Armor's Game

by OTCPony

The Bells Worn Threadbare

“Good afternoon,” said the radio announcer. “You’re listening to EBC Radio 5, I’m Auto Cue. The time is one-thirty PM. Today we continue our discussion of the Royal Army’s progress across Southern Equestria. Now, with me this afternoon are Rear Echelon of the War Office...”

“Good afternoon, Auto.”

“...and Major Karl von Clawswitz, the military attaché at the Gryphonian embassy.”

“Good afternoon, Herr Cue.”

“Good afternoon, Major. Now, gentlestallions, we know that the Changelings have around fifty thousand troops. Prince Armor has a similar number of ponies under his command. Rear, how would you rate our army’s chances?”

“Exceptionally well, Auto,” said Rear Echelon. “Our soldiers are well-motivated and already have a victory under their belts, and more to the point, they are much better trained and equipped than a few Changeling drones.”

“But Rear, you’re just repeating the text of the official War Office bulletins!” said Auto Cue. “Wouldn’t it be good to get a little fresh information out to the public? There are parents out there who don’t even know where their colts and fillies are!”

“I’m sorry, Auto, but the security of our soldiers is paramount. Until we know that our position in Southern Equestria is secure, I cannot reveal any information about troop movements.”

“All right, then,” said Auto. He shuffled his papers. “Let’s get an outsider’s perspective on events. Major, what does Gryphonia think about our army’s chances?”

The Gryphon straightened an immaculate olive-green uniform before beginning. “Vell, Herr Cue, I am afraid our analysts do not share your government’s rosy opinion of ze situation.”

Auto Cue leaned forward eagerly. “Oh? And why do you say that?”

“Vell,” said Clawswitz, with a dangerous smile on his beak. “Vith operational security in mind, it vould be inappropriate for me to reveal ze, ah, hopeless geographic position of your army...”

“I beg your pardon?!” demanded Rear Echelon.

“Please, Rear,” said Auto Cue, barely able to conceal his excitement. “Please continue, Major.”

“It is ze opinion of my Var Ministry zat Equestrian troops are at a grave disadvantage against Changelings,” said Clawswitz. “Ze hive nature of zeir enemy gives zem discipline and coordination zat zey simply cannot match. Now, if a Mareopean army, of proper soldiers, vere to take zeir place, vell, I think things vould be much more difficult for ze Changelings.”

“And what, Major, do you mean by ‘proper soldiers’?” demanded Rear Echelon hotly. The Tsardom of Gryphonia had always envied the wealth and power of Equestria, but it had always taken comfort in the fact that its military prowess was the finest on Equus. The Equestrian war effort had from the beginning struck them as astonishingly amateurish.

“I speak of a proper conscript army, Herr Echelon,” said Clawswitz, still smiling. “For all ze romanticism surrounding volunteer soldiers, zey simply do not have ze same discipline und morale as conscripts. Ven a man knows he is surrounded by all ze men of his town, und all ze other towns, regardless of class or stature, zere is no stronger force zat vill keep him from desertion, und no stronger force zat vill encourage him to fight harder.”

“Equestrian soldiers fight because they choose to fight!” snapped Rear Echelon. “Not because they are forced to at the point of a sword!”

“And vat, Herr Echelon, do you suppose vill happen ven zey no longer vish to fight?! Zey vill desert! Und vat vill your army be zen?!”

“Just a minute, gentlestallions!” said Auto Cue, quickly. His had a hoof pressed to his earpiece. Through the glass looking out of the radio booth, he could see the operators looking amazed. “I’m just getting some new information in...”

***

Great peals rang from Ponyville’s bell tower. At its summit, Pinkie Pie’s head rattled inside the bell.

“Remind... me... why... I’m... doing... this... Twilight?” she asked brightly between clangs.

“Because we’ve won a battle!” cried Twilight Sparkle. “My brother’s won at Maneden! Princess Celestia’s commanded that the entire realm should know!”

Pinkie stuck her head out from under the bell. The pupils rattled inside her eyes. “Okey dokey lokey!” she said with a grin, and resumed ringing.

Smiling, Twilight trotted down the tower, followed by Fluttershy, Rarity, Summer Set and Spike. Alone among them, her bodyguard looked unhappy.

“To have been in such a battle...” he kept whispering. “To have seen such a victory.”

“Summer’s not happy,” Twilight confided to Fluttershy as they trotted down the stairs. “A lot of his friends in the Guard were there and he’s stuck here.”

“Does this mean Rainbow and Applejack can come home?” asked Fluttershy apprehensively.

Twilight sighed. “No. There’s still plenty of Changelings in the Lynx Territories and Froud Valley. But now we have them on the back hoof! Even the preliminary report from the War Office is optimistic! An entire Changeling army is in retreat!”

Fluttershy didn’t look particularly happy at that.

“Well, at least we know that Summer’s not the only one in Equestria unhappy!” said Rarity brightly.

“What do you mean by that?” asked Twilight, as they pushed out through the bell tower’s double doors and into the road.

“Blueblood! He opposed this war, and we’re actually winning it! I wouldn’t be surprised if after this he and Radical Road just up and died!”

Twilight’s smile became wider as they trotted into the sun. Shining Armor’s idea had been vindicated. Applejack and Rainbow were all right. The Changelings were on the run. And the Parliamentarians’ credibility had been shattered.

She was still smiling as she greeted the ponies trotting out of their homes to see why the bell was ringing. “Victory!” she cried. “We have victory!”

***

“This is a disaster.”

Blueblood didn’t even look up from his desk. He simply flicked through the folder that Cordwainer had laid on his desk that morning.

“They’ll be partying in the streets tonight, the way it’s going!” Radical Road continued, angrily.

“Let them,” said Blueblood, still not looking up from the folder. “Every high is followed by a crash.”

Where in Tartarus did that come from? he thought suddenly. That almost sounded colloquial. He’d been hanging around the likes of Radical Road and Newsprint for too long.

Despite his flippancy, the timing of the victory at Maneden was admittedly unfortunate. Though Blueblood accepted the logic of driving the Changelings from the Lynx Territories, he had at least hoped for a few small defeats and some high casualties to harden Equestrian opinion against the war. Instead, all he had was the strategic failure at Valneigh (which no one but him seemed to recognise!), and if Cordwainer’s brother’s letters were correct, just an unpleasant march to Maneden. And now ponies thronged the streets of every city and town from Appleloosa to Manehattan, summoned by the ringing bells, gossiping about the victory.

“And how do you suppose we generate this crash?” Radical demanded.

“We wait.”

“Oh, wonderful! For what, may I ask?!”

Blueblood sighed and at last looked up from his papers. “Events, dear boy, events. It is all we can do at this point. Given the public response to this battle, to issue some kind of statement against it would make us look out of touch and desperate. The best we can do is husband our resources until we can release them all at once at an opportune moment.”

“And you imagine this opportune moment is coming?”

“Almost certainly, given what I have arranged with the Royal Army’s artillery, and the strategy Shining Armor will inevitably pursue when he breaks into the Changeling Kingdom. I doubt the Equestrian public will look kindly on genocide, even if it is against Changelings.”

Blueblood went back to reading the letters. Radical Road stared at him, uncomprehending. “Why are you doing this, Blueblood?”

“You know why I am doing this: my endgame is to depose Celestia.”

“You know that’s impossible! Have you really concocted all this just to fulfil a pipe dream?!”

Blueblood looked up from his desk. His usual expression of serene superiority had been replaced by a grimace of utmost seriousness. “It is no dream, Radical. Celestia’s fall is coming, and you and I will be the ponies who bring it about.”

“Do you honestly believe that we can force an Alicorn from her throne?” demanded Radical incredulously.

“Absolutely.” Blueblood slid a small leather-bound book across his desk. It was the Hallowed Halls translation, naturally. He would have nothing to do with the inelegant guff that was Law Reference’s blank verse translation. “Are you familiar with this?”

Radical read the title. “I know enough to know it’s a complete work of fiction! Are you really basing your plan on a fairytale?!”

“The Origin is no fairytale. Turn to the marked page.”

Radical sighed, flipped to near the end of the book, and read. After a moment he threw the book down. “Well what’s that supposed to mean? You think just because some vague prophecy looks a bit like it refers to today, that means the time has come? And what in Tartarus is this?! Humans?!”

“Oh, that. A mere metaphor for the destructive impulses of ponykind,” said Blueblood with a dismissive wave of his hoof. “No serious scholar of The Origin believes that something as ridiculous as a human actually existed.”

“That hardly matters!” snapped Radical. “If that’s just a metaphor, then what about this prophecy?! You’re deluded, Blueblood!”

Blueblood only sighed, and his usual superior smirk returned. “Oh, but I am not,” he said dangerously. “If you recall correctly, I am confident enough in this being true that I was prepared to kill our mutual friend.”

Radical shifted uncomfortably on his hooves. That was good, Blueblood thought. It would not do for Radical to forget who he was talking to.

He pulled open one of his desk drawers and removed a smart yet understated black notebook. “As Heir to the Equestrian Throne, I had access to primary sources that no scholar of The Origin has had for centuries. What is the last thing mentioned in that chapter?”

Radical flipped to the back of the book again. “The Sibylline Books? What are those?”

“A collection of six hundred and sixty-six prophecies, set down in three books by the Sibyl, the apprentice of the Oracle mentioned in that chapter. The Books passed into the ownership of the House of Aethelric of the Kingdom of Unicorns, and were consulted in times of dire peril for nearly a thousand years, right up until they were destroyed by Discord during the fall of the Equestrian Republic.”

“But...” said Radical slowly. “Do you mean to say they weren’t destroyed?”

“Celestia would have you believe they were,” said Blueblood. “If it had been general knowledge that the doom of their reign was foretold, how successful do you think their attempt to unify Equestria after the Discordian War would have been? The Books were seized from the ruins of the Palace of Friendship and the Sisters locked them in the highest tower of Canterlot Castle, where they remain to this day.”

Despite himself, Radical could feel excitement building within him. Even ignoring the political implications, Blueblood had had access to a lost text! What might it reveal about Equestria’s past, let alone the future?! “And you’ve read this?!”

Blueblood smirked again. “The Books are to be consulted only once a year by the Princesses themselves, but the Guards would not refuse a stallion of my assets. I kept one of them generously paid to give me access to the Books once every month. I learned many things about Equestria’s past from them; things that Celestia had seen to keep secret even from me, the Heir. You can reveal all of that to the public in good time. For now, all that should concern us is this.”

His horn glowed and the notebook opened with a flutter of pages. Radical eagerly stepped forward to examine the black words inked on the cream pages, and found himself confronted with a mass of meaningless gibberish.

Radical felt an embarrassed flush spread up his neck. “Is this a joke?!” he demanded, angrily.

Blueblood kept smirking. “Oh no, that’s simply my transcription of the Old Equestrian. I copied it out of the Books in the tower and translated it at this very desk. I could hardly afford to be seen going up and down the tower every month with a bag full of language dictionaries! Taking notes is of course forbidden, but again, with the right bits in the right hooves...”

He turned a page with his magic. “This is my translation.”

Radical leaned closer to the desk. Written in an immaculate copperplate only practised Unicorn magic could create were three poetic verses:

In time of people’s turmoil,
In time of reddest war,
The Princesses will crumble,
When Moon unbidden falls.

Their crowns shall be cast downward,
The night They flee Their thrones.
Their Kingdom shall be sundered,
When Sun rises alone.

The Prince whose blood is azure
The Prince who is alone,
He after great endure,
Shall come into His own.

“An imperfect translation, naturally,” said Blueblood coolly. “I had to change the meter somewhat. Constructing dactylic hexameter in Modern Equestrian is extraordinarily difficult, you see.”

Radical stared at the verses, unhearing. “And... and you think this refers to now?”

“It fits perfectly within the chronological sequence of the prophecies. Each predicts a crisis in Equestria. The prophecy before this, you may be interested to know, is highly suggestive of the return of the Crystal Empire. It also predicts a war and public turmoil, both of which are applicable to today. And of course, you may notice a reference to a certain Prince.”

“You think this refers to you?!” demanded Radical incredulously.

“How could it not? What else could ‘azure blood’ refer to? Furthermore, I am unmarried and without foals, the first of the line of the House of Blueblood to be in that state. I am indeed ‘alone’. And, through my membership of the Parliamentarian movement, I have brought this prophecy immeasurably closer to being fulfilled.”

“And... and the sun and moon?” asked Radical quietly.

“That is our opening. The references to the sun and moon rising ‘unbidden’ mesh well with The Origin’s prophecy of the sun rising without the magic of Unicorns. Princess Celestia’s magic, in other words. When her ability to raise the sun is lost to her, there will be no reason for Celestia to retain her position of power. We can then move safely to depose her.”

Radical looked quite ill at the prospect. “The sun moving on its own? What will happen then?!”

“I cannot say,” said Blueblood calmly. “Moving from the esoteric to the practical, however, what sort of government do you think will be more likely to deliver the reform you so desire, Radical? One headed by Celestia, or one headed by you and I?”

Radical Road stared at Blueblood in disbelief. The true leader of the Parliamentarians watched as the disbelief in Radical’s eyes turned to wonder. The thing he had constantly agitated for, yet had never really believed he could get, was now dangling in front of him, tantalisingly close. All he had to do was reach out and take it.

After a moment, Radical extended his hoof. “I am with you.”

Blueblood’s smile was genuine as he shook Radical’s hoof. In the back of his mind, he wondered whether he should tell him about the fourth verse of that particular prophecy. But no, it didn’t matter now. It might have put Radical off agreeing to his plans, and in any case, humans were just metaphorical, poetic nonsense.

The sky shall weep with sadness,
The land will surely burn,
For in those days of darkness,
The humans shall return.

Comments

[OTCPony]

So I saw The Desolation of Smaug on Boxing Day and really liked "The King beneath the mountain" poem Bard recites. The prophecy here is based on that.

The House of Aethelric mentioned by Blueblood comes from K9Thefirst1's A Brief History of Equestria.

If you're wondering where the title of the chapter comes from, it's based on Horace Walpole's description of Britain's Annus Mirabilis of 1759 during the Seven Year's War: "Our bells are worn threadbare with ringing for victories".

[Magthere]

The thing with Prophecies Blueblood is that their inherently vague, you may "come into your own" but what if "your own" is not what you think it is. Further purposeful mistranslation for the sake of verse could spell trouble if key literal components were ignored.

Not to mention even if humans return, who's to say they will be the villain or not, perhaps they'll even be the ones to liberate the throne from Blueblood if he's right in his initial translations.

Prophecies are mere xs on a map, giving you no guide of how to get their, or what you will find. It is unwise to put faith in such ventures.

[OTCPony]

3736035 Blueblood hasn't necessarily fudged the translation, but it's emblematic of his own massive hubris that he'd take the bits of the prophecy that are convenient to him literally, and completely discount the inconvenient parts as just poetic metaphors (though admittedly, discounting the bit about humans wouldn't be without precedent in Equestria's academia). For all his planning and new public charm, Blueblood remains and enormously self-absorbed jerk.

[musicluvr1974]

3744465 *nods* Silly Blueblood, you can't just pick out the parts you like and discard the rest! Prophecy (especially if this is Equestria's equivalent of a Biblical text) means that if one part of it is true, all of it is true.

I'm liking the idea that humans could help Celestia liberate Equestria from Tyrant Blueblood. Please continue!