//------------------------------//
// Pileus 
// Story: Census 
// by The 24th Pegasus 
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22nd High Sun, 380 AE

Several hundred miles to the north of Stratopolis soars the city of Pileus. An ancient cloud city almost as old as the capital itself, Pileus was formed during the reorganization of pegasus tribes under Roamulus’ rule in the early years of his reign. Although not a spectacularly large city, as the census data I collected here shows there are only 114,000 pegasi and 20,000 griffon slaves, Pileus is one of the more famous cities due to its unique geography. Unlike most Cirran sky cities, which float over plains or lakes, Pileus is concealed within the Stormspike Mountains, where the precipitation and perpetual cloud cover hide it from you until you almost fly directly into it.

The mountains are a harsh place to live. Their jagged teeth continually deflect gusts and turbulence into the skies, making it very difficult to try to fly over their peaks. To navigate, you have to fly low, in the valleys between the mountains, but the air here is cold and damp, even in the summer. Apart from a few hours both before and after noon, the valleys are filled with fog and mist, limiting your sight to only thirty or forty yards. In the winter, howling blizzards of snow and ice make it impossible for all but the strongest of fliers to stay aloft. An inexperienced or unfamiliar flier could easily become lost in the valleys, if they didn’t dash themselves to pieces against a mountainside. Thankfully, one of my lictors was a Pileus native, and he knew the entire mountain range by heart.

Like their city, the Pileans are a curious people, quiet and mysterious, almost brooding. They consider themselves a pegasus subspecies, equipped with superior eyesight and quieter flight than us, in addition to a few smaller differences. Unlike most of us, they’ve developed extra feathers along their wing crests that muffle the noise of their wings, and their eyes can find prey through the thick cloud cover of the valleys [1]. They use this to their advantage when hunting goats on the mountainside or preparing ambushes. I was startled to see when the chariot landed in Pileus an entire century of Snow Warriors following us. I never once heard their wings in the several hours it took us to make the last leg of our journey. Only my lictor knew we were being followed, and he told me he didn’t want to say anything to ‘ruin the surprise.’

[1]:  Although not as common today as they were back then, around 2% of the modern pegasus population carry specialized flight feathers as holdovers from the genetic pool of Pileus. The edges of the feathers lining their wings are serrated to reduce turbulence and thus silence their flight, like owls. Unfortunately, also like owls, this makes them fairly vulnerable to wet weather, and pegasi with these feathers have difficulty flying in heavy storms, unlike their common counterparts, whose feathers are naturally waterproof. It is interesting to note that these ‘Snow Warriors’ preferred to fight in inclement weather despite this handicap, where they could easily ambush their enemies and not be impaired by the resulting sluggishness of their flight.

The Snow Warriors have lived and fought in these mountains for centuries, and Roamulus described them as some of the fiercest pegasi he’d ever fought, even when compared to foes such as the legendary Nimbans and the fire-wielding Sages of Nyx. They wear leather armor painted entirely white to blend in with the clouds, fog, and mists that clog the valley. Hunting in small groups of eight, they watch from nearly invisible outposts stationed in the clouds and through the valley, looking for signs of intruders. When danger is spotted, they silently take flight and follow, and begin eliminating threats under the cover of darkness and thick fog. In his memoirs, Roamulus described how he lost an entire maniple to Snow Warrior action in a single day without anypony the wiser. Only when he took a head count after they had made camp in the valley did he realize that something was wrong. The following morning, he was able to force a conventional fight by organizing his legions and using their collective wingpower to clear the valleys of the fog, and without their camouflage, he was able to decisively rout the Pileans. Despite their ferocity, Pileans are better skirmishers than they are soldiers, and thus the region is known to produce some of the finest scouts Cirra has to offer.

The city of Pileus itself is notable for two things. The first is that the city is low flying by most standards. Nestled into a deep ravine between the mountains, Pileus is very low to the ground to prevent the ravaging gusts and winds blowing off the mountains from ripping it to pieces. It also helps the Pileans reach their city from the valley when it’s raining, as unlike most of us, they have exceptional difficulty flying in wet weather, so a tall, soaring city would be difficult to navigate or even reach safely in the event of a storm. As a result, the city has grown outwards and downwards as opposed to upwards like most pegasus cities such as Stratopolis, Nimbus, and Nyx do. The city is so low that they even have grand stairways that reach the ground, built out of flexible cloudstone to allow the city to bob and move without breaking them.

The second thing, and perhaps the one most ponies will care more about, is the Pilean vineyards. It seems strange to think about; the best vineyards in Cirra outside of Pileus are all built near the south coast, where the air is dry and warm. Here in Pileus, the air is cold and wet. Despite this, however, Pilean wines are considered some of the best in the land, and many senators and officials (myself included) pay a considerable fortune to have casks shipped to their sunny villas in the south. So why the seeming contradiction in climate and quality?

The answer is Pilean iceberries. Iceberries are small, purple fruit that are about a feather’s width across. They’re perfectly round, although they appear wrinkled in warm weather. This allows them to expand and not rupture when they freeze in the regular freezing temperatures common in the high mountains, especially at night, and especially in the winter. The Pileans culture these berries year round, and they make up a considerable part of their diet, as not many plants to even graze on grow in the mountains, and meat is scarce in the winter. They also use these to make their wine, in an elaborate process I was fortunate enough to witness firsthoof:

The berries are harvested early in the morning, when the sun has not yet risen to warm the land, and the cold mists cling to your coat and soak you to the bone within minutes. They’re placed in buckets of snow and ice, which the Pileans collect from the tallest mountains around their city, and taken back to the wineries. From here, the iceberries are destemmed and placed into a barrel full of ice and trampled underhoof to extract the juice and pulp, much like in traditional vinification. Yeast is added, along with some herbs collected from the valley; when I pressed them for their recipes, they refused to tell me, saying only that it was a Pilean secret. Once this is completed, the barrels are filled to the brim with ice, sealed with wax, and buried underground, where they are allowed to ferment for upwards of a decade. When this is done, the barrels are removed and shipped off to wherever they were ordered, usually the villa of a senator or a noble [2]. My wife and I spent an entire day at the winery, tasting all the wines and their subtle variations. Thankfully, since I was conducting the census, we were able to sample for free in exchange for promises of a tax exemption for the owner during the coming harvest season.

[2]: Shortly after translating this segment of Aureus’ journal, I attempted to recreate Pilean ice wine using the recipe within. I had to guess at the herbs used; I used sage, parsley, and mint for mine, as they are native to the area, but so far there are no surviving records on which to use, and in what quantities. I attempted to ferment the mix with my magic, as I didn’t have a decade to wait, and tried some on ice as the name ‘ice wine’ would imply. The brew was a bit thin, likely due to the melted ice that watered down the wine, but sweet and very refreshing. It is also much stronger than I anticipated, as I’m somewhat ashamed to admit from personal experience.

The city of Pileus itself is shaped like a cross, with its long axis aligned with the valley and its short axis nearly touching the rocky slopes. The points of each of these city arms are capped with sprawling fortifications and garrisoned with Snow Warriors, the idea being that the four hard points of defense in the city could support their two adjacent neighbors if one was under siege, and the wide, open space between them allows for javelins, arrows, and ballista fire to be exchanged to repel an assaulting army off of the walls of another fort. Between the forts and the rest of the city lies a stretch of barren cloud that allows the garrisons of the forts to march out and engage the enemy before they reach the interior of the city and exposes an attacking army to withering missile attack from their surroundings. All this to give an already tough nut to crack an additional layer of armor [3].

[3]: It is interesting to see how much emphasis the Cirrans put on the defensive measures to protect their cities. Walls and embattlements ringed their airborne homes, even though they could be circumvented if the city was attacked from above or below. Military historians hypothesize that the walls and forts served as defensive bastions from which the defenders of the city could organize to launch counterattacks and repulse invaders. Therefore, to conquer a city, an invading force had to subdue the hard fortifications scattered throughout it, or risk being outflanked and counterattacked by the garrisons of these fortifications, as simply sieging them inside would be ineffective for the same reason that the city’s walls were not designed to keep invading armies out.

At the intersection of the two axes of the city stands a magnificent castle. Reinforced with cloudstone and shrouded in chilly mountain vapor, the castle occupies a commanding view of the city. It was in this building that the grand kings of Pileus once resided, and nowadays, it holds the provincial governor, as it has ever since Roamulus abolished the kings of the tribes and declared himself emperor. I was fortunate enough that the governor of this region, an elder statesman by the name of Alabaster White, gave me and my family a personal tour of the interior, followed by an excellent feast and, of course, more ice wine.

Snow Peak, as the castle is called, is nowhere near as ornate as the Emperor’s palace in Stratopolis, nor anywhere near as well fortified as the grand palace of Nimbus, but it has a might all its own. Rather than trying to keep invaders out, it was designed to kill them as fast as possible. All large chambers have two doorways attackers must go through before getting to the next hall. These short killing zones are filled with murder slits and trap doors, where the defenders can pour boiling oil or hurl rocks and javelins at the attackers as they attempt to break through the next door. All of the doors can be closed from the floor above, so that the Pileans can cordon off small groups of invaders for their defense forces to kill more easily. In addition to that, I passed by several scorpio artillery pieces placed at the ends of long halls, with torsion springs tuned to the cold weather of the city. Any besieging force would think twice about charging down those halls; a scorpion can fling a bolt with such force and precision that it can pierce a griffon’s shield at 100 yards and easily kill the barbarian behind it.

Later, we took the time to go sightseeing in the city itself, although we retreated as soon as the sun disappeared behind the mountains; you could feel the temperature drop almost immediately, and it sent a chill through my bones. I was reaching for my overcoat before long, earning laughter from the native Pileans around me. If they were bothered by the cold, they never showed it, for not a single one of them was wearing anything of any substantial warmth. If this was summer, I dreaded to see what winter was like.

While I was there, I was able to witness a curious ritual one Sunday morning. My wife and I were awoken before the break of dawn by the tolling of bells. At first we thought it was just to signal the time, but we soon realized that this was no ordinary event, for the bells all over the city were ringing incessantly. We soon moved to the balcony, wrapped tightly in our evening robes to fend off the cold, as we sought the reasoning behind the cacophony. Our eyes witnessed a sight like no other: pegasi all across the city perched on rooftops, in towers, or on low flying clouds, all facing east. Their still silhouettes against the gray sky made them seem like statues, memories of the past carved into the very rooftops from which they perched. They remained like this, motionless, for an hour, until finally through the parting clouds and fog to the east, the sun began to rise. At this point, a low chorus arose from the pegasi gathered. This was no tavern song or battle march; this was a hymn, something sung with reverence and worship. I could not make out the words, but they sounded like a hybrid of Old Cirran and some other language. It continued until the sun had finally revealed itself in its entirety above the mountains, and which point the pegasi bowed low and began to disperse. When I asked my lictor about it, he said that it marked the annual celebration of Celeste’s arrival in Pileus millennia ago [4]. Checking the date, I realized it aligned with the summer solstice, though that did little to clarify the story. I suppose some superstitions are localized, especially when one lives in a land this cut off from the rest of civilization.

[4]: Having had the opportunity to interview Princess Celestia herself, this religious practice likely arose from when she and Princess Luna visited Dioda roughly four thousand years ago to try to convince the pegasi to fly across the ocean to where the earth ponies and unicorns lived. From their accounts and the historical evidence we have, we know that while they were treated and received as goddesses, which likely explains their place in the Cirran pantheon, their words were not heeded, as the pegasi swiftly became embroiled in wars with their neighbors over who the gods favored more than the others. Still, Celestia told me that Pileus was one of the first places she and her sister landed after crossing the ocean, so the sudden appearance of two alicorns must have seemed to the local Pilean population like the coming of the gods.

With the census records collected and safely sealed, we moved to depart Pileus while the weather was clear; the turbulence on the flight in had my wife feeling ill, and I did not want to make her suffer on the way out. On the way out, I purchased a cask of ice wine for the road, and had four more delivered to my villa back in Stratopolis. The boys were allowed to try some, but only a little bit; as I expected, they weren’t too fond of the taste yet. But they are young; with age comes wisdom, and with wisdom comes an excellent taste in wine.

I expect to spend the next few weeks along the northern coast, seeing the famous twin tribes of Tonitri and Fulgur, before continuing onwards to the legendary city of Nimbus. From there, we begin the crossing into griffon territory to survey the Emperor’s new holdings for the first time.