A Double-Edged Sword

by sjasogun

1. Moving Out

Double Edge was getting tired from standing at attention for so long, but as a Captain of the Royal Equestrian Army he refused to give in to something as trivial as sore muscles. As usual, Major Chevalier had picked them up well before sunrise to get to the meeting.

As a result, he and his fellow captains, Razor Wing and Hawk Eye, had arrived first, nearly two hours before the meeting was supposed to start. And, strict as he was, the major had ordered all of them to stand at attention the entire time, as was required by the etiquette. Leaving later as to arrive at a more reasonable time was, of course, not negotiable. Not with Chevalier the Tightflank, as he and his fellow captains tended to call him.

It seemed to take ages, but eventually the other majors and their captains began trickling in as well, five in total, including Major Chevalier. This surprised Double – it meant that the colonel had ordered all of the field officers of his regiment to this meeting. His companions were clearly as surprised as he was, but tried their best not to show it. Even the major shifted his weight a little as more people kept coming in.

At long last, a messenger declared that the colonel was arriving and promptly left the room, leaving the gathering of majors and captains to wait alone. Soon enough, the colonel arrived. Double Edge saluted automatically, along with the rest of the officers. He had never actually met Colenel Steel Stallion in person, and had expected an old stallion, who held the rank because of his experience and intelligence rather than through his combat prowess. He was already sixty years old, after all. But now that he saw him in person, he had to revise that opinion.
Radically.

The colonel was huge, towering over everypony else in the room and despite his graying, rust-colored mane and clearly visible wrinkles he looked like he was strong enough to rip a griffon in half like a piece of rice paper. Double held back a gulp as the colonel turned towards them.

Another pony that had entered the room after him, a fuchsia pegasus with a deep blue mane, reached into his saddlebags and put a scroll on the table, emblazoned with a wax seal that indicated that it had been sent by none other than the High Command itself.

”What in the world?” Double thought.

The colonel levitated the scroll in front of him and dismissed his assistant with a wave of his hoof, who immediately galloped away. He cleared his throat, as if to silence the non-existing murmur in the room. With his magic he broke the seal on the scroll levitating tranquilly in front of him, giving of a faint yellow flash of light as it crumbled to ashes. He unfurled the scroll, cleared his throat again and began reading the letter.

“To all colonels of the Royal Equestrian Army. It is with great regret that I must inform you that at approximately 1400 hours this afternoon the settlement of Bridelington situated close to our eastern borders was sacked by a troop of around forty griffons from the Triclaw clan.”

The colonel grimaced as he read the last part. Even though the room had been dead silent the entire time, as was to be expected of military officers, this statement sparked up some murmur. The colonel raised his hoof to silence the room and continued reading the letter, albeit with a raspier and somewhat louder voice than before.

“Although nopony was killed, this brazen attack on Equestrian citizens and grave violation of our mutual neutrality agreement cannot go unnoticed. Therefore, we, the High Command of the Royal Equestrian Army, with the approval of Her Royal Highnesses Princess Celestia and Princess Luna, have interpreted this as an act of war and have therefore declared war on the Griffon Empire. Princess Celestia and Princess Luna have prepared to announce this to the public this afternoon at 1800 hours. Until then, this information should remain secret.

“You and your regiment are hereby called to Baltimare, where you will receive further orders. Signed, blahblahblah the entire High Command and the princesses themselves.” the colonel finished, pausing for a moment.
“Well horseapples.”

The room remained dead silent while Colonel Steel Stallion was apparently lost in thoughts for a few moments. A loud *bang* snapped everypony out of their trance – the colonel had struck the table with his hoof, leaving behind a visible dent.

“Well, what are all of you slackers waiting for? Go and gather your troops! We’ll be leaving at sunset!”

That was the final straw for the patience of the officers. The entire room went into somewhat of a controlled panic, the majors shouting orders at their captains before galloping outside with their subordinates hot on their tails.

“Sir?” Hawk Eye asked with a tone that betrayed his unease, looking at their unmoving commander.
“Sir? Major Cheva–”

“I’ll go get the troops ready.”

Hawk, startled by the major’s grim tone, stepped back. “But sir…”

“You just go home and say goodbye to your families.” the major continued, not looking back to face them. “I’ll expect you at the base in one hour. Dismissed.”
And with that, he stormed off, leaving them behind, wondering what had just happened.

Razor was the first to react.

“Well, we’d better not keep good old’ grumpy waiting!” he piped up, but the joke sounded even more grim than the major’s tone had. A few awkward moments passed before they all left, Razor and Hawk both flying off in different directions and Double galloping ahead, glad that he now had some time alone, so he could think, to make some kind of sense out of all this.

The entire situation was beyond ridiculous. That was the only thing that raced through his mind. Aside from some hollow threats made by some of the more brash diplomats the griffons sent every now and then to complain about a thousand things to the princesses, the peace between the two countries had remained undisturbed for almost three centuries.

And besides, if his memory served, even though it did come to a declaration of war back then as well it had ended up with both armies showing each other their muscles while negotiations were made, which had eventually resulted in the neutrality agreement between the two nations. It didn’t look like that was the case this time around, since just the sacking of that town was beyond anything that had come out of that particular conflict.

”Okay,” he thought to himself, ”what do they actually want out of this? They know very well that they can’t overrun Equestria, not without suffering crippling losses themselves. Despite having been at peace for so long Celestia had never allowed the Royal Army to shrink, not with the threats from the griffon diplomats hanging over her head, knowing fully well that they would only remain hollow threats as long as she made sure it was too dangerous for them to fulfil them. So why now? They’d been making these threats against Equestria for ages.

“Perhaps,” he pondered, ”perhaps it is because of the incidents over the last years, especially the nearly successful Changeling invasion. Though they could interpret those incidents as having put the entire nation on high-alert, they could also have taken it as a sign of weakness.

"Oh, ponyfeathers. If the army had just been able to handle the Changeling invasion this likely wouldn’t have happened. Or perhaps it would have, and the griffon monarch had just been looking for an excuse to start a war.”

Double quickly shook this train of thought, as it would clearly not get him anywhere. Discovering why a war happened was a job for historians and perhaps politicians. His job as a captain was simply to lead his company of two-hundred soldiers into the battlefield to protect their country. Now that he actually formulated it that way in his mind, it scared him.

In their peaceful country, war was just something out of the history books, even for a soldier like him. Nowadays the army only served to keep the borders preemptively occupied and to scare off any potential enemies by simply existing. That he would actually have to lead his troops into battle was something he’d never expected to do. But he was sure that, when the time would be there to go out there and do it, he would not hesitate, not for even one second.

That’s why he held the rank he did.

Soon he arrived at his house on the outskirts of Yanhoover. The house was vacant. Of course it was. He lived there all by himself. Looking around the empty house, he remembered the comment from the major.

“You go home and say goodbye to your families.”

Although his lack of romantic success had never bothered him too much before, it did now, though he couldn’t tell why. He didn’t have a wife and kids – so what? It was all for the better. If he would die on the battlefield – although he tried his best not to think about that possibility – at least he wouldn’t leave a widow behind, no foal to grow up without a father. He didn’t know how Hawk and Razor or any of the soldiers in his company had been able to join the Royal Army, despite knowing what consequences they might have to face if a conflict were to happen.

It was not for that reason that he didn’t have a mare or foals, though. Most mares found him to be too withdrawn, too indifferent, too much of a “cold, emotionless Windigo” as he had once been called by Diamond Shimmer, the first mare with whom he’d had a long relationship.

She had also been the last one.

Double shook those thoughts off and started gathering his belongings. He found that he had very little to pack, since most of his equipment was back at the base. He didn’t have many personal belongings that he wanted to take, either. In fact, he found he had none. While almost all of the soldiers he knew had some sort of amulet, most often a photo of their loved ones – he had even heard of a soldier who never went anywhere without his stuffed animal – he didn’t have anything. That notion made him sad as well.

What in Celestia was going on with him? Amulets were useless superstitions, nothing more, nothing less, and he didn’t need them. Now mad at himself for being so soppy, he left his house, slamming the door behind him.

He wouldn’t come back there in seven years.