Be diplomatic ... thought Princess Luna, nodding to herself. I can be diplomatic ...
She mused again on her sister's instructions as she cut through the sky in the Midnight Chariot.
She loved her Midnight Chariot.
It had been based loosely upon the chariot the Viprallan warlord Tirek rode to his defeat at Midnight Castle, some six thousand years ago. As a young filly, Luna had seen pictures of that chariot, pictures taken soon after its capture and preserved for millennia by the magics of the Rainbow. It was made of black titanium steel, a long lean four-wheeled vehicle, with a sleek dagger-like nose Luna had modeled on the supersonic jet fighters Moondreamer remembered from the Age of Wonders; two millennia after the defeat of Tirek, twin vaguely draconian tail-fins springing from over the rear axle, inspired by some of the more extreme and impractical motorcars she remembered from a bit earlier in that same general period. Some essentially-unnecessary spikes rising from the rear body, which looked as if she might choose to impale heads upon them, but which she generally used for flags, completed the exterior appearance. It was drawn by two Night Guards, attached by metal chains as if they were dangerous beasts liable to tear apart spectators if not kept well-restrained. The whole was done in glossy black, with a green cat's-eye symbol on the front.
The Midnight Chariot was very diplomatic. Back in the day, some pony lords had been so terrified by the mere appearance of the Midnight Chariot, which implied that its owner tortured puppies and ate foals for dessert, that they surrendered the moment she rode it into the scene. One can't get much more diplomatic than that, Luna reasoned, with some satisfaction.
Inside the chariot was lined with soft light-purple velvet, just perfect for lying upon and sparing wear and tear to the royal backside. Not much point in riding to possible war in an uncomfortable chariot: that might reduce my battle-prowess, which would be bad for the Realm. Also, it would make the whole idea of a chariot pointless, and waste the efforts of my loyal Night Guard, she thought virtuously. Besides, I really like light purple velvet on black; the only better color choice would have been the deep blue tone of my own fur -- and that would have just been shameless vanity.
Deep blue on light purple velvet makes a nice contrast, anyway. She wriggled happily into the light purple velvet.
Luna had been more than a little touched to discover that her sister had kept, tested and piece-by-piece replaced every part of the Midnight Chariot as needed over the last thousand years, obviously in the hopes that Luna would be coming home again to use the vehicle. Declarations of sisterly love are one thing, thought Luna, but I knew she really cared when I found out she'd kept my Midnight Chariot.
Luna was perhaps the merriest mood she'd been for over a thousand years. She was all dressed up and ready to go, wearing a spidersilk war-harness to which was attached her half-helm, breastplate, spiked sabatons, battle-axe, mace, crescent-blades, a brace of javelins and two target shields. I dare any cur to say I'm not feminine, she thought to herself Behold my fine garments, and all my nice accessories! I wager I have the prettiest armament in all Equestria! She giggled. Somepony should make a fashion doll of me!
In addition to the two Night Guard pulling her Midnight Chariot, she had an escort of ten more, making up a full squadron. They were clad in the same light mail that was standard for this era: half-helm, breastplate and sabatons. They bore spears and crossbows; their sensitive hemeralopic eyes were goggled against sunlight and dragonfire alike, and she had fireproof shields for them strapped to the chariot, if the need arose.
If it comes to fighting, though, I'll try to hold them in reserve: I can live in a close fight against a dragon; they can't, and I want no dead Night Guards today.
There might not be any fighting. Princess Celestia's instructions had been clear in this regard.
***
"We are not yet at war with the Dragons," Celestia explained. "And I would avoid war, if possible."
"What wouldst thou have me wreak upon them, sister?" Luna asked.
"Visit them," Celestia explained. "Make an impressive entrance, so that they know who you are and what you could do to them."
Luna nodded. She knew how to do that.
"Then announce yourself, read this command from me that they quit our realm," she said, handing Luna a scroll, "and see to it that they do."
"That I shall most assuredly accomplish!" said Luna.
"The scroll's been fireproofed," Celestia told her, smiling slightly. "Just in case of ... trouble."
Luna grinned back. She knew exactly the sort of trouble to which her sister referred.
Celestia handed her an envelope. It contained a marked map and some other notes.
"This shows the locations of the dragons I want you to evict, color-coded by urgency. The other papers are the descriptions of the exact locations and incidents. Fireproofed too, of course."
Luna scanned the map, briefly examined the notes.
"Remember -- we have a treaty with the Dragons now. You mustn't hurt them unless they resist, and only to the extent necessary. And they get to keep their hoards, unless they've been stealing them from us since their arrival. That's important"
"Certes I know Dragons," agreed Luna. "Have no fear, sister, I know better than to come between a Dragon and his hoard, lest I mean his demise. And I shall start no quarrels with Dragonkind."
"I know I can count on you," Celestia said. "Good venturing!"
"And good fortune to you too!"
***
This is so much like the old days, Luna thought, with a cheerful smile.
The river wound below through an old limestone formation -- the perfect terrain for caves, even before the world had changed. She remembered there were some nice ones in here, and wondered how many of them still had unpleasant inhabitants. She'd had some interesting times in caves.
There! A great cliff-face beetled up where the river turned. From a large mouth in that rock surface, thin grayish-black smoke curled lazily up into the sky.
Time to make her entrance.
"Circle loose left," she commanded her Guard. The Midnight Chariot began to describe a lazy arc around the target, the others of her squadron remaining in formation on her.
Luna reached out and tickled the sky. Air molecules ionized, clouds gathered and darkened in a broad zone around her squadron. The clouds swirled, darkened. Lightning flashed, thunder rolled.
I miss electronics, Luna thought, for far from the first time in her current incarnation. This could be so much more dramatic with a good musical theme. Moondreamer's formative years had been spent in an age of vinyl records, but she had taken well to the newer solid-state acoustic technologies, and had often provided appropriate accompaniment to her thoughts. Princess Luna had been forced to do without that luxury, save in pitched battle. She'd always had an excellent memory for music, though, and it had to do now. Wagoner's "Ride of the Sleipnirsdotters" played in her head as she summoned the storm.
Every dragon within a dozen miles had to have noticed what she was doing by now. She judged the sky sufficiently ominous. "Stoop and low hover," she ordered.
She composed herself, scroll and weapons ready. An immediate attack as she landed was unlikely: dragons were creatures of ritual and not even a hostile dragon would miss the chance for a formal confrontation. If I were fighting diamond dogs, or griffons, now ... She didn't trust either these days, though she'd rather liked griffons, when this incarnation had been much younger. Trottingham and similar memories had spoiled that.
"INTRUDING DRAGON!" she cried out in the Royal Canterlot Voice, full volume, as her chariot descended. "KNOW THAT WE ARE PRINCESS LUNA SELENA NYX, PRINCESS OF THE MOON, AND HIGH LADY OF WAR OF THE REALM OF EQUESTRIA, WITHIN WHOSE BORDERS THOU TRESPASSEST! WE DEMAND THAT THOU IMMEDIATELY VACATE OUR REALM, TAKING WITH THYSELF THY HOARD COMPLETE ..." that was a very important point, and phrasing it as part of a demand made it sound less conciliatory. "...ON PAIN OF OTHERWISE BEING CONSIDERED TO HAVE DECLARED PERSONAL WAR AGAINST OUR REALM, AND BEING TREATED BY US AS OUR ENEMY!"
The wind howled. Lightning flicker-flashed. Thunder growled continuously.
A dragon peeped out of the cave. A small adult green. Gasser, she thought.
"Deploy skirmish line, port arms until my command!" she told her troops. She did not actually expect combat, but her response was almost automatic, Skirmish formation would negate the dragon's ability to use its breath weapon against more than one of them at a time.
The dragon gasped as it saw her response, then turned its head and carefully belched off to the side.
Luna relaxed slightly. That body language meant "peace" among dragons -- that drake had just temporarily disarmed his own breath weapon. While this could still be a trap, it meant that actual fighting was now unlikely.
She landed, and alighted from her chariot, walking calmly toward the dragon. She was armed, but had her weapons in harness rather than loose in her telekinetic grasp. She was confident in her ability to block, dodge or otherwise survive any attack of which this dragon was capable, should it prove treacherous.
The dragon shook a little as she approached, but stood its ground. She stopped and regarded it. Male, she thought, though it was hard to confirm without a graviton pulse strong enough that it might be felt and considered exceedingly rude by its target. Dragons kept such vulnerable parts well-sheathed in armor far thicker and less revealing than the sheathing for the equivalent equid anatomical structures. Her sister could tell the difference at a glance; Luna had never been as socially perceptive.
"DOST THOU YIELD TO THIS DOOM?" She reduced her volume a bit, since she was standing right in front of him, but the dragon winced anyway.
"If ... if you mean do I agree to go and take my hoard ... yes," said the dragon.
"GOOD," said Luna. "THOU SHALT LEAVE SCATHELESS."
The dragon thought about what she'd said for a moment, then nodded. "I'll get the first load." It went back into its cave, disappearing for about five minutes, and emerged with two large and heavy chests under its arms. "Your Highness, I can come back for the others, right?"
"YES," said Luna. "WE SHALT NOT REAVE THY HOARD." The dragon was about to take off when Luna said "HOW ART THOU CALLED, GOOD DRAKE?"
"Lifefang," the dragon said. The name revealed nothing about its sex.
"MAY YOU COME IN PEACE ANOTHER TIME, AND HAVE GOOD GUESTING," she said. There was no point in hostility now, that the dragon had aceded.
"Oh ... same to you, Your Highness," said the dragon, relaxing a bit.
He beat his wings -- Luna felt the flare of paramagnetism -- and he took off for the southeast.
Luna smiled. One dragon down, she thought with satisfaction. Five more to go.
***
Luna fared much the same with the next three dragons. Some were bolder, some more timid, and one actually had the temerity to glare at her. The Moon Princess met its gaze coolly and it gave up in about a minute. None seemed particularly interested in doing battle with her, which she supposed meant that she was being sufficiently diplomatic. Or terrifying, which was much the same thing.
The pattern broke with the next two dragons.
I do so love that description of Luna's Midnight Chariot and her 'accessories'! Now if they sold a figure of her arrayed like that I'd buy it in a heartbeat.
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Heh, thank you. This is also Luna's rather alarming way of being "girly." She can be "girly" in more conventional ways too, but she is the Civilized Barbarian Warrior Princess.
Luna seems a tad obsessive over her Midnight Chariot, also I've seen descriptions of Luna geared for battle though never with this many armaments; this needs to exist either as a figure or as fanart. Also I did enjoy Luna's perspective of how diplomacy works, really reflective of her time though I can only imagine the reactions if she did this now to creatures that aren't dragons especially ponies.
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Well, it's a really nice chariot.
Also it's one of her links with her past life.
If I could draw competently, Luna in her Midnight Chariot is something I would definitely do. This is the same vehicle she rides into Ponyville in "Nightmare Eclipsed," of course -- but in that episode, she is not particuarly worried about having to fight, so she doesn't bring any weapons other than her sabatons and her own sweet Princess of Mass Destruction self.
Witness "Luna Eclipsed." Though there she was attempting "cordiality," and in part it failed because Pinkie Pie kept pranking her. Ironic, in light of the fact that the Daughter of Paradise in chapter 4 of this story instantly took a strong liking to her. But then, one is not always identical in personality to one's half-sisters.
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Update: I slightly modified Luna's reaction to Blueblood in consideration of your point. It's still much the same reaction -- I just changed it to "major snob and mild bully." She still despises the pony in question.
Heh, Luna doesn't understand that diplomacy had changed somewhat in the last thousand years.
spiked sabatons, battle-axe, mace, crescent-blades, a brace of javelins and two target shields.
0-0 How does she fit all that on her?
Ironically, it was suggested the whole reason Twilight and co were sent in the first place, was because the lot of them, wouldn't make the dragon think the ponies were NOT itching for a fight, and would actually LISTEN to what they had to say.
It's ironic that the dragon in Everfree was still very much around.
Then again, it IS the Everfree Forest, if any is bold enough to live there, they're more than welcome to I imagine. Just look at Zecora.
Did Moondremer and her sister ever meet Starlight and her friends?
Wagoner's "Ride of the Sleipnirsdotters"
Little boy's voice to author, "I wanna be like you when I grow up!"
Seriously, you rock.
I hope Luna accepts that Griffins are NOT enemies of ponies anymore.
Meganism, ah.
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Seems to be working for her ... none of the dragons have chosen to fight her so far. Of course, none of them had any particular reason to fight her ... that's why she's being careful to emphasize the "take your hoard with you" demand, which is actually more of a concession stated as a demand, but one few Dragons would fail to accept.
It helps that fighting Luna is a very bad idea for them.
spiked sabatons, battle-axe, mace, crescent-blades, a brace of javelins and two target shields.
0-0 How does she fit all that on her?
She's a big strong pony -- she's all graceful and small next to her sister, but remember she's actually Big Mac sized (though taller and slimmer). The sabatons are just a slightly more military version of her normal shoes. Battle-axe, mace, two blades isn't that much weight if properly distributed. The javelins aren't all that heavy, just need to be harnessed in a position where they won't trip her up. The target shields are small shields designed for active defense, not big heavy shields one can passively shelter behind.
Which he did in the end. Different approaches. Later-seasons Twilight might have been able to take him in a direct fight, but fighting something she can still reason with isn't usually Twilight's way anyway.
But note that Luna, for all her display of arms intended to impress the dragons with her warlike nature, hasn't actually fought any of them yet. Luna also doesn't want to fight them if not necessary. She actually kind of likes dragons, I'm figuring. Some of the oldest dragons in the world are probably her contemporaries. Though the ones she's evicting here are only at most a few centuries old, and most of them a century or less.
Sundreamer and Moondreamer designed the terawatt nuclear fusion reactors and power conversion engines which were pumped into the pieces of the Rainbow for the Great Work. At the very last moment, they realized that the seeming nonsense solutions to the math which predicted "causality singularities" that would crash the Universe were not extreme cases, but how it would really work out if not run by a computer system more powerful than any constructable at their level of technology The required computing capacity was equivalent to about one-twentieth of the combined intellectual capabilties of the entire Pony population of the Earth at the moment. It would also need a significant fraction of the Sun's entire energy output to prevent continued causality violations.
They tried to warn Starlight that the Work would fail disastrously, but they couldn't get to her in time ... to make a long story short, in one timeline "CRASH" and in the other "BOOM!"
It may be relevant here that Sundreamer and Moondreamer had, in their last years, speculated extensively on alternative systems of physics, including one which would support a Ptolemaic Solar System ... unfortunately, they never solved the problem of frictional energy losses inherent in the crystal spheres.
I don't know if I should reveal too much more of my idea here, because I intend to use it. I could tell you more in a private message
I'll tell you, though, what the computer system, when it became smart enough to do so, named itself in the first timeline, though.
Paradise.
And it eventually figured out what was coming for it.
And its prime directive was, of course, to ."preserve its Ponykind."
I'm really glad you like what I'm doing. It was your brilliant concepts that got me interested in doing these fanfics in the first place.
....
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Oh, how'd you like Dunnich?
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I missed the significance.
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The name's a play on "Dunwich" from The Dunwich Horror by H. P. Lovecraft. I'm going to do a story about it called The Dunnich Humour at some point relatively soon. It's the location of the Pie Rock Farm.
*No punctuation, Behold
*Princess
Luna's use of the archaic meaning of "despite" is a nice touch, but it kind of threw me off for a second. Had to Google search it.
Am I correct in my understanding that the "Daughters of Paradise" are remnants of the unraveled G3 continuum? It occurs to me that, if Luna was aware of the fluffy ponies' origins, that adorable scene just now could have been a massive source of guilt. Or not. Luna might still stand by the fact that what she did had to be done. But it would probably evoke some emotion, all the same.
Oh yes. They are quite literally the "Daughters of Paradise," as explained in "Least Noticeable and Little Flappy."
Hee hee hee, it might have done so, if the Emotionally Self-Torturing Princess, who is a freaking military genius, had not totally missed the clues because she was too busy thinking about the dragons. (and that smiley is very appropriate, given who else is a Daughter of Paradise in my fanon). She'll find out at some future point: she already knows Pinkie somehow survived her death in the G3 world.
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Though I'm being unfair to Luna. This chapter actually marks the first time she's been utterly happy this story.
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To be precise, what Luna does not realize is that the farm on which Pinkie Pie grew up is located just outside Dunnich. If she had known that, I think the truth would have hit her like a ton of confetti.
I read that and gasped in Fluffle Puff fashion. Then I realized it was blue and not pink. Still, I agree with you that Ask Fluffle Puff is hilarious and is definately worth following.
Love the story so far, keep it up!
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Thank you for noticing her. Luna doesn't know it, but that signifies that she's been forgiven by an old enemy. If the technicolor Ponies are able to maintain the colony in my brain, I may write the story someday where Paradise reveals Itself to Equestria.
Something was written about the fluffly ponies in this chapter? Where? When? Who? What? Why? How?
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Agh -- I'm sorry -- I moved it from the end of the third chapter to the start of the (as yet unpublished) fourth chapter. No actual change in story sequence, I just moved the chapter break, but you won't be able to see it until I finish the fourth chapter. Sorry ...
4065694 That's your conscience telling you to write the next chapter.
good stuff!! btw since Tirek now exist in G4 i see him being SLIGHTLY that luna tecnically stoled his chariot.
If this were D&D sure. But we've already seen that in Equestria a dragon's color has no bearing on whether it breathes fire. The dragon of the Everfree breaths fire and he's as green as grass.
I see what you did there.
And here I just got done complimenting you in your flawless Early Modern Equish.
The conjugation for "thou" is "-est", not "-eth" (which is archaic third-person singular), and it's not used at all in the imperative mood. First-person plural (royal or otherwise) is no different in archaic than in modern.
So those should be "TRESPASSEST", "DEMAND", and "VACATE", respectively.
Nyctalopic means night-blind. I suspect that you intended hemeralopic (day-blind).
I would be remiss if this wasn't included
Rereading this fine story after you posted the new chapter...
Yes, someone should make an... action figure... of Luna in her Midnight Chariot.
And I wonder, is she perchance thinking of Twilight when she says, "Deep blue on light purple velvet makes a nice contrast"?