Perseverance of the Ancients

by The Bourgeoisie Bear

Water of Tranquility

Timidly, the humans began to recheck the area of their last engagement, not sure of what they would find. The corpses had frozen where they had fallen, both griffin and human alike. The ground gave up the last of the dark magic that it had retained from the battle, bubbling forth like molten lava from the snow blanketed terrain. A few heads popped up over some boulders, the humans didn't want to get burned alive, or even shot by griffin arrows. They made sure to be careful not to end up like the butchered masses of flesh down in the canyon.

Though the rest were still fearful, a lone abomination made his way through the former battle field. Looking at the charred remains of his own underlings next to the mutilated griffin corpses, left to rot as the survivors made their get-a-way. The snow had already begun to bury the blue faced bodies. The cold would preserve them for some time.

Several other humans walked behind their chieftain, hunched over, fearful, submissive. Dusk had set. The ex-slave that Twilight would have recognized if she had caught sight of him, trailed in his leader's footsteps, at a safe distance away. Knowing how this product of human scientist could get when angered.

Like Octavo had said, most of the humans ran off, and as nightfall came, they returned. The survivors numbered twenty-eight, their losses were sixteen when they fled, feeling that the tide of battle was turning in favor of the natives. Nevertheless they regrouped, and were ready for another ambush when they found out that their prey had already escaped for the safe confines of the large and well defended city of Geneva.

Wearing a light version of the legionnaire armor, the three-faced abomination quickened his pace down the canyon, stopping when he came upon a distasteful sight. What was left of his elite shock units made the abomination freeze.

The other human's backed off, fearing what may happen, murmuring in their primitive way of speaking, trying to find comfort in their numbers. Not from the 'more civilized races' but from the legion made abomination himself.

The six armed freak began speaking to himself in three different voices, working himself up into a frenzy. Dark magic began collecting near the mouths of the fearsome monster. The other humans ran for cover, now in fright.

Full of pain, full of anguish, full of hatred, the monster screamed a deafening call. In response, the corpses began to tremble, then shake, then convulse. Dark magic erupted from everywhere, it flowed from the earth, it fell from the sky, it poured from his mouth. The corpses rose, dead, frozen, disgusting corpses, Olle, Malte, the humans that Octavo burned alive, Simon, the three hulking humans, even the headless Albin, the griffin that had his head shattered by a flail, rose up, answering the perverted call of the dark magic.

The monster held a terrifying smile.

The dead did the same, with dark magic pouring from their wounds.

+++++

Now out of the canyon, out of the way of danger, the survivors of the attack continued on to the city of Geneva that was less than a mile away. Spike's injuries appeared to be superficial, and once given time to gather his bearings, he made a complete recovery, opting to walk on his own the rest of the way.

Despite Spike's request, Twilight couldn't stop herself from worrying, staying by him. Watching his every step. “Spike, are you sure you're alright? I can carry you with my magic if you want, or I can have Charmer carry you again.”

Before Spike could say anything, the human interjected, “No more, please.”

“I'm really fine, Twilight.” The baby dragon rubbed the back of his neck, his body was becoming more hardy, what happened in the canyon would have killed him if it wasn't for those growth spurts and hardening of his scales. “I think I just need to walk it off.”

From a distance these survivors were easily visible in the blanket of whiteness from the snow. The trail that they left was impossible to miss. For the Equine, the snow was up to their knees, making traveling a chore, the griffins were having an easier time of it with their greater height. It hardly even seemed to bother the large biped, who simply raised his legs a little bit higher when he walked.

Although, counting all of them, Octavo was the one who felt most comfortable in this climate, with this being his homeland. Looking over his shoulder he caught the human looking at the strange spear-like device he had strapped onto his back, and yet again, the human looked away when he noticed that Octavo was watching him. The stallion began to wonder how these creatures would go about creating an 'evil empire that would leave a swath of destruction in their wake' as told by the God Travafe. “Curious little human aren't you,” the stallion mumbled, just loud enough for the human to hear, although Charmer pretended he didn't.

Meanwhile, unnoticed by either of them, Accordance had been giving the human some looks, still resentful for the human doing his job protecting Twilight. After all, it had been Charmer that saved her from the spear barrage back at the canyon.

The survivors became more and more relieved the closer they came to the city of Geneva. But before they could reach the city, they would suffer one more incident. Three voices, pained, raging, and filled with malice, made its way out of the canyon and to Geneva.

Up ahead, holy guards would be seen gathering near the gatehouse, wondering what kind of fiend could make a cry like that.

Spike paled. “W-What was that! That wasn't even human!”

A bit startled by that comment, Octavo looked to the baby dragon. “You may be right about that...” He looked onward. “We're almost to safety, let's go, we can get patched up at the temple.”

“Octavo,” called the human, and before he could respond to it, the human grabbed the strange spear thing hung over the champions shoulder. With a quick hoof the champion grabbed it before the large biped could pry it off his back. He stood there glaring at the human, while the human gave him a passive aggressive smile. “You, give me.” The human tugged on the strange device, trying to pry it free, but Octavo stood firm.

The stallion gave a nervous chuckle. “Just because I don't know what this thing is, doesn't mean it's yours, Charmer. Right?” The champion glanced over to Twilight wondering if he remembered the name correctly. Caught off guard by this knew possessive behavior of his, she watched, wondering why the human that saved her life was acting this way now.

“Ot urs, es ine,” the champion spoke in the primitive human language.

The human's eyes went wide, Twilight took a step closer. “Charmer, that's not yours,” she tried to call him over to her with a hoof. The other griffin who weren't too badly injured grabbed the handle of their swords, thinking the slave was finally going to snap.

Ignoring her, the human replied, “Us eak he rimat?”

Octavo raised an eyebrow. “Es?”

“Us eak he novem latin?”

Octavo relaxed his grip on the spear thing, hanging his mouth open for a moment, then shook his head and replied, “Ut es novem latin?”

Now disinterested the human let go and backed away.

Twilight took a few steps closer. “What did he say?”

Octavo shrugged. “He was surprised I could speak in their tribal language, asked me if I knew it well. I said I did, then he asked me if I knew some language called... 'Latin.' Ever heard of it, Twilight?”

Twilight shook her head. “Never.”

Up until this point, Viggo had been taking glances at Twilight's flank, wondering what uses he could find for it once they could get to his little kingdom up north. Where his power would be unchecked, not that he planned to force her to the ground and start pounding away the second they returned to his castle, but he had a malevolent plan up his sleeve. One that would take care of the human problem by securing some allies, and take care of a few more base needs along the way.

Now the warlord walked forward, leading the group, “We can worry about Twilight's slave later, we need to get out of here. Hurry it up, I want to get out of this unchecked weather. We can reach the city in under ten minutes.”

This time, Viggo spoke the truth.

Ten minutes later they were in the temple of Travafe, the priest were tending to their wounds, nearly bombarding the travelers with questions about the humans that attacked them. Octavo and Accordance had left to inform the guards of what happened, the whole town was in an instant uproar, having formerly believed that they were safe from such monsters. That their holy warriors were capable of keeping them out of the heartland of Broncovy.

Across from Twilight, sitting in a mat, Charmer watched his master, having only suffered minor cuts and bruises that already scabbed over - he didn't receive treatment, nor did he desire it. Shying away from the priest when they would come around with their bandages.

Seeing the decayed shell of a temple in Canterlot was one thing, seeing one that was still functioning was another for Twilight. It was truly beautiful, artistic even. The silver chandeliers up high were still hanging, incense could be seen burning near the northern wall. Paintings of far off lands that wasn't chipping from neglect. Colored glass that sent beams of gentle light upon them, it probably would have looked much better if it wasn't so late. It was like taking a step back into what Canterlot used to be thousands of years ago.

A mare with a kind smile came over to Twilight, she pulled her hood back revealing her glowing horn and gave Twilight a chalice. “Please drink this, it'll take the edge off.” Twilight took it in her hooves and looked in it, it just looked like water. “You'll probably need it to calm your nerves after what you endured.”

“Thank you.” Twilight did as told, and downed the water, except it wasn't water, it had no flavor, yet felt... powerful. She felt instantly light headed. “Wow.” She wavered a bit. “C-Can I have one more of this... water stuff.”

The mare giggled as she took the chalice. “Right away, Princess Twilight.”

Half an hour later, Octavo returned.

Twilight, now outright tipsy, bobbed her head as she sat on her mat, elevated by the carved stone platform under it. She had used the extra room to her right as a table, and reached for another drink. In a slow deliberate motion, the human moved it out of her reach, and her diminished reflexes failed her, her hoof grabbed at the stone instead. The human chuckled, Spike laughed.

“Hey- G-Gib me dat.” Again she moved her hoof to the chalice, and Charmer moved it. This time she fell on her mat.

Octavo had made his way to the three, and took notice of Twilight's condition. “Umm... Princess Twilight?”

She turned to him. “Heya, Octave!”

The champion frowned. “Twilight, did you drink the water of tranquility? Because you know... a pony only needs so much of it...”

“Ish das whats its called? Lady grave it to me just to calm may nervsh.” Twilight ended it with a hiccup. She tried one more time to get the chalice, but the slave moved it again, but this time Twilight extended too far out for it, and face planted into stone. “Owww...”

“Ummm...” The champion looked around, noticing the griffin walking toward him. “Octavo,” called the warlord, his limp was nearly non-existent now, “we're going to go ahead and get rooms. We'll talk to you all in the morning about our plans.” Viggo gave the stallion a look, waiting for a response.

“I'll be ready then.”

“Good.” He turned to his retinue. “Come on, let's go.” As they made their leave, Accordance came back inside, giving them a nod as he did so.

Octavo turned back to the princess, who was just now getting back up. “So how many drinks did she have?”

“Just three,” said Spike.

“Four,” the human corrected.

“Tattle-tail,” Twilight mumbled.

Cocking his head to the side, the human parroted, “Tattle-tail...” The human continued watching the mare.

Twilight struggled to not fall over again.

Accordance walked up to them. “Oh! Twilight are you drunk!? I've only been talking to the guards for about twenty minutes, and I come back and you're like this?” Twilight was looking down dejected. “What would your brother say?”

Twilight hung her head. “I... didn't even know...”

The human pointed at her guard. “Tightwad, with stick up his flank.”

“Y-Yeah!” Twilight agreed.

Spike busted out laughing. Octavo was backing up, not wanting any part of this. “You shut up,” Accordance shot back.

“You shut up,” the human repeated. Spike laughed harder.

“ANYWAY,” Octavo said in a raised voice that got their attention, “the rooms are ready whenever you're ready... I think it's about time for me to hit the hay soo...”

Accordance took a step forward. “Where are we staying?”

“There's only one inn,” Octavo informed them, “want me to lead you to it? Or would you...”

Looking around the guard sighed. “I think we'll call it a night.”

The slave chugged down the drink, put the cup down and picked Twilight up with a single arm, slung under her belly.

Accordance raised his eyebrows at that.

They walked out of the temple together, with Twilight nearly hidden by the human's cloak. The snow was beginning to pick up, it was sure to pass before tomorrow morning though, according to the locals.

Heading down the two hundred or so steps was a little ordeal of its own, in truth. One, for them looking like they didn't belong in Broncovy, and two, for the unchained human following them around. They reached the halfway mark down into the rest of town. Accordance cast a look over to the human, when he heard a mare begin snoring; Twilight had passed out in his arms. “Hmm,” the bodyguard grunted. “Can't really say I feel comfortable with this guy walking around unchained.” He turned to Spike. “Haven't you two thought of tying him up.”

“Tying him up,” the human parroted. They ignored him.

“Yeah, Twilight said she tried.” The little dragon was having an easy time with the steep steps, with him being almost as tall as a stallion now.

“What happened? Why isn't he tied up now?” The guard's voice grew cold.

“He broke out of a magical containment collar,” both stallions froze, then looked up to the human. He paused. Giving each a confused look, not sure on what exactly they were talking about. “The ones that are designed to be fail proof?”

Spike sighed, then nodded. “Yep, supposedly Twilight and Shining were bringing him back to the castle from the train, and that's when he did it. Just ripped it clean off.” Both stallions gave him a disbelieving gesture. “There was a big magical backlash that knocked him out for a couple of hours. Enough time to secure him in a cell. An enchanted one.”

Accordance gave the human a contempt look, the slave cocked his head to his side, wondering where this change in attitude was coming from. This stallion didn't seem to mind him during the carriage ride, heck, he even appeared to pity the human back then.

With a shrug Octavo turned back to the steps and continued on. “Doesn't really matter, he's on our side for now.”

“Kind of an unsafe assumption,” Accordance shot back. The champion ignored it all though. Spike followed after him. All alone now, save for the human and a snoring princess. Accordance turned to the slave, a deep scow marking his features. The human took two more steps down, getting on the stallions level. “Look,” the guard began, “I know that you know more than you let on.” One of the slave's eyebrows raised. “Like Twilight explained to me, wide range of intelligence and all that, and I want you to know something.” He eyed the huge human, who easily weighed twice what he did. “Protecting Twilight is my job, not yours.” The stallion emphasized his point by sharply pointing at the mare the human was holding.

“You made me look like a useless idiot back at the canyon when your little human friends attacked, and tripping over me like a buffoon and knocking me down didn't exactly score you any points with me – pal,” he nearly spat out.

The slave took on this, 'are you serious' look about him, spreading out his footing with his head tilting to one side. “Oh?”

“Yeah.” Accordance took a step closer. “So you need to know that I'm keeping an eye on you. At all times!” The human rolled his eyes. “I have nothing against you personally, and I don't know how much of what I said made any sense to you, but know that you're crossing me, and that's not a smart thing to do.”

The human scratched his head, now holding Twilight with one arm. “Okay, Accordance.” The human's almost perfect Equis was chilling for the knight. The slave leaned over, and reached out a hand to the stallion. “We good?”

For the first time in his life, Accordance engaged in outright snobbery, smacking the human's hand aside. “Don't touch me you filthy slave!”

Charmer's eyes went wide at this, not sure how to process this. He chuckled. “Okay Accordance.”

The knight scoffed, was about to take a step down the stairs, when the human called out to him. “Accordance.”

“What?” his tone couldn't have been more strained.

“Bye.” The human waved at him.

Guess the human doesn't understand Equis as much as I thought he did, the knight thought. Could have sworn he was just pretending to be dumber than he was. Guess all my years of guarding didn't give me such a great intuition after all. Accordance thought.

“Dumb filth.” When the knight took a step forward, he felt the foot of the long legged human block his step, all the pieces fell into place. “Oh. Buck!” With that, the stallion fell flank over head, tumbling the rest of the way down, all the way to the ground level.

The others didn't see the human trip him, but they saw his pained tumble. Both Spike and Octavo wincing at each impact. Then it was finally over, the knight knocked his head on the ground, his armor doing little to soften the blow, somehow it made things even worse, as it limited his flexibility. “Uhh...” Octavo mumbled, “Watch your step?”

The knight whined, feeling so much pain. He took a sharp intake of air when he heard the human plant his feet behind him. Then came a slow dramatic walk around the stallion. The slave knelt over him, reaching out to the defenseless equine. When the knight dared to open his eyes he saw it, he saw what was to become of him, for the human was, offering him his hand again. He wore a shit-eating grin. “Accordance, we good?”

This time the knight took it. “Yeah, we're good.” He was lifted up on all fours.

“Good to see you're all bonding so well,” Octavo said half- no wait- that tone- he was completely serious, Accordance realized. How could somepony be so blind? “But we really must be going.” With that, they went ahead to their inn. With Accordance suffering only a minor limp.

With only a few confused looks the group made their way down the winding unplanned roads of the city until they came to a building that was smaller than what they were hoping it would be. Though with its thick log house architecture, they knew it would at least be warm. They all began thinking the same thing as they came closer to the inn. 'Was there still enough room inside for all of them?'

Before they could reach the front door, a familiar griffin walked out the front door, the largest of the griffin, he didn't see them coming and was stretching his wings. Accordance, remembering the guy that almost beat him in the tournament, recognized him easily. “Hey Alf,” the knight called out before the griffin could take off to the air.

Upon seeing the knight, the griffin smiled. “Hey Accordance, everything alright?”

The knight nodded. “Yeah, just wondering what you were going? Aren't you griffin staying the night?”

Alf shrugged. “Since I'm the least injured, Warlord Viggo decided that I should be the one to bring a message to the Griffin Kingdom.” The griffin pointed to a window in the second story behind him. “Our ruler isn't really in a good mood right now, you should probably steer clear of him for now.”

The others looked up to the window, curious if they could catch a glimpse of an angry, 'king' trying to form a coherent plan. “Don't worry though,” said Alf holding his claw out, “I'm a pretty strong flier and can make it the rest of the way up north. Once I can message our forces we can get a hundred griffin to bring back flying carriages to take us the rest of the way there.”

Feeling that he needed to add something Octavo spoke. “The Griffin Kingdom is not far from here, I could probably make it trotting there before sunrise.”

Alf shrugged again. “Probably, sounds about right.” He turned to the night. “Good work with the tournament Accordance, you crystal equine gave a good show.”

The griffin held out his claw and the knight shook it, raising an eyebrow as he did so. “Most contenders are bitter about losing...”

Ending the shake, Alf took a few steps away getting ready to fly off. “Though Olaf is a better fighter than me, I'm usually better with straight up tournaments, I usually win things like that. Since everyones is forced to running straight at me and get beaten.” Now the griffin was stretching his neck. “But it gets boring to win every time, an occasional defeat is good for you. It makes you strong, makes you see your weaknesses. Anyway I got to go.” Before Alf took off he looked back at them one last time. “Be careful when Viggo wakes up in the morning though, he's not a morning griffin.”

Accordance said, “Got it” then headed inside. They could hear the griffin take off right before the door shut behind them.

Comments

[Minerva]

PARA BELLUM

[Shpoople96]

The pieces fall into place for at least one pony. About time.

[Black John]

Viggo is a rapey motherfucker, ain't he? Here's to hoping that Charmer kicks his ass before he can do anything to Twilight!

[Boyzilla]

This is getting rather interesting... Interesting indeed...

[Arcane Howitzer]

I spot some italics that forgot to stop for the last little chunk.

[The Bourgeoisie Bear]

5159858
Can't believe that slipped by me

thanks

[Power Overwhelming]

I'm beginning to think that Travafe may be the Roman god Mercury and is just trolling, but the story is a bit too serious for that.

The spear-like thing was a captured rifle, I presume? How did they get that? Or is that an ancient rifle from ancient Humanity? In any case, yeah, I think Charmer may be more responsible handling that than any pony.

Looking forward to more.

-Powers

[Armadaes]

love it all

[PeriodicU]

It seems this story is travelling away from what I expected from the start... What I expected at the start was a brilliant story about humanity supremacy and humans dominating over all the other species of Equis. Now you're calling the human empire evil...

[Queuefka Palazzo]

So the tribal language is broken English, and Equish is just translated to English for our benefit.

[shapeshiftingpedro]

So Alf lost on purpose.