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// Minisode 4: Gneissos 
// Story: Forging Iron Will 
// by Gabriel LaVedier 
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	At the grand palace of Gneissos, seat of Minos of Concrete, the arrivals from Equestria watched in modest confusion as the guard dogs of Concrete dropped to the floor, pressing their faces to the dirt and holding their spears out in front of them. “Hail Asterion! Hail Asterion of Concrete! Welcome to your home!”
“Uh… thank you? It’s great to be here?” Iron Will had experienced quite a lot of confusion over the course of the day. His usual gruff theatricality had been replaced by a near-constant confused coasting through the situations presented.
“Bring him and these diplomats to their majesties! They will be greatly pleased!” Hyperion strode forward with the Equestrian guard and the rest. The dogs rose instantly, turned on their heels and began marching into the palace.
The interior of the palace did not fulfill the promise of the grand exterior. It was dark, with windows covered and lamp sconces empty. The interior was barely visible. Yet the guards navigated through the interior flawlessly. Rooms branched off in may ways, down into the earth and up to higher floors, as well as on the same plane. In the darkness, and with so many rooms, the place looked like a maze. What could be seen of the décor was comprised of carved statues and gem-encrusted frescoes. The statues depicted various large, powerful Diamond Dogs engaged in a variety of warlike activities; the frescoes  recorded more prosaic scenes of festivals and feasting, showing both Diamond Dogs and bovines.
The group moved generally up, through many turns and double-backs on similar paths on different floors. Each time they met a new guard they joined the procession, with great cheers. Most surprisingly, the guards inside of the palace were bovine, bulls with sharpened horns and darkly colored barding.
The throne room was breached long before any reason for the processional could be seen. “What is the meaning of this?” A voice boomed, huge and regal, ringing around the all-stone chamber. It was a bare, funereal place, stygian and dour. A single, high throne was barely visible in the light which seeped in from cracks and incidental openings. Upon it was a huge, stooped figure. Beside him, a large, silent presence.
“Majesty! Happiness has returned! Lights! Bring lights!” There was a sudden flood of blinding light as a large window was opened, flooding the room with the sun’s glare.
“Fools! Imbeciles! Who gave you permission to interrupt the sanctity of my mourning chamber with this accursed light!? What are you-” As eyes adjusted to the sting of light, a hazy outline came into view. The booming indignation turned to a whispering disbelief that resonated through the room. “A shade. A shade. He comes from Elysium to haunt my visions once more…”
“No, Minos… it IS him. It is our son. He lives. He lives!” The second figure dashed forward into the crowd of guards, right towards Iron Will. It was a cow, white from head to tail, looking somewhat aged but not too old. She lowed pleasantly when she reached the minotaur, rubbing her head against his stomach and weeping softly. “My son…”
Iron Will resisted the urge to take a step back, though he did have his hands up and out, looking down on the cow with some hint of familiarity flashing in the back of his mind. “Mom?”
“Pasiphaë.” The one on the throne spoke the name with an air of stony command. He rose up from the throne, tall and proud. He was an old dog, gnarled and grizzled, his coat a gray tone that still showed some traces of the cobalt blue of Iron Will. He sported a grand beard, the gray fighting the dark blue that was atop Iron Will’s head. “Step away. I do not believe.” He strode forward, holding himself up despite his advanced age making it appear he should by rights be stooped nearly in half. He followed in the wake of the cow, who had moved to the side as he approached. He regarded the minotaur with his hard, yellow eyes. All of a sudden his fist was in the air, impacting Iron Will’s stomach with a huge, echoing thud that caught the room off guard.
There was a general scramble of activity. Fluttershy squeaked out loudly, Rarity stepping before her and blocking her from Minos. The unicorns in the Equestrian contingent lit their horns and lowered their heads threateningly, the Diamond Dog and bull guards raising spears or lowering heads as appropriate, facing down the ponies. Pasiphaë was unmoving, and unsurprised. Iron Will didn’t flinch at all. Something clicked for him. He stood tall as Minos, looking down at him with a solid gaze. “Don’t feel a thing.”
Minos’ hard features slowly softened, like melting wax. His fist fell from the abdomen and tears fell at the same time. He drew Iron Will into a tremendous, powerful embrace, trembling from the strength of his crushing hug. “My son! My Asterion! You return you me, whole and mighty! You returned…”
The unicorns stood down, and the Concretan guards lowered their weapons, some of them sniffing as they watched the reunion. Queen Pasiphaë strolled in grandly and pressed her body against both, sniffing loudly. Rarity smiled and lightly dabbed at her eyes with a small cloth, while Fluttershy pressed against her marefriend and sighed. “I knew this was a good idea. You got your father back. And he wasn’t anything like you thought.”
“This was… I didn’t even think this was possible. I thought I’d be standing here demanding your respect. I was raised to believe you hated me. You left me to die on some rock on the mainland.” Iron Will embraced his father tightly and wiped his eyes a little bit.
“What?” Minos staggered back with a stagger, subtly supported from the side by Pasiphaë’s body. “Left you to die? Impossible. I was devastated when you vanished from this palace. I dispatched guards to seek you out; my closest advisor was out for years upon years to locate you. I never knew what happened. I suspected our enemies had taken you. I never…” Minos stumbled a bit, nearly going to his knees as the old sorrow returned. Only Pasiphaë’s presence kept him upright.
“But… when I was a calf I was told that you left me to die because I looked like this, that you had refused to speak of me or think of me ever.” Iron Will strode over to the throne, supporting his father with the help of his mother.
“I did no such thing! Your captor lied to you, in the most foul manner possible. After my sorrow faded, my rage was all I had left. I held such hate for all those I believed had taken you. Sardonyxia, Feldsparta, Sapphirios, Atheralite. I thought their denials were all lies. So I crushed them all in retribution for what I believed to be kidnapping. I broke the peace in my hate. And now your form flies over all the Aegeman.”
“But I was taught about all the lands in the Aegeman. It seemed impossible to take them all on. How did you destroy the Feldspartans? They were the most feared warriors in the region.”
“I was angry, and thought they had taken you.” Minos reached to the side of this throne and tossed down two pieces of a broken spear. The leaf-shaped blade and feldspar-braced haft showed it was of Feldspartan make. “They were utterly destroyed, subjugated and made omegas to Concrete. Even now they are little more than a whimpering vassal state never daring even to bark. They were so badly beaten they will never think of standing tall again. The other kingdoms fell even more readily.”
Iron Will stood by the throne, deep in thought. “What else was a lie? Did you really get cursed to fall in love with a cow when you wanted a powerful heir?”
“What dross. I fell in love with Pasiphaë at first sight. The curve of her form, the milk of her coat, the fine structure of her. Like a statue come to life. I had to have her. The courtship was short. She found my flustered, fumbled attempts at ode-smithery charming. But then came the issue of succession. In my desperation, I sought out a statue of Erdisos, and prayed continually, begging for some hint of the power that sometimes came through. I knew the risk. But I never imagined the cost…”
The queen stepped forward and gently nudged Minos on the stomach. “He was very charming. Older than I was, a mature king. How could I say no? It was the most flattering thing in the world. A handsome, powerful, stable dog. I didn’t think it would happen. Having a child would be impossible, or close to it. But it happened. I became pregnant after he prayed to Erdisos. And soon you were born.”
“There is a price…” Minos seethed darkly, stooped on his throne and gripping the arms harshly. “The Trickster always demands a price somehow. I thought he would take my kingdom; I would have accepted it. I thought he would take my life; I would have accepted it. But no. After letting your mother and I fall utterly in love with you, the fee he took was you.”
Silence reigned in the room, thick and meaningful. Iron Will, after a nervous shuffle, asked, “What did you do to that statue?”
Minos nodded to the guards, who scampered out of the room. “It was my fault for daring to ask such a creature. But he did the evil to an innocent creature. So I issued the only punishment possible. When I invaded the rest of the Aegeman I had all of them destroyed, crushed into worthless powder. Except the one to which I had prayed.” The guards returned toting a box. “I saved the accursed head of that horrid thing. Because I intended, always, for you to crush it underhoof, punishment for whatever it did to you.”
The guards opened the box and lifted out the stone head, drawing a powerful, shocked gasp from the Equestrians. They knew it immediately, but only Rarity said anything, “Discord…”
The smugly-smiling head on the ground was indeed that of the imprisoned draconequus, looking almost like the original state of the statue, before he had escaped. Minos looked up curiously. “What a strange name. But I see you also treat him with careful hands.”
“He is the spirit of chaos. He escaped and did… terrible things. My friends and I were under his spell until we banded together, and locked him away again.” Rarity spoke with a halting tremble, looking on the stone head with a trace of fear.
“He must have invested these with power long ago. But now there are none any longer, except for this.” Minos pointed at his son, then down at the head of Discord. “Destroy it. But wait for the great naysayer. Somedog! Fetch Theseus. How he shall seethe when he sees how wrong he was.”
“I shall seethe, my king? Why is that? And where are the guards? It is most unu-” A Diamond Dog, younger than Minos but still up in years, casually entered the room with a smile on his face. That smile died when he looked on the assembled, especially the cobalt-blue presence before the throne.
Only one word was audible in the heavy stillness that followed, Iron Will disbelievingly asking, “Actaeon?”