The Seasons of Equestria

by Lucaro

Chapter 2: Uninvited Guests

The cathedral bell tower at the northern end of the city chimed in the night, each haunting ring of the bell sending shivers down his spine. Ding---Ding---Ding---Ding---Ding…The grand bell chimed twelve times. It was midnight and his queen had not arrived yet.

Starlight and his first lieutenant, Dawnstrider, walked on the ramparts on the north side of the city. He said he was inspecting the scorpions and flak cannons that lined the fortification, but he just needed to be away from the citadel to calm his nerves. Everyone was awaiting her arrival, it was not like Luna to be late.

What if something had happened to her? What if Snowhoof had lashed out against Luna? Or maybe they had been intercepted by enemy forces? He shook his head, grunting. Dawnstrider looked at him with concern, but she knew better not to say anything.

Starlight made an abrupt turn and walked up to the mounted binoculars like he had done for the twentieth time. He looked into the lens and scanned the horizon, but there was still nothing. He turned away from the binoculars, sighing. Dawnstrider could no longer be silent. “It’s cold out here. Let’s go back inside.”

Starlight grunted. “What’s that, Dawn? Afraid to be alone at night with a virile stallion like me?”

Dawnstrider laughed. “That’s the Mirror I know. You’re worrying too much. Luna and Snowhoof are perfectly capable of handling themselves.”

Despite her gentle camaraderie, he looked into the binoculars again. He swiveled them on the stand and on the horizon he saw two figures approaching. He sighed with relief, and he turned away at the sound of someone’s approach. A messenger was sprinting towards them and stopped right in front of him, out of breath. “Queen Luna and Snowhoof have arrived at the southern gates.”

Starlight sighed with relief. “Oh, good. I was getting worried.” He furrowed his brow and did a double take. “Wait, what? The southern gates?” He jammed his face back into the binoculars and saw the two figures again. He increased the magnification level, and the two figures multiplied before his eyes. Gryphons! There were about two dozen armed gryphons headed their way! Starlight flipped around and there was a whistle above his head and a spear lay embedded in the ground before him, the shaft breaking and clattering off the rampart. “WE’RE UNDER ATTACK!”

Dawnstrider ran the other way as the ground behind her was peppered with arrows. Starlight whinnied, and the air raid sirens started to blare. He flapped his wings and took to the air. With a flicking motion of his hooves, his “glass blades” slid out of their sheaths and locked in place. The transparent steel blade extended from the tip of his hooves, and whistled in the air when he swung them around. Dawnstrider had joined him the air, dodging projectiles. “Starlight! There are too – arrgghhh!” A javelin had gone through her chest, knocking her out of the sky and into a downward spiral. He swooped down to save her, but a gryphon raked its claws down his hindquarters, pulling him back as he roared in agony. Starlight swung his blade-hoof around, slashing the gryphon’s throat open with a splash of blood.

The gryphon fell from the sky and Starlight spun around and searched for what had become of Dawnstrider. He gasped in horror, for there was nothing left of her but a red smear on a rooftop down below. He bit back tears, and became aware of the sound of battle around him. The guards had engaged the gryphons in battle.

He bared his fangs in a snarl, and charged into the nearest gryphon. He plunged his blades into the burly gryphon’s underbelly, but the thick armor deflected his death blow and he collided with the gryphon’s muscled torso. Starlight had knocked the breath out of him, but the gryphon swung his fist around hard and connected with Starlight’s jaw. The impact jarred him, making his head spin and his helmet was sent flying off. Blood trickled down his snout as they grappled with each other in the air.

Starlight kneed the gryphon in the belly, the metal spike on his kneecap armor ripping through his bowels. The gryphon screamed, disengaging from him and clutching the intestines hanging from his stomach. Starlight took his opportunity and drove his blade into his gullet. The gryphon made a gurgling sound and spat blood in his face, before Starlight ripped the blade out and let the gryphon fall to the ground.

He turned around and saw that the main invading force was headed for the citadel. Their target was Snowhoof and Luna!

He charged towards the citadel, flapping his wings as fast as he could. The citadel’s garrison of unicorns were filling the air with barrages of glowing ice shrapnel, which looked like streaks of light shooting up from the ground in the night. The icy projectiles bounced off the gryphons’ armor to no avail. Starlight grunted as the wind roared in his ears. They were too heavily armored!

The gryphons penetrated the last line of defense, breaking the windows and entering the citadel itself. “All guards to the citadel!” He commanded to the garrison at the gate of the citadel. “Protect the Queen and the Keepers!”

The earth pony strike force with the unicorn artillery rushed into the citadel while his pegasi charged in through the windows the gryphons had broken. Starlight tumbled into the hallway of the top floor and two gryphons ran at him with their lances drawn. He spun around swinging his hoof-blades, knocking the lances to the side and decapitating one of the gryphons. The other gryphon slammed his elbow down on his spine, and Starlight howled in pain. The gryphon spun around and grabbed his shoulders, slamming his skull down onto his. There was a solid crack, and Starlight couldn’t see straight for a moment. There was a hiss as the gryphon presses his advantage, charging. Starlight reflexively raised his blades so they pointed outward. The gryphon crashed into him, slamming him hard against the wall. The shock of pain threatened to knock him out and he lay helpless, expecting the finishing blow any moment.

He felt warm blood seeping onto his hooves and realized that the gryphon had impaled himself on his blades. Starlight slid his blades out of the gryphon’s torso, wiping the blood on a tapestry. He stood up uneasily, and heard the sound of a fierce fight on the floor below.

His vision still spinning, he trotted to the staircase but he heard a mare’s scream from behind him. He turned and ran towards the origin of the scream. There was the sound of magical explosions in the adjacent hallway and the sound of gryphons screaming.

He turned a corner and saw the ruined hallway. There were the corpses of five or six gryphons splattered on the walls on the roof. Gore, bits of bone, and viscera dripped from the roof and walls, pooling on the ground. Whoa.

He gasped when he saw a massive, heavily armored gryphon walking at the end of the hallway with Amberleaf in tow. Amberleaf had a large bruise on the side of her face, and she appeared to be knocked out. That had to be the biggest gryphon he had ever seen. He must be their leader.

Starlight ran through the blood soaked hallway. Did Amberleaf do all this? He turned a corner and saw the gryphon captain punch a hole through the wall, the cold winter air rushing in through the breach. “Let her go!” He yelled, catching the attention of the gryphon. “Picking on unarmed mares, how pathetic are you? Come fight a real stallion, or are you scared?”

His taunt was too obvious, but it did the job. The gryphon captain dropped Amberleaf and growled at Starlight. “Well,” the gryphon rumbled. “Isn’t it the famous Starlight Mirror. Your skull will make a great addition to my collection.” The fighters drew closer together, and Starlight decided to do his battle dance. He would show this gryphon why they called him “Mirror Blades.” He raised one hoof, making a flicking motion so the glass blade would be unsheathed and lock into place. His blade was almost invisible to the naked eye, and he began to dance. The gryphon hissed, and he did as well. Starlight began mimicking the gryphon’s footwork, mirroring his battle stance.

The gryphon hesitated, noticing Starlight’s reflection of his moves. Starlight leapt forward, his glass blade flashing. The gryphon raised his foreleg to block the blow with his bracer, his blade slid off and he disengaged. Leaping backward, he began copying the gryphon again. The gryphon changed battle stances and he did the same. It was working. He was intentionally making his stance more complex to throw Starlight off, and that would be the gryphon’s undoing.

The gryphon charged, using an elaborate and impossible to copy pattern. The complexity required a tremendous amount of energy and thus slowed the gryphon’s movement. Starlight easily caught the gryphon, leaping above and slicing into his spine, before landing on his feet again on the other side. The gryphon whipped around with such unexpected speed, Starlight couldn’t evade his claws. The gryphon, instead of raking him with his claws, grabbed his left hindleg and drug him back towards him. Starlight resisted but the gryphon dug his claws into the sinew of his hindleg, and Starlight screamed as blood seeped down his legs. The gryphon continued to dig his claws into the wound, tearing up his sinew and scratching his bone. Starlight couldn’t handle the agony and flipped around, but he immediately realized he had made a fatal mistake. With a single flourish of the gryphon’s meaty hands, he broke Starlight’s leg.

Starlight screamed in agony, his leg bent in a way it wasn’t meant to. Starlight shook his leg free and crawled away. He tried to stand up but the gryphon tackled him, flattening him on the ground with a crunch. The pain was so intense that he almost blacked out. The gryphon’s weight was crushing, and he wrapped his thick forearm around Starlight’s neck. Starlight knew this position too well. It was all over. Now with a single motion the gryphon could easily break his neck.

In his last moments, he realized a white frost creeping up on the ground. Starlight tried to struggle, but he was pinned. Starlight closed his eyes, accepting his death. Then something happened. The temperature of the room dropped so fast that he felt his head ache. Aw hell, am I dead?

Starlight opened his eyes and found himself trembling. The weight was removed off his back and the cold was soothing on his wounds. He felt so weak, but he clung to his consciousness. He heard a sweet melodic voice from behind him, and his heart soared. “My Queen?”

“My brave commander.” He felt Luna's soft kiss on his head. “You have performed most admirably; but now, it is time for answers.”

His vision faded for a moment and he felt someone take his hooves and lift him up. When he opened his eyes again, he was resting on a soft cushion and his wounds had been bandaged. Amberleaf was resting against his side, and she stared at him with her soft brown eyes. “I’m sorry about your leg. We might have to do surgery if it doesn’t heal properly.”

Starlight blinked. The gryphon captain was chained to the wall before him, and Luna cleared her throat. In the dark corner on the other side of the room, there was a stallion lurking there. His blue eyes glowed in the darkness, watching the gryphon captain with intense interest. Was that Snowhoof?

Luna cleared her throat again and a guard threw a bucket of water on the chained gryphon. The gryphon awoke with a start, startled. “Speak.” Luna commanded. “Why did you attack this citadel?”

The gryphon sighed in surrender. “We had to stop the transition between autumn and winter. We could not allow Snowhoof to regain control of winter.”

Luna stared down in disgust at the gryphon. “Why not?”

The gryphon sobbed, tears in his eyes. “We’ll lose a fifth of our territory then, and many of us will die. If winter expands his domain to where it was a thousand years ago, we will lose the great evergreen forest. The climate will become too cold for hunting and the weather too treacherous for anyone to live there. The fear of famine looms over us, for the forest has become a great source of food. To allow Snowhoof to return means starvation and death for us, just the way it was all those years ago.” The gryphon began to cry. “These mild winters have been such a blessing for our people, and not only our people, but all the races that have their countries near the seasonal boundary. So many will suffer again at the hands of winter…please do not allow that to happen. Send Snowhoof back to the arctic where he belongs.”

Luna sighed. “It is the way of nature, winter and summer, day and night, life and death. We suggest you move your people to the warmer northern parts of the Gryphon Kingdom if winter’s expansion is such a problem.”

The gryphon captain burst into fresh tears and became hysterical. “We can’t! The north isn’t safe anymore!”

Amberleaf stood up, concerned. “Why not?”

“We have been on the verge of war with the Fire Dragons of the Tropics for many years now, and now they have finally declared war on us! We have nowhere to go!

Everyone in the room gasped. It was as he feared. Snowhoof’s return had provided the aggressive races of Summer’s territory with a tactical advantage over the races of Autumn and Spring. The hot headed dragons had been given the perfect opportunity, and now they would attack while the Gryphon Kingdom was struggling with possible widespread famine, Starlight thought. Now, let’s see how many other nations follow the dragons’ example…

“What a mess.” Starlight muttered.