,” Macintosh loomed over her. “Cite just what y’all’s promise is.”

Dust rolled her eyes. “I promise not to ‘try nothin’.”

“Double negative nonwithstandin, now repeat after me.  ‘Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a knife in my eye’. ”

Dust blanched. “What the hell? What does that even mean?”

“Just a funny sayin' a filly from my village would sing. She was a morbid kinda girl, always talkin' about death ‘n stuff.” Macintosh shrugged. “So if it pleases y’all, repeat it.”

Dust gnawed her lip. The ambiguity of Macintosh’s sanity was not going away. “Fine.” She sighed. “Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a knife in my eye.”

“Thank ya kindly.” Macintosh smiled. “Right thisa way.”

Dust followed him upstairs once again stepping over the candle and gun that had been dropped in the earlier scuffle. Macintosh went directly to the far wall, hardly paying attention to Lightning Dust anymore.
Had the silly pledge she'd made given him the confidence to ignore her, or was he so focussed on the painting?

"This." Macintosh whispered under his breath. "Is the Equestrian Goddess." He took a step back, not daring not to bring the candle too close.

It was a small painting, housed in a silver frame. The piece's name was etched into the bottom of the frame, Equestrian Goddess, just as he'd said.
A grand and grotesque alicorn dominated the center of the canvas, shaded in shades of blue and black, with her red eyes seeming to stare out at the viewer. All around her were ponies of the three tribes, seeming to twist and dance in unnatural ways. Some of the ponies looked like they were in the throws of great ecstasy, others great agony- Perhaps there was only line between them.
In the dim candlelight it had a vaguely primal feeling. Dust felt a sharpness to the air now, like there was some kind of hidden excitement that made her heart race. She began to hear unknown sounds from no direction, that she knew could not exist.

“I see what you mean.” Lightning Dust tore her eyes off the painting. The sensations stopped. "It's... really something special."

"I know everythin' about her. I had to finish learnin' how to read for the complicated stuff, in Equestrian and Prench." Macintosh whispered, giddy. "Nopony know who, where, when, it came from. It's a modern style, Decadent Movement or somethin', but old stories talk about a painting just like this'un back hundreds of years ago."

"As long is has meaning to you." Dust said, chancing another glance at the painting. The dark alicorn's red eyes stared back out at her, as if demanding something.  “It makes me feel weird just looking at it. It's like...”

"Like somethin' out of a dream." Macintosh said. "It ain't even mine yet and I adore it. Reminds me of home."

"Your home sounds weird, no offense." Lightning Dust said. "Then again my hometown of Cloudsdale exploded into rainbows a few years ago, so I don't have room to talk."


Wordlessly, Macintosh led her back downstairs. He blew the candle out and retook his seat by the fire, not even bothering to tie up Dust.
“I've got a small life. I sit here and watch the door. I don't want or deserve greater. Once I get that painting I'll probably need a home or somthin to put it in. Then I'll settle down, or go back home... somethin' like that." Macintosh said quietly. "Are y’all three with the army out there, puttin' the city to siege?” He questioned.

Dust wasn’t sure what to do. He had his back to her, and there was nothing stopping her from escaping or attacking him. The promise she made, however, gave her cause to hesitate. Had she made some hellish pact by saying those silly words?  “Uh, yeah. We're sellswords, taken on by the Prench king."

Macintosh grunted. "So why're you in here and not out there. You were lookin for a granary?"

"Um, yes. We were getting hungry and bored and decided to sneak in to steal as much as we could cary." Lightning Dust said. "Sounds pretty stupid saying out loud. A million things could have gone wrong that would have immediately killed us."

"Somethin did go wrong. Lucky you, it didn't kill ya immediately. Still mighty foolish." Macintosh frowned, though by his tone he sounded almost impressed.

“Eh, foolish is as foolish does. We're twitchy little gremlins who go crazy sitting around. We're in it for the easy battles and looting rights.” Dust plopped herself down by Macintosh. Deciding to be exceedingly daring, she leaned against him and lay her head on his steel-clad shoulder. “Hey, you're big and strong-”

"I'm gunna stop you there. I ain't interested in your job." Macintosh fidgeted uncomfortably, but did not push her off.

“Uh huh. Until we ran afoul of you, everything was going great. We just had the bad luck of colliding with who is possibly the strongest and most steadfast stallion this side of Clawstantinople.” Dust chirred, her eyes half lidded. “Yes, I would assert such talents are wasted here, playing good-boy for some stuffy artist. I feel so strongly about it, that I refuse to take no for an answer."

Macintosh wiggled to make Dust move but she just lay her head back down. "I'm in armor and you ain't."

"You're so stoic with your threats, ho ho! But you didn't kill me after I shot at you." Lightning Dust giggled. "Come on, let me seduce you. That painting you like so much speaks to a... primal nature within us all."

"The Equestrian Goddess speaks to a primal godly-ness, nuthin else. Listen mis, I don't wanna talk about it."Macintosh sighed. He half-turned to Lightning Dust, forcing her to move her head. “Mind, y’all never did apologize for tryin'a shoot me.”

“I most sincerely regret attempting to murder you.” Dust pouted. “In my defense, I usually don’t mess with anyone who I’m not hired to kill, unless they serious piss me off.”

Macintosh stared at her for a while. "That ain't true."

"Excuse me?" Lightning Dust scoffed.

"You're cruel. Don't have to talk to ya much to tell it. You've got hate for life. You'd kill the whole world if you could." Macintosh said.

Lightning Dust felt insulted, not by the words but that she'd been figured out so throughly. "That's a pretty sweeping judgement."

"But it ain't wrong." Macintosh shrugged. "Lucky Griffany took ya. You'dve been locked up back in Equestria."

Lightning Dust ground her teeth a bit. "You think I was this mare before I came to Griffany? Let me tell you a story, kid. Suffering, lost, angry, I came to Griffany because I couldn't stand Equestria anymore. The obvious cover-up after the Cloud Creche explosion showed me that the government would chose convenience over justice!" Dust spat. "But in Griffany I discovered a whole new way of thinking, which the monolithic government in Equestria had kept from me. If I don't like a government here, I can fight against it or overthrow it! I could make my own justice, take my own power. I didn't have to rely on Celestia's empire to give me my life."

Macintosh made an amused little utterance, not expecting to get such an honest answer out of the mercenary mare. "I don't see how that turned ya cold-blooded butcher." Macintosh shook his head. "I came to Griffany cuz I lost hope in somethin', just the same as you. For me it was a pony, family."

"Lame. How can a falling out with family send you so far away?" Dust asked.

Macintosh hung his head. "And how can a fool thing like government do the same to you?"

"Hmm." Lightning Dust hummed. "Our reasons for being here are the similar, but incomparable. We're not going to find any universal truth with just our two experiences."

"Eh? Universal truth? Yer gettin weird, mis. Did I hit ya that hard?" Macintosh asked. "Best as I see, you've already got confused parts between y'all three friends. You and yer little friend Mac use your names, but you called that stallion with you 'Red-Black'. If he's got a war name, why don't y'all? Does he hide his real self from war?"

"Nice theory, but Red-Black's real name, Rosen Bright, isn't some big secret. Red-Black is a stage name, not a secret identity." Dust said. "When I said universal truth I was just joking around."

Macintosh scratched his chin. "No you weren't. You're lookin for somethin' more outta life. What, killin' and lootin' ain't enough for you?"

Lightning Dust was starting to get annoyed at the country pony's curiosity, but few ponies gave her the time. Even Red and Mac laughed at her dreams.  "No, I don't like fighting other creatures' wars. I wish I had my own power to make my own wars, my own justice. But I don't. One day maybe I'll be captain of the Princes of Equestria! Nopony in Griffany commands as much violence. I would be invincible." She stared Macintosh down. "Do you want to be a part of that? Aren't you interested in being the master of your own life, instead of the dog of some dumbass art collector?"

"That's a sure odd think to hear from a mercenary." Macintosh brooded.

"Working for money is an unfortunate reality, but it's theft! Our blood allows others to survive. If we got our fare share from our toil we would own them all. That's our due, our right!" Dust said. "For now, every coin we trade for blood is a reminder of what we're really owed."

"Y'all tried to rob and kill me, but I..." Macintosh sighed and licked his lips. "I'm kinda jealous. Loomin' death don't mean nothing to ya. That ain't somethin' I could ever understand. Even if, well, even if I had to."

"Had to?  I wish that bullet had worked and I wouldn't have to sit though this crap." Dust shook her head.

Macintosh shrugged. "Ya don't. The door's over there."

"Pshh, I just had my ass kicked, and my friends are still knocked out. I still don't know where the granary is, and even if I nab the grain I can't fight my way out alone." Lightning Dust rubbed her eye. "So this conversation is letting me forget how bucked I am."

"Never thought I'd feel sorry for a mare that shot at me." Macintosh drawled. "It's funny, but I've never had more responsibility than right now. If I don't let ya go, the siege fails. Maybe Prench king gets overthrown, and since these silly ponies here can't hardly break bread without kings tellin 'em how, there might be anarchy for years." He shook his head. "Mmm, nope. I won't trick myself to thinkin' I'm that important."

"Very zen, aren't you." Lightning Dust remarked. She cleared her throat, then lunged for a hearth poker by the fireplace. She scooped the iron poker up and stabbed at Macintosh, but the big stallion blocked the attack with the back of an armored hoof. "You lazy dog! You might be content with servitude, but you have no right to block the way to dreamers like us!"

"I ain't in the way. The door's behind ya." Macintosh allowed himself a stern frown.

"Dumbass. You're standing in my way, because without you I'll fail. I need what you have, and I'll do everything to take it!" Dust cackled. "I know you won't hurt me, country boy!"

"Hmm...  Nope." Macintosh stood up, his armor clacking. With a deft motion he scooped up his dented helmet and put it on. "Point that thing somewhere else or I'll knock ya out again."

Lightning Dust shook her head. "I'm calling your bluff, beefcake."


Macintosh rolled his shoulders, then jumped forward, almost catching Lightning Dust with a two-hoof buck. Macintosh's armored hind-hooves passed over Dust as she ducked- such force and speed, even a glancing hit would have punched a hole through the pegasus.

"Whoah, shit dude!" Dust hopped away. "That would've killed me."

"My dark lady teaches me to be fair and firm." Macintosh said, his voice muffled by the dented helmet.

"Grr, clod head!" Lightning Dust stabbed at Macintosh with the poker again but it bounced off the neck guard. She tried again and the poker snapped. "I doesn't have to be this difficult! Just join me!"

Macintosh stomped his hooves, cracking the tiles under him. "You're gunna leave, mis. There ain't nothin you can say anymore."


Lightning Dust had a daring thought; It would either make him much angrier or completely conquer him. "What if I convert?"

Macintosh hesitated. "Scuse me?"

"That painting's name. Equestrian Goddess. It's not just artistic license. You actually worship that thing. I'm not sure how it works, but it's given you the strength you've used against me." Lightning Dust said. "I'll worship it too, if it gives me that kind of strength!"

Macintosh shifted on his hooves, his armor squeaking and grinding. "How'm I supposed to take that? You don't seem genuine."

"I'll commit myself fully. No mockery, no false faith. I'll do everything I have to. That's what I have to do to survive this moment and seize the world, so I'll do it." Lightning Duse proclaimed.


Macintosh looked Lightning Dust up and down. She was dressed in the potato-sack disguise, with nothing but a broken-poker to fight with. Still her eyes burned with ferocious determination. It didn't matter if she was genuine or not. Lightning Dust was a surviver, a conqueror, and would do everything it took to win.
"Mis, my goddess don't give me much other than peace of mind. I don't think you'd square well with her."

"If I have to settle my soul with good old fashion religion, to better learn what's in that head of yours, I will. I'll have you, whatever it takes."

Macintosh couldn't do much other than laugh. "Nopony's ever cared about me this much, 'cept maybe an old friend way back."

"I'm jealous of you. You could take anything in the world, pried from its 'owner' by your own two hooves. You've got real strength." Dust beat her chest. "My instincts are shouting to devour you, make you mine. I need your power if I'm going to create the world I dream of."

Macintosh shrugged off his helmet so he could scratch his forehead. "Y'all're delirious. Concussed. I should've kept you tied so ya don't hurt yourself."

"I'll hurt myself against you, Macintosh. Either kill me and end my dream, or join me." Lightning Dust said emphatically.



Macintosh would have liked longer to think about it. Lightning Dust was begging without explicitly begging, proving that she would really do everything to convince him. It was almost pathetic. But it made Macintosh feel a glow in his chest that had been missing as long as he could remember: Pride. This mare didn't obsess about family, land, and honor like earth ponies. She wasn't a greed-blinded griffin. Lightning Dust played by her own rules.

“Yeah sure. Why not.” Macintosh turned around and trotted to the stairs, climbing them. Dust heard hoofsteps on the upper floor, going one way, pausing, then going back.  When Macintosh reappeared he was cradling his treasured painting Equestrian Goddess under a foreleg. “I’m goin with y’all. I'm done here.”

“Oh come on, really? I was ready to go another round.” Dust yelled, her mouth twisting into a smile. “What the HELL kind of pony are you?”

“An opportunistic one, seems like. Decided I don't think I wanna be in town when the siege attack starts.” Mac shrugged. “Ya know, there once was an ol mare friend of mine. Don’t take it personal-like, but she was the most gorgeous mare I ever did see. She was a right snake too, always lookin to get what she wanted and nothin less. Anyway, y’all remind me of her.”

“I’m flattered, I think.” Dust watched Macintosh carefully wrap his treasured painting in cloth and padding, then put it in one of the emptied grain bags. She suddenly remembered a very important detail. “Hey, after I shot at you, did you see a guard patrol outside?"

“Nope. Didn't see, 'cause I wasn't lookin'.” Macintosh shook his head. He added mpre padding around the painting before closing the bag up and tying it to his saddle bag. “I suppose that means trouble?”

“Maybe. You're about to have your resolve tested, Macintosh.” Dust rubbed her chin.

Macintosh closed his eyes. "I've killed a pony before, even before I got this big sword. Resolve don't matter any more, only truth."



There was muffled was shouting from outside the building. Lightning Dust crept to the window, listening. It sounded like the guard officer from earlier giving orders. "Perfect timing." She grumbled.

A hard knock came at the door. “Je vous ordonne d'ouvrir cette porte!”

“That ain’t good.” Macintosh frowned. He fastened on his saddlebag and picked his sword up. “Mis Dust, I ain't a perfect pony. I don't know what perfect means. But you've got a big dream! I bet it's a message from my godess. For now I can push a pony away, and hurt 'em bad. We can get y'all's grain."

"You really want to make a break for the granary? You're crazy." Dust shook her head. "But I believe you'd do it. That armor could stop a bullet, I'll for sure stop a pansy-ass Prench soldier."

“I'm crazy? Yup.” Macintosh guffawed. “But my goddess ain’t let me die let, and she don’t got a reason to do it now.” He put his helmet on. "Mis Lightning Dust, if I'm commin' with you, you've gotta take me with you to the top! Get your gun, wake y'all's friends. You've got a dream to fight for."

Before Dust could answer, Macintosh had bucked the door into splinters and charged out into the ensuing chaos.








One Week After the Summer Sun

Although the griffins and ponies of Griffany did not hold the Sun in as cherished standing as the Equestrians did, the inexplicable disappearance during the Eternal Night had still thrown the land into chaos. Omen readers wailed about the world's doom and peasant uprisings had taken over swaths of the Kestrel hinterland. Even a week since the sun reapeared had not been enough to restore the senses, nor the stable order of things. Mortal minds and mortal laws were still in great distress.

Clawstantinople, a city rising atop a solid red mountain, was no less vulnerable to panic. The regular flow of commerce though the Marble Straight had broken down. Without regular grain shipments, the price of bread had skyrocketed. In the last hours of the Eternal Night riots had broken out on almost every level of the tiered city, and had only just begun to calm down by throwing open the strategic grain reserve to the hungry masses.

Now, almost every administrative official had been called back to the Basilica, the capital building which sat atop the highest tier. A restless energy permeated the city, for masses had realized their strength, the archon had realized his vulnerability, and everyone was waiting to see what the Princes of Equestria would do.



"When I signed up to play babysitter for the Terns, I thought I'd at least be able to rely on their deep pockets." Lightning Dust paced back and forth on the Basilica's veranda, overlooking the entire red city below. "Giving out their grain, choked of trade, revolution in the countryside...  These losers can't keep a hold of their own damn city!"
As leader of the Princes she was directly answerable to their employer, and the Archon wanted to renegotiate the contract.

“I hope you're having fun being angry, because it's not fun any of the rest of us, captain." Red-Black said. He had come to accompany her during the negotiations, if they would ever start. "You didn't just sign yourself up. The Princes fly and fall with you, LD."

"The angrier I act, the more eager those wimpy Terns will be to offer favorable terms." Dust said, her expression severe.

Red shrugged. "Don't scare them too much or they might try to cancel the protection contract."

"They wouldn't dare. They need us, badly." Dust said with confidence. "That's the whole reason the archon wants to renegotiate! They want us to hire more mercenary troupes and quell the countryside."

"Oh, I hadn't heard that. I thought they just wanted to bargain down the pay in light of strain on trade. Interesting." Red hummed.


"Oi!" There was a flutter of wings, and Grace MacGriffitosh landed on the veranda. "All quiet down below."

"The griffins and Princes are both waiting for our cue. I'll tell you, who worries me the most are the other mercenary outfits just lazing around the city." Red-Black said.

"I'm worried fer the grain situation." Mac said.

"I'm worried about the pay situation! If they try to stiff me I might start considering finding new management for this bloody town." Lightning Dust said. "Can you think of a better time to step in to 'restore order', eh? We could be more than princes. We could be KINGS."

Red-Black trotted to the edge of the veranda and looked out over the city.

"Not going to reign me back in, Red? You're always the first pony to argue with me or Big Mac about the dream." Dust said, teasing, her fascade of anger maintained.

Red-Black turned his back on the city. "It could be the right time. I want to discourage you, but I can't. It will depend on what the archon says. If he's magnanimous, we can worm our way into the institutions and take over that way. If he's unkind, we must be read to strike like lightning."

"That's a profound endorsement, Red. With you on my side, there's nothing I can't accomplish!" Lightning Dust exclaimed triumphantly. "This might be the start of our lives, Rosen. Yes...  ominous reminders of the old world, like that mare Rainbow Dash, is nothing but the squeals of the obsolete way of things!"

"Don't get too deep in heady daydreams, Dust." Red-Black said.

Mac cleared her throat. "Ya thanked Red, but isnae one you've forgotten?"

"Oh for sure. Big Mac and the Princes, by strength and faith, will deliver me." Dust nodded.

"Na na, NOT Big Mac and the Princes. Someone else." Mac grumbled.

"Hmm. My oldest, truest friend... How could I forget her!" Dust crooned. "Lady Black Bell, who lifted me up from obscurity, while remaining obscured herself."

"Cheeky bint. Black Bell's claws are a thousand klicks away, an mine's right here." Mac sniffed.

"Don't make me spank you and send you back to the Hawkwood." Dust chuckled darkly.

It was an idle threat, but it made those in attendance remember the indiscriminate rage that had gripped Lightning Dust after meeting Rainbow Dash, and the rainbow pegasus's subsequent escape from the city. Screams of hatred, fear, confusion...  Lightning Dust had seemed more like a force of nature than a mortal. It had made her oldest companions fear her more than was comfortable, and perhaps that was more useful than keeping their love.



It was another few minutes before a griffin official came out on the veranda. By his beige frock, he was a middling bureaucrat, and he didn’t seem very comfortable acting as go between to rough mercenaries. “His serenity the Archon apologizes in taking so long. He will be with you shortly.”

“No sweat. We’re just out here enjoying the morning air.” Dust said sharply. "He may take as long as he likes, but it will mean I smell more of these fragrant flowers. I'm all too tempted to pluck one."


Red-Black watched the bureaucrat scurry away. “Don't play all your cards too quick, captain.”

“Do you think they’re snubbing us? We've been waiting an hour.” Dust posed.

“Hmm, I bet there’s a disagreement about how to handle us. We tore up the city looking for Rainbow Dash, and I don’t think they’ve trusted us since.” Red-Black said. "Maybe we miscalculated. Maybe they'll try to fire us."

"Is that why you were worried about the other mercenaries in the city?" Dust asked.

"Let's beat 'em to the punch!" Mac said.

Red tapped a hoof impatiently. "We can limit our vulnerabilities. The archon only has one way to hurt us, namely the  other merc outfits. We have many ways to hurt him. We can afford to wait a while longer, captain."

"And I will hurt him. I won't last forever. He'll last even shorter." Lightning Dust promised.

Red-Black frowned, but held his tongue.

He went back to looking over the city.
Of peculiar interest, a new ship was sailing towards the harbor from the west. From whence had it come? Across the ocean from Equestria? Or from the northern seas, Trottingham, Egret Lands, or even farther?
It looked like a warship, but it wasn’t a galley like the local navies used; It was a massive ship-of-the-line, seventy meters long and five decks of guns above the waterline. It’s sails were emblazoned by a symbol Red-Black had never seen before: An eight-pointed star within a green circle.
"Speak of the devil..." He muttered. "She shall appear."



While Lightning Dust and her lieutenants were arguing on the Basilica veranda, another arrival was approaching Clawstantinople from the north. It was an airship, a small craft in a skiff configuration, designed for quick travel with minimal cargo.

The harbormaster, a gruff grey griffin, was at the dock to meet the ship. The skiff slowly lowered into a slip and the crew hopped down to tie the mooring lines.
“Arribes tard!  You’re late, late, late."

A unicorn hopped down from the deck of the skiff.
“We got a late start out of Trottingham, then hit rough weather coming over the highlands.” Captain Flair explained. “All the mail is intact though, and that’s what matters. Right?”

“Hmm... The skies and heavens are troubled.” The harbormaster rubbed his feathered chin.

"All the more reason to get here on time! Don't let me off the hook so easily my friend!" Captain Flair laughed jubilantly. "My crew will offload the mail, but I have a special delivery to make. You can trust me to handle the fees later, right?"

"I can't be too hard on you Flair. All the other mail carriers are staying home since the long night. Come by before you leave." The harbormaster said. He went back to his office.



Captain Flair oversaw the offloading of his ship. It was a cargo of several bags, full of letters and packages. Most of them were from within Griffany, with a half-empty bag containing parcels from Equestria and Trottingham. A fearful continent was writing letters non-stop, seeking reassurance, sharing worries, or crying out for help. 

However there was one small bag specially segregated not to go to Clawstantinople's sorting house. Its recipient, stitched into the side, was the Princes of Equestria.
"Whoop, I'll borrow this."
Flair took that bag himself, and started down the skydock.

There were more airships than usual, as several had been beeched during the Eternal Night and not yet restored to full functionality.
At the end of the docks was a solitary super-airship. Hawkwood was parallel to the retaining wall, its bay doors opened and ramps extended. It was guarded by a half-dozen of the Princes, laughing and sparring while they waited for anyone to be foolish enough to test them.

Flair received shouts of recognition as he approached. The Princes usual rough camaraderie melted into respectful smiles and waves.

“Heya boys. How are things.” Flair smiled. They let him pass to the base of the ramp.


Macintosh, the officer on watch, was kicked back in a fine floral couch that had been pulled out onto the dock. He was engrossed in a small book which, Flair noted, was titled History of Unconventional Metallurgy.

“Good morning Macintosh.”

Mac looked up. “Hey there Mister Sal. It’s good to see ya. Y’all’re earlier than usual.”

Salvador Flair XIV was a stocky orange unicorn with a long yellow mane tied behind his head in a braid. His mailpony’s uniform, a navy cap and coat, did not quite cover his playful grey-red eyes and his hoofmirror shaped mark.
Flair was something of an enigma especially since the Princes, who knew him best, tended to have a high turnover. He had been around for as long as anypony could remember, making friends with the officers and providing help and advice when needed. Some said he was a former captain, or the son of a former captain. Other more elaborate theories made him out to be a guardian angel, or trickster spirit.

Macintosh, for his own purposes, found Flair to be a relatively courteous an upstanding stallion.


“We got an early start out of Trottingham and had a strong tailwind over the Bay.” Flair shrugged. “I don’t mean to blackball you, but is Lightning Dust about?”

“Nope.” Big Mac grunted, setting his book aside. “She’s up in the Basilica to meet with the Archon.”

“Eh, I was just going to gossip with her anyway.” Flair unshouldered the bag and set it between them. “When I heard about the riots, I was expecting a bit more trouble getting to you. But it seems the you and the Terns have it mostly under control.”

“Eeyup.” Big Mac accepted bag of mail. “Much news from Equestria?”


“I was waiting for you to ask.” Flair grinned broadly. “You heard about the coup in Canterlot?”

“Red-Black told me about that, yeah.”

“Well now there’s a huge unicorn army is going to take it back! Who for, nopony knows. Ponies are saying there’s been new alicorns sighted! Demon alicorns, is what I hear!” Flair excitedly said. “Can you imagine? Demon, alicorns!”


Macintosh blinked.
The eternal night, and now alicorns. His suspicions were looking more and more true: Nightmare Moon had returned.


“Ponies are saying there’s going to be a war!” Flair continued. “There might be work for the Princes back home, aye?”

“Let’s hope it don’t come to that.” Macintosh got up from the couch. “Hope y’all don’t mind, but I’ve got these here letters to distribute.”

“Oh no no. I’d be remiss holding you here.” Flair took a step back. “My crew will have finished unloading the mail by now anyway, and that means that it’s time to go. If Captain Dust comes back, tell her I said hello. Au revoir, Macintosh.”

“See ya, Mister Salvador.” Macintosh nodded. He grabbed the mail bag and went up the ramp into the Hawkwood’s hanger.



Salvador Flair watched Big Mac go, and started on his way back to his airship. Walking along the edge of the skydock, he glanced off the side and caught sight of something he thought he’d never see again.


The Tribal Star. A grand ship, five decks of guns with huge black sails emblazoned with the eight-pointed star of venus.
It was supped to be sunken, swallowed by the cold waters of Gottrakt! Yet that terror of the seas was anchored in Clawstantinople harbor, come to remind mortals of its dark legacy.

"Oh gods." Salvador Flair uttered. "The Overlady rides again."

Griffins flew, and ponies took pilot boats, launching from the Tribal Star and landing at various points along the harbor. Within minutes, the shore was under their control, hundreds of griffins, some dressed in chain-mail and some in robes, forming up into lines and penetrating deeper into the city.

"This isn't just a raid." Flair observed. "Don't tell me... she's actually here! Black Bell!"

Just as he said this he spotted them:  Two hippogryphs dressed in red stepped out onto the deck of the Tribal Star. 
Despite the kilometer between them, Flair was certain that they were watching him like he was watching them. The griffin with black feathers had come, and with her all suffering a mortal could know.

Somehow and for some reason, the School of the Black Bell had come to Clawstantinople.




Several tiers above on the veranda, Red-Black was coming to a similar realization. It was too far for him to pick out the same details, but the same dread was filling him.

"Hey, captain, when you mentioned Black Bell, that was just a goof, right? Is there something you know that we don't?" Red asked, unable to tear his eyes off the dreadful ship in the harbor.


Lightning Dust had gone back to her nervous pacing. "I know plenty you don't, you patchwork fool." She snickered.

"LD...  I'm serious. Did you know?" Red asked, voice straining as he tried to keep calm.

"The hell ya on about?" Mac squinted at the stallion.

"I think we're under attack." Red stepped back from the veranda's edge. He slowly turned to the girls. "The city is under attack."


There was a whistle of wind. A dozen griffins streaked through the air over them, dissapeering behind the dome of the Basilica. From below, the echos of cannon fire rumbled.

"What the hell?" Lightning Dust blinked, realizing Red-Black wasn't playing a joke on her. She rushed to the edge. "That's the mother-pecking Tribal Star!  I delivered hostages to her once, right before I joined the Princes!"

"Shoulda we'a stopped those griffins from getting to the Basilica?" Mac asked.

"Probably." Red licked his lips. "Captain, what do we do? If we're going to defend the city, now's the time to run to the Hawkwood and mobilize."

"The last thing I hoped was that we'd actually have to honor the contract and defend the city." Lightning Dust whispered, watching mesmerized as the acolytes of the School of the Black Bell spread across the lower districts of the city. "Why here? Why now? There's dozens of less defended cities to raid?"



"Captain Dust! Captain Dust!" A squawk from behind them.
The bureaucrat from earlier came running out from the Basilica. His frock was stained with blood and his eyes were unfocused.
“His serenity the Archon will see you now.” He croaked, before collapsing.


Three griffins covered in iron chainmail, stepped out of the Basilica. They dragged behind them, a frail griffin in a red cloak and a gold sash, the Archon of Clawstantinople

Red-Black and Little Mac drew their weapons. Dust shifted into a defensive pose, looking the new arrivals up and down.

The armed and armored trio stopped a dozen paces away. Their eyes glowed from under the concealing shadow of their chainmail cowls.
The center griffin wore a simple iron crown over his armor, and instead of a sword he carried a small and sinister dagger. His eyes were a bright and unnatural red. "This is the pony you think will protect you?" He asked the archon. "Sir, this mare can not protect herself. Your protests ring hollow."

"What the hell is going on here?" Lightning Dust demanded. "That's our client you're manhandling. Put him down."

"Or you won't get payed? As mercenary as ever, old friend!" The griffin with the iron crown laughed. It came out hoarse, rasping, the last reminder of old throat injuries. "Don't tell me you've forgotten me, Lightning Dust!"


"Lord Goric." Lightning Dust whispered. She hadn't seen the graff of Gottrakt in years, not since she stopped taking their jobs and joined the Princes of Equestria.

"Hungry souls like you and I were destined to meet again. The tides of fate couldn't keep us apart forever." Goric said, his voice full of glee. "We're both older, wiser, and more complete than we were back then. Should I call you captain, or is that too formal for old acquaintance such as I?"

"LD, what the hell's going on here?" Red-Black hissed. "You know this guy?"

Dust gnawed her lip, unable to think clearly. "Mac, Red, greet his lordship."

"There's no need for that. You know I don't get hung up on meaningless formality." Goric said. "Since we are both very practical, we can get to the point. This city is now under my protection, so you can consider yourself dismissed from your contract. If you decide to stay in the city, my wife could find a new contract under our direction. If you don't want that," He laughed savagely. "I recommend you leave right away."

"Like hell. We're guaranteed damages if the contract's broken." Mac interjected.

Lightning Dust laid a wing over her short griffin friend. "Mac this isn't the tie to talk about damage. This is the time to talk about how quick we can pack up and leave."

"What? We're leaving?" Red-Black croaked. "But we were so close! This is the opportunity to build new life, fulfill that dream of yours!"

Dust turned to him. "Rosen, Mac, you really don't get it. There's no life for us in Clawstantinople anymore." He pointed at Goric. "It's his city now. There is no life where his shadow falls."

"Ha ha ha! You've gotten wise, Lightning Dust! I could never have imagined you producing such prose before." Goric laughed and nodded. "You can leave, guilt free, knowing your responsibilities have been taken into my firm grasp." He lifted and clenched his talons. Lightning Dust swore she saw lickers of light in his palm, some kind of magic. "But wherever you may go, we will be brought together again. Be sure of it."


"Mac, fly down to the Hawkwood right now. Tell them to prepare for immediate takeoff." Lightning Dust ordered.

Mac silently glanced between Dust and Goric, pleading for something, but it was unclear what. When, after a moment,  it was clear Dust wouldn't change her mind, Mac reluctantly turned away and jumped into the skies, flying over the veranda towards the skydock.

"Oh, one more thing before you leave." Goric said, his tone turning cold. "There are two characters rumored to have passed through Clawstantinople in the past few months. Perhaps you met them."

Lightning Dust had the distinct feeling she was being baited into admitting something Goric would punish her for. "Shoot."

"A hippogryph named Eversnake." Goric said.

Dust shook her head. "Never heard of him." She said truthfully.

Goric leaned forward, his eyes glowing brighter. "A griffin named Gilda." 


"I-" Lightning Dust paused. Gilda, the name of Rainbow Dash's friend. "We had a brief encounter with her. Don't remember much. She left the city after getting in trouble."

"Oh ho ho! She allways was a little trouble maker." Goric laughed. "Go on then. Let the skies and heavens carry you away. Perhaps next time we meet, we'll have grown wiser still." He turned away, leading his armored soldiers back towords the basilica, dragging the wailing archon behind him.

"Lord Goric, if I may, briefly, please treat this city mercifully." Lightning Dust said quietly.

Goric glanced over his shoulder. "The wise parent does not beat his child, unless it has dissapointed him!" He said, hissing. The archon began to wail and plead louder. "Fare thee well!"

Red-Black and Lightning Dust watch them until they were out of sight. "I feel nauseous." Red-Black mumbled. "This strange feeling, like I don't know what kind of world I live in anymore."

"Rainbow Dash, the Eternal Night, Goric, omens of the past and future... I don't know how to chase my dream anymore." Lightning Dust fell silent, listening to the echoes of cannon and muskets carrying up from below. "I'm thirsty. Do you think we have time to hit up a bar before we high-tail it outta here?"

Red-Black sighed and slumped his shoulders. "Sorry, captain. Your old friend Goric was saying goodby on behalf of the whole city. Time to leave."

"So it is." Lightning Dust agreed softly.




The Hawkwood, constructed in 995 SS by Los Pegasus Naval Yard, was custom construction for a junior prince of Saddle Arabia. Very few airships of its size or speed had been attempted, and Equestria was wary to let such a modern ship pass beyond its borders. This when Saddle Arabia descended into civil war again, it gave Equestria the pretext to seize the great airship. Very soon imperial the government realized it didn't want to pay for Hawkwood's maintenance, thus it went through a series of owners until it was bough by the Princes of Equestria using the advance on the Clawstantinople contract in 998 SS.

Hawkwood was over 200 meters long from the tip to the end of it’s balloon, with the underslung passenger compartment half that length. Like most large airships, the sails deployed from the sides instead of a balloon mast, but Hawkwood did away with the masts enterally. Instead of hanging below the balloon, the cabin was embedded directly into it, lessening the profile but also eliminating the open top deck. Abandoning the aesthetic of being a boat lifted into the air, it was a leviathan of the skies first and foremost.

To observers in that moment, looking between the Hawkwood at the skydock and the Tribal Star, it must have seemed like shadows of the past and visions of the future had come to clash. But the past was yet too strong, the future was not confident in its strength.



Macintosh sat in the Hawkwood’s canteen, sorting through the bag of letters. He separated business from personal, and divided the personal by platoon. The off-duty Princes came to check if they’d received anything, or grabbed their friend’s letters for later delivery.
There was some yelling outside. Macintosh ignored it.


A particularly fine envelope, pearlescent white and crisp, stood out to Macintosh, and he picked it out of the pile. A wax seal held it closed, stamped with a crest with a sun over a mountain. How regal. The recipient, penned in elegant cursive, was listed as Rosen ‘Red-Black’ Bright. There was no sender listed.

“Now what do we got here?” Macintosh murmured. Red-Black never had mail, not from friends, family, or various dalliances across Trottingham and Griffany. No one was as alone as him.


Giving the remaining letter sorting over to a junior officer, Macintosh carried the letter out of the canteen then on in the direction of the upper cabins. Hawkwood was large but had little in the way of luxury, and Macintosh struggled to see in the lantern-lit hallways.
He passed hundreds of rooms, some with open doors. Princes in their hammocks called out to Macintosh as he passed, but he didn’t acknowledge them.

The upper cabins were no higher in the ship, but closer to the front bridge. Instead of long hallways, the rooms here were organized around connected foyers, which had been turned into lounges with couches and a card table.  Lightning Dust, Little Mac, Red-Black, Macintosh and other lieutenants each had a personal cabin, while junior officers shared two to a room.


Macintosh knocked on Red-Black’s door. To his surprise, somepony opened it, but it wasn’t Red-Black. It was a cerulean mare with long black hair, and a star mark.

“Is Red in?” Macintosh asked. He knew the answer, since Red-Black would never let one of his flings answer a door for him.

“Uh…” The mare’s eyes wandered to the letter. “I can take a message for him.”

Instead of answering, Macintosh walked away. He went to his own room, across the lounge. 



When the Lightning Dust bought the Hawkwood, Macintosh had objected to getting a room of his own. When Dust threatened to kick him out of the Princes if he didn’t take it, he resolved to make it as austere as possible.
He had succeeded by transforming the stately cabin into a temple. Most of the room was bare, but Macintosh had painted the walls with scenes from the different books Rarity had given him on the history of the Nightmares, the Deava, and the aspect of Dark. Most of those books had been left back in Equestria, but those vivid scenes lived in Macintosh's restless dreams now. In case he forgot them, he had carved a small statue out of wood, a crude depiction of a serene alicorn. He'd set it in front of the curtained window surrounded by candles.
Macintosh left for himself only a small corner for his bed and armor stand. Above his pile of books was Equestrian Goddess, mounted on the wall by it’s silver frame.


He carried the letter to his cot and lit a candle. First he inspected the wax seal. He had no familiarity with noble heraldry, but the presence of a sun usually meant that it was from Equestria. Upon closer inspection, the seal stamp also had words: Regnum Lux,  House Bright.

Red-Black hated his family with a passion, or so he teld anyone who asked. Everypony assumed his family felt the same of him.
Macintosh put the letter down. Red-Black was, for all his sarcasm and occasionally snobbishness, a sensitive stallion. He did not want Red to be hurt by anything that the letter contained, but nor did he want to betray Red’s trust.

He looked up, at the crude statue looming at its end of the room. His goddess the Nightmare was harsh but caring. All her ponies understood that although she would not be there to help all the time, she would be there to aid in the most dire of times.
The eternal night had come and gone and so, Macintosh could only conclude, had the dire times. But what if they hadn’t? It would be the responsibility of the steadfast and faithful to stand up for their brothers and sisters. What tantalizing rumors Salvador Flair had spoken of, black alicorns in the Equestrian skies... 

Making up his mind, Macintosh opened the letter and began to read.




As Macintosh was making his decision, Grace Macgrifftosh touched down at the Hawkwood loading dock. "Cannay see the invaders coming?!" She shouted jutting a talon at the Tribal Star down below.  "Start loading up lads! WE ARE LEAVING."


Prince’s rushed evacuation had threw the skydock into chaos. In Clawstantinople at large, Black Bell’s incursion was beginning to be noticed, and terrified griffins were fleeing to the higher tiers of the city. Platoons were trickling in from all their haunts, carrying in belongings that didn't necessarily belong to them.

A few moments later Lightning Dust landed at the end the ramp. "Grace! How're we looking?"

"Most Princes've come back. We're take on provisions." Mac reported.

"Wasn't Big Mac on duty? Where'd he go?" Dust demanded. "Whatever, I'm sure he's onboard. Mac, organize this mess! We have to leave before- Wait, here comes Red."

Red-Black galloped over, panting heavily. The way down the red mountain on hoof was significantly longer for creatures without wings. "Captain, the other mercenary captain caught wind of our departure. They're heading this direction right now!"

Lightning Dust drew a pistol. "Like hell they are."


The shouting and crying from the city around them was getting louder. The Tribal Star intermittently fired its cannon at targets on shore, making the whole mountain shake.

Like Red-Black had warned, a crowd of ponies and griffins began to coalesce around at the skydock. The captains of other mercenary companies had come to beg for a ride out of the city. 

“Hey, hey! Why are you schmucks coming here? Just because we're leaving doesn't mean you have to!" Lightning Dust had her pistol drawn, but not yet pointed at anypony. "What, you think it's not safe here or something?"   Another cannon shot from the Tribal Star rang out, and the ground beneath them trembled.  “Take some other pony’s airship, but you’re not getting in ours!”

“Those sorceresses are slaughtering anyone armed, even if we aren’t resisting!” Guru, the griffin leader of the Falchion Fellowship Mercenary Company, pleaded. “We have had our differences in the past, but even you wouldn’t condemn us to die!”

“Clearly I would!” Dust shouted her down. “You have wings. Use them!”

“Dust, we’ve been friends for years!” Captain Larchbark of the Free Company, a balding earth pony stallion dropped on his knees. “You can’t do this to us!”


Dust was about to reply when she spied a familiar face approaching from down the skydock.  “Salvador!” She cried out.

“Hey Captain.” Salvador Flair pushed his way through the crowd to Dust. He was panting and out of breath. “Just so you know this stuff with Black Bell has nothing to do with me this time.”

“Yeah I know. I had a chat with Lord Goric.” Dust nodded up to the Basilica. “This little invasion looks like it's been long in the making. I have no idea what the hell's going on but we clearly can't stay.”


“Are you letting this chump on, and not us?” Guru squawked.

“We’re just talking, you nosy bastards.” Dust spat. “Besides he’s got his own ship which, if you have the money, you could charter instead of heckling me!”

“Hee hee, actually…” Flair giggled nervously. “Do you see that smoke rising from the other end of the skydock? Those cannons aren't firing at random, it seems."

"You've got to be kidding me. Are you sure you don't have anything to do with this?" Dust demanded. "Whatever, get in the boat, ya lout."


The mercenary captains began shouting louder, shoving each other and the Princes. 
"We know you have the room, Lightning! Let us on and we'll pay you back!" Larchbark drew his sword.

"Hey! Hey! We can discuss this civilly." Lightning Dust gripped her pistol harder. "Back off! Back off!"

Red-Black whispered in her ear. "Captain, if you do end up letting them on we have to make sure we control the weapons."

Lightning Dust thought about that for a moment. "You're right, Red. We can potentially profit off these losers." She whispered back. "If we're clever we're can lead them into our service forever."

"That's NOT what I'm saying. Making a servant caste out of trained killers sounds like a very bad idea." Red-Black hissed.

But Lightning Dust had heard what she wanted. "I got my hopes up about conquering Clawstantinople. But this day doesn't need to be a total loss either." She turned to the mercenary captains. "Listen friends, we can work something out. It's a give and take with our kind, you know."




As Big Macintosh emerged from his room, he noticed the lounge was much more crowded than usual. Dozens of ponies and griffins he didn’t recognize wearing odd uniforms were sitting here and there, all somber or visibly nervous.

“Huh. Wierd.” Macintosh noted.

Red-Black and little Mac galloped past him on their way to the bridge. Lightning Dust was several second behind them, but stopped when she saw Macintosh.

“There you are!” Dust said, exasperated. “Listen, I need you to take your platoons to the storage bay and rearrange it so there’s enough space for our guests.”

Macintosh took a second look at the unknown people around him. “Captain, I ain’t got a clue what’s going on, but I need to talk with you and Red.”

“Clearly now’s not a good time-”

“Lightning…” Macintosh put a hoof on her shoulder. “It’s real important.”



Lightning Dust sighed. Macintosh never said something was important if it wasn’t. “Let's talk on the bridge.”

Macintosh nodded, letting his hoof drop. He followed her down the last hall to the bridge, which occupied the very front of the ship. Windows on all sides offered a panoramic view of anything in front, and a partially glass floor showed the city beneath them.
Little Mac was already at the helm, barking orders through the speaking tube to other decks. Red-Black was at the navigation station, plotting a route away from the Marble Mountain.

“Red.” Dust said.

“Yeah?” Red-Black looked up. “Hey, glad for you to finally join us Big Mac. You've been missing the excitement.”


Macintosh dropped the lavish letter on the desk and pushed it in front of Red-Black. The unicorn took one look at the symbol on the wax seal, and his face contorted in frustration and anger. “When Salvador comes and drops off the mail, I'm always smug in my knowledge that it holds nothing for me. Why now? Why here?" He picked up the silken envelope. "This...  isn't a cruel joke, right Macintosh?"

“Nope.” Macintosh sighed. “Read it.”


Cautiously, and with a growing dread, Red-Black turned the envelope over and shook the letter out. It was written on paper no less fine than the envelope, its message written in an elegant script.



My dear, dear brother.

It has been so long since I’ve written to you, and longer still since I’ve seen your face. I have changed, as you no doubt have. We could be alone in a room together and be perfect strangers. I have no doubt that thin a changing word you hate will remain strong and true.
Indeed I would not blame you for tearing up this letter right now. Doing so would spare you immeasurable pain. Believe me please, when I say that I loathe myself asking you to take on this burden. If you read on, you do so at your own peril. 

Do you remember our cousin, Night Light? I have been collaborating with cousin Light's wife, a certain Twilight Velvet, whose ancestors can be traced back to the Friesian lands you have trod across in your exile. Lady Velvet's ambitions are great and terrible. She will succeed in destroying the heart of Equestria. War and suffering will result. I will die, amusingly. Even knowing this, I will help her every step of the way. Lady Velvet is my family and I love her unrequitedly. I might as well die for her since I don't have much else to live for.

My only regret, and the purpose of this letter, concerns our ancestral lands in Foal. Our nephews have unfortunately died. I suspect Lady Velvet's hoof in that but I have no proof. Regardless, it means my death will leave House Bright bereft of leadership. Night Light and Shining Armor are Canterlot ponies and won't care about Foal. I am afraid that our ancestral lands of Foal descends into chaos, and not the fun kind of chaos. Perhaps you understand why I've written to you.

Rosen, I don't like to beg, but I will. Equestria and Foal are not your home anymore, but it's where you're needed more than ever. Don't do it for the sake of family or honor. It's a matter of life and death of thousands of innocent ponies that you come to preserve peace and order. You're the last legitimate child of Bright who gives a damn about things like that.

We loved each other once, and once I die I hope you can look upon me with at least the faintest fondness, despite the hate. I can not undo the past. I laugh at it plenty. I can even laugh at myself which is why it doesn't hurt to ask you to imagine me prostrate at your hooves, a blubbering mess, begging you to forgive me.

Foaly Flux





Red-Black put the letter down. He looked down and imagined, like he'd been asked, that his brother was there begging him.
Deep below him, in the bowels of the airship, he heard the ramps being retracted and the bay doors close. Slowly, Hawkwood began to rise away from the skydocks, and the abject chaos which had overtaken Clawstantinople.

"What a wild day." Rosen Bright whispered. "I guess we have the chance to fulfill our dreams anyway."
He turned to his friends, looking expectantly.
"Captain, may I have permission to plot a course to Trottingham, then west?"

Lightning Dust glanced towards the letter. "Then west? Red, that takes us to Equestria."

"That's right, LD. Equestria." Rosen agreed. "There's a new contract for the Princess of Equestria, and the client is the Duke of Foal, yours truly."