Boreas Caesar's legend grew greater by the day. He, Nimbus and Hurricane returned to Pegasopolis as heroes.
And in Pegasopolis they stayed for after their victory came something Pegasi, nay most civil states dread far worse than war and invasion.
Elections.
Before this time, the Republic was governed by something of a Triumvirate between Austus, Magnanimous and Gluteus Maximus. With the death of Austus and the failure of Gluteus Maximus, the Senate prescribed Magnanimous be appointed Consul Magnus with the Senate presiding over all non-immediate affairs. Gluteus Maximus, catching wind of this, set about bribing the priests to declare Magnanimous’s appointment an ill omen and appointed three kinsponies from his legions as civil tribunes; Varius Flavus, Curius Odus and Poisonus Fungus, all three of which vocally denounced Magnanimous’s ways and his closeness to Boreas Caesar who Gluteus declared ‘An upjumped reprobate intent on treason and spoils’. In the face of such outcry, Magnanimous resigned his candidacy for Consulate.

But not a moment after he’d done so, Boreas himself put his name on the candidacy in his place, brushing off Gluteus’s jibes and participating in lavish gestures of kindness and generosity to the common ponies. Meanwhile, Nimbus met with local landowners outside of the capital and not only swayed them into Boreas’s allegiance but gave them the means to ensure the patricians and governors would listen to them, one way or another. This was Boreas’s key to victory. Rather than spend vast amounts currying favour with the highest authorities as Gluteus did, he started from the bottom and worked up as he had in the legion.

One the day of the vote, Boreas Caesar and Gluteus Maximus were appointed joint consuls but thanks to Caesar’s prominent public relations campaigns, his support overwhelmed that of Gluteus Maximus.
So, after a month in office offering him nothing but scorn, Gluteus hatched a sordid scheme.
One morning, Boreas Caesar received a missive. Posey and Pansy had been attacked and nearly killed by armed stallions. Rushing to his family home, he found them wounded but alive as a bloodied Hurricane interrogated a near-dead assassin, several dead ones sprawled across the villa. Under the unwavering fury of Boreas and Hurricane, the assassin admitted that Gluteus had sent them and that they had also been the ones he had sent to murder Tribune Austus.
Before Caesar could respond, Gluteus seized control of Pegasopolis and declared himself King of the Pegasi, demanding the deaths of Boreas Caesar and Hurricane. The stallions were brought forth in chains as Posey was forced to watch from the column, screaming for her husband and adopted-son.
It was here, however, that Pansy flew into action, wrestling a weapon from her captors, she fought her way through, cutting through iron and bronze yet drawing no blood and turned the executioners away with what was described as a hellish stare, causing the most fearsome warrior to fall to their knees and break down in tears, unprecedented in its efficiency.
As Gluteus screamed for his troops to slay her, Nimbus arrived with Caesar’s legions and Mercia’s auxiliaries, smuggling themselves into the city via the sewers, no dignified task but it worked well. Once Gluteus was subdued, Magnanimous and his close allies broke open the gates to witness Boreas Caesar deliver justice to the enemies of the Republic as Hurricane stepped forward and decapitated the apoplectic Gluteus Maximus before the Senate House.

Gluteus Maximus’s position as Consul was taken by Nimbus, Magnanimous unable to offer his name for candidacy, the terms of his previous resignation still standing. It was here that historians agree that resentment was brewed in Magnanimous’s heart. Whether either he or Boreas had a more ambitious motive, Boreas had overshadowed him too many times. It is fair to suppose that this resentment occurred earlier, perhaps the reason for his lateness in coming to Boreas’s aid being that he hoped his rival would die and he alone would be famous for avenging him and liberating Pegasopolis. But his plan was foiled and now his only path to achieve greater success than Boreas Caesar was through forceful opposition.
Sending Hurricane and young Pansy to hunt down Varius Flavus, Curius Odus and Poisonous Fungus, Boreas was informed the three traitors had fled to Nessus. In order to properly conduct a campaign against them, he would have to act as Tribune as Hurricane did not yet represent the Senate and if a war with Nessus was inevitable, Senate influence would be required. Magnanimous met with Boreas Caesar and assured him that Pegasopolis would be in safe hooves if he was allowed to act as Consul in his stead. It is said that Boreas Caesar accepted without argument, claiming he knew his dear friend and mentor would do nothing he would not approve of. So Magnanimous and Nimbus occupied the roles of Consuls while Caesar set about annihilating Gluteus’s supporters.
Soon afterward, Magnanimous was approached by several leading members of the Senate-
Cirrostratus, a famous orator and critic;
Dubius Status, an ancient, cantankerous but famously incorrupt traditionalist;
Nefarius Purpus, Status’s firm friend and supporter descended from a long line of military and political figureheads;
Hazardus Cactus, a civil Tribune who’d served in Enigma and shared the growing suspicion and discontent of Boreas’s influence;
And finally Dorsus Gladius, the youngest and most notably uncertain of the group who had once been one of Caesar’s old legionaries, having been goaded into politics by his ailing mother.
These six senators petitioned Magnanimous to denounce Boreas Caesar and Nimbus for their unorthodox methods in the elections and for their abuse of authority, using the Republic’s wars to gain and maintain power for themselves. Magnanimous is said to have been uncertain at first, seemingly not quite as eager to thwart his old friend as he might have thought beforehoof. But eventually he agreed and saw his chance after four years as, even after his term as Military Tribune had ended, Boreas Caesar remained in Nessus with his legions, in direct breach with the regulations of the Republic. Nimbus was not present at these hearings, spending a great of his time with Eurus Subsolana, Hurricane’s mother, apparently engaged in an affair. Upon learning of the appeal, he attempted to mend the rift, offering assurances and then compromises but the Senate would not hear of it and so Nimbus and the families of Boreas and Hurricane fled Pegasopolis.

However, unknown to the Senate, Boreas Caesar was no longer in Nessus. He had placed one of his subordinates to act as Tribune in his stead, hunting down the remaining kinsponies of the three traitors, already long dead. He had been waiting just outside the capital for his enemies in the Senate to reveal themselves. He had one legion with him, the Legio VI Multicolor, comprised of his most able fighters and commanded by Hurricane and Pansy where they met their families, placed them safely in the camps and prepared to go on the offensive. Though ready and assembled, Boreas commanded they wait.
Scouting out from Pegasopolis, Magnanimous’s scouts reported back and the Senate knew of Caesar’s underlying goal. His antagonism of the Republic’s leadership now plain for all to see, Dubius Status urged Magnanimous to attack and destroy Boreas and his troops. However, Magnanimous explained a key problem. While he had three legions ready to muster, half were raw recruits, ponies the Multicolour would cut through like butter. The other half comprised of veterans of the Stirropean and Enigmatic Campaigns, mares and stallions who had fought under Boreas Caesar himself, their loyalty to the Senate in doubt. Faced with such upheaval, despite Cirrostratus and Dubius Status’s vehement criticism, Magnanimous and the Senate fled Pegasopolis and headed to Caelia to collect their full force and properly retake the capital as Nimbus opened the gates of Pegasopolis to his colleague.

In the wake of civil unrest and open invasion, the Pegasi were permitted to temporarily suspend democratic proceedings and place the power upon the most able figure until the chaos had passed, whereupon the Senate would vote on whether to grant an extended term as Consul Magnus or order the the ruler to step down. So it was then that Boreas Caesar was declared Commando Imperator, unofficial but undisputed head-of-state, and upon his return, once the dominion was unified, his daughter Pansy would be married to Nimbus in return for his years of long and dedicated service.
This caused a rift. For a long time, Hurricane had seen the young Pansy as a younger sister figure and had become very protective of her.
[Note: Sources vary on whether the two were romantically attached. The legends surrounding The Founding and the Invasion of the Windigoes claim the two had nothing but scorn for each other but, in the presence of literal hatemongers as the Windigoes, it’s commonly accepted that none of the major figures were acting in their right mind at the time and so aren’t reliable for properly telling what the founders were like as ponies. Mainstream pegasus legends claim the two either became or always were close and there are some unicorn and earth pony texts that verify this in some way but it was almost certainly a rocky relationship given all the hardships they went through]
And for an equally long time, the young stallion had growing doubts about Nimbus’s merits. Nimbus, it seemed, fancied himself ‘Boreas Caesar 2.0’. He was a proud, charismatic general and a born soldier for certain but his skills as a politician were below adequate, as a commander he was lax in patience and sensibility and as a husband he was insincere, philandering, having used Hurricane’s own mother to spy on him and Hurricane feared that the stallion would break Pansy’s heart. Boreas then asked Hurricane if it was he who wanted to marry Pansy. Hurricane could not respond.
Boreas explained that he was aware of Nimbus’s faults and wished to ensure his loyalty would be bound by blood. He apologised for what he would put Pansy and Nimbus through but doing so was for the good of the Pegasi, ensuring there would be no lasting resentment between him and what few powerful friends remained to him and pleaded for Hurricane to have faith in him. Hurricane reluctantly agreed.

Pressing forward to Caelia, Boreas dealt Magnanimous’s legions a defeat, bypassing their defensive lines and attacking the main camp, causing the surrender of the defending legion and adding them to his own forces, bolstering his army with his enemy’s own troops. However, at Cumula, he attacked too hastily and was defeated by the Senate’s combined armies and surrounded, saved from death by his daughter and losing near two thousand ponies.
This concluded in a climactic showdown. Magnanimous had Boreas right where he wanted him, surrounded, outnumbered, fast running out of supplies and humiliated before his troops. The old general would have been content and wise to wait it out and let Boreas’s power fade away daily until either he surrendered or his army mutinied. He’d used this tactic many times against powerful foes and it always worked well. But his allies grew restless. Cirrostratus, Dubius Status, Nefarius Purpus, Hazardus Cactus and Dorsus Gladius all urged him to advance and crush Boreas to properly show the power of the Republic and its defenders, Cirrostratus himself touching the nerve when he questioned Magnanimous’s true merits, asking what he’d really accomplished without Boreas Caesar. His patience reached, Magnanimous mustered his troops, advanced...and was crushed.
Magnanimous himself sent his allies away to do with their troops as they wished as, when Boreas struck at his camp, the old stallion stared his old colleague in the face, flew as high as the atmosphere would take him and clipped his own wings, letting his body fall to earth in a ritual suicide. Boreas recovered the body and buried Magnanimous with full honours, promising his kin full pardons and rich rewards if they surrendered in their father’s place. Cirrostratus, Hazardus Cactus and Dorsus Gladius came to Boreas’s tent to surrender which he accepted with open forehooves, blessing and forgiving them.

Dubius Status and Nefarius Purpus would flee south to Fracta, near Enigma. Coincidentally, King Narsis himself had been challenged by his sister, Cataclysma. Cataclysma was known to be a radiant princess and powerful sorceress whose beauty was unchallenged. Upon meeting her, Boreas was almost immediately beguiled and Cataclysma used this to her advantage. Boreas Caesar had wished to remain neutral in the civil turmoil and organise peace between brother and sister and so Hurricane and Nimbus set about convincing him to align the Pegasus Legions with Cataclysma.
To their credit, Narsis was a tyrant through and through and openly made hostilities towards the Pegasi and their interests, seizing properties, killing or enslaving civilians and having mocking anti-equine theatrics performed in the city squares and palaces. Caesar relented, Enigma was officially split in two with Narsis fleeing the capital and Cataclysma taking both Boreas Caesar and Nimbus to bed (Separately or simultaneously is up for debate). It had been here that Hurricane began a very tender relationship with Cataclysma’s younger, gentler sister, Siamesia, but when Narsis fled the city she was taken with him and married to him as the Sphinx Kings were wont to do. At the Dile River, Boreas Caesar appointed Nimbus as Legate of the Vanguard as he and Hurricane defeated Narsis. It was a tough battle to be certain, Narsis had assembled a vast army of mercenaries and colonial levies including shock troops of Aerophants. But Narsis was defeated, trampled to death in the muddy banks of the Dile, and his inner circle executed. Siamesia was captured at Nymphis and Cataclysma wished her executed too but Hurricane successfully petitioned Boreas and Nimbus for her life. She was taken to Pegasopolis and kept under arrest at the Temple of Alecto where Hurricane would visit as often as he could when on leave. In the wake of the battle, Dubius Status and Nefarius Purpus hired mercenaries and mounted a bold but unsuccessful move on Boreas’s auxiliary, retreated once more and ended their days by building their own funeral pyres and burning themselves to death.

Now, at last, Boreas Caesar was ruler of the Pegasus domain. Returning to Pegasopolis for his third and greatest triumph. He was offered the crown of brazen laurels but refused once, twice and thrice before accepting as a show of his humility even in the midst of his greatest victory. The senate now comprised of those who respected or feared him, Caesar had taxes lowered, his coffers bolstered by his victories, and began marginalising the power of the patricians over the Pegasus government, organising their private clerks and bodyguards into a single public service. He also proposed that citizens, legionaries and even freedbeasts could take up studies at government colleges to learn the ways of the civil servants and steadily work to become senators.
A similar reform was made by Rememberly in Old Hycarion and it ended much the same. Seeing the reformist, radical attitude of Boreas Caesar as a threat to their power, the Senate turned on their Imperator.
Boreas Caesar was known to be a merciful stallion, even in times of war. He had taken in and rewarded all those who had surrendered to him and spent great amounts to gain the loyalties of others. More than anything, it seemed, he wished for his throne to be surrounded by loyal friends.
But those with too much pride can be very quick to anger and very slow to forgive. For his enemies in the senate, a pony who sought to break the rules of the Republic, for whatever reason, deserved death. Whether Boreas truly trusted and forgave them or not is up for question but Cirrostratus and Hazardus Cactus were not content to abandon the Republic just yet and Dorsus Gladius steadily found himself swayed. After Boreas met him confidentially to discuss his transferral as Tribune to Hippomorphia, Gladius became convinced his trust and forgiveness was a facade and that their new Dictator was planning to get rid of them. A small but influential conspiracy was hatched in the Senate House, one that would shake Pegasopolis to its core.

At the turn of the spring, Boreas Caesar made his way to the Senate House to negotiate the reforms. It is mentioned by neutral parties that he’d been discussing beforehoof and was convinced to, at least, tone down his reforms so as to avoid antagonising both the higher and lower class factions. After all, a war had just ended and tension was still high.
But upon his arrival, the Senate crowded Caesar and Hazardus Cactus grabbed Caesar’s cloak and stabbed him in the back. As he attempted to fend him off, Boreas Caesar was set upon as the Senators drew knives and butchered him, stabbing him a total of twenty-three times, the final blow delivered by Dorsus Gladius who cut Boreas’s throat, the old stallion’s last words recorded to be ‘You too, my colt?’ later romanticised as ‘Et Tu, Gladie?’ (You too, Gladius?)
After this, Gladius and Cactus seized control of the city. Cirrostratus did not partake in the assassination but openly supported them and used his influence to seek out and attaint Caesar’s known allies.
Nimbus was not present at the Senate at the time. It is confirmed by records of his associates that he was warned of the plot to assassinate Boreas Caesar but simply ordered his household to ‘Wait’.
Hurricane and Pansy, however, had been training in Caelia when they received the news. According to records, Pansy fell to her knees and screamed to the heavens for minutes on end and Hurricane beat his forehooves bloody against the wall in a rage until he’d broken a hole through it. Declared Fugitivii, the two knew it would only be a matter of time before Caesar’s enemies came after them. They fled Caelia and went into hiding, possibly in the streets of Pegasopolis itself in plebeian disguise. Caelia meanwhile was ransacked and the heirs of Caesar believed dead.
Nimbus meanwhile, left his villa and met with the conspirators in Dorsus Gladius’s estate. He negotiated a truce. Boreas Caesar would not be declared a tyrant and his murderers would not be declared traitors. The old stallion’s death would simply be treated as a tragic but inevitable outcome of radical and reactionary tensions spiralling out of control. Nimbus then declared he would resign as Consul and leave Pegasopolis in the capable hooves of Gladius and Cactus. At Caesar’s funeral, Nimbus and Gladius would forgive each other’s aggressions and work towards peace and sustenance of the Pegasus domain.
It seemed Pegasopolis was due to return to the old ways as quickly as it had left them.
But Nimbus’s key weapon was the love the middle and lower class citizens had for the late Boreas Caesar. While their political power was minimal, one thing they had over the aristocracy was strength of numbers. At the funeral speech, Dorsus Gladius gave his reasons; he wished to preserve the Republic’s ancient ideals and knew the monster behind the pleasant face Caesar showed the crowds and that what he had done was to protect them and Pegasopolis.
The response was...unpromising. The crowds glared at him with suspicion and looked to Nimbus who arrived drunk and wracked with grief. Tearfully wailing over Caesar’s corpse, he began his speech but fell into drunkenly denouncing Gladius and his supporters for their treachery, demanding they tell the crowds what action of Boreas Caesar was tyrannical, bringing to attention all of his various gestures of loyalty, mercy and generosity the public knew all too well. As he slowly sobered up, Nimbus tried to backtrack but his work was done. The crowds were in a frenzy, screaming for the deaths of Gladius, Cactus and their fellows. The conspirators fled Pegasopolis and Nimbus took control. Cirrostratus was caught but surrendered on the spot, fervently apologising for his support of the conspirators, claiming ignorance and fear to be the cause of his defection. He was placed under house arrest but spared for the moment.

Nimbus met his supporters and proposed he take Caesar’s place as Dictator. While this motion was not grandly received, all Pegasi knew Nimbus lacked many of Boreas Caesar’s greatest virtues and possessed more than a few vices, this did seem to be the best option. However, before the motion was carried, from the very crowd he had swayed into aiding him appeared Caesar’s trueborn heir and his best student, Pansy and Hurricane.
Nimbus welcomed them and in an about-turn, proposed he and Pansy be married and Hurricane serve beside him as Twin Consuls as Caesar originally intended. Pansy accepted on the spot before Hurricane could respond and Pegasopolis rejoiced as Boreas Caesar’s work was continued by those who had shown him the greatest loyalty, a foundation on which the domain would be rebuilt.
But for Pansy, Hurricane and Nimbus the storm was just gathering.

6244988
Sounds very interesting, how do you came up with those things? And Pansy using the stare to keep the guards at bay, shows that Fluttershy was suited best for the role.

6245010
Well, yeah.
It's mostly based off the life of Julius Caesar and the End of the Roman Republic.
Nimbus is Mark Antony
Pansy is Octavian
Hurricane is Agrippa
Magnanimous is Pompey
Cataclysma is Cleopatra
Narsis is Ptolemy
Dorsus Gladius is Brutus
Cirrostratus is Cicero
Hazardus Cactus is Cassius
Dubius Status is Cato Junior
Nefarius Purpus is Metellus Scipio
And Gluteus Maximus is Bibulus
Some of the names I got from Asterix comics. My dad collects them. All the names are puns. It's great.
And I thought Pansy could show a few tricks.
Fluttershy, the heir to the Pegasus Empire!

6245012
Good idea, I'm a fan of Axterix and Oberlix too. PS. if the Eternal KnIghts meet them, they should be careful not to end like the Roman soldiers.