• Published 9th Jul 2014
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War of the Frozen Fillies - Harbinger Of Mist



Celestia battles her sister in the dead of winter for the fate of all Equestria.

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Chapter 2: This is war

1 hour has passed, and Princess Luna is feeling slightly edgy. She is sitting in her icy throne room playing chess against herself while eating oatmeal. Down to her last spoon-fulls and halfway through her third game, her throne was starting to melt and refreeze her flank in place. The thought of her sister's foreboding expression sent a chill down her spine and sparked a particularly bad itch in the last place she wanted. Fidgeting wildly to pry herself off, Luna made a few faces that sent her guards into fits of giggles.

The two guards at the entrance of the room figured they'd better help out before they get punished for just standing there and enjoying her misery.

Too little, too late; Luna had ripped herself off to a slight sting and some more hilarious faces.

The guards collapse in laughter just meters away from her position. The momentum causes them to slide forward along the icy floor and hit their heads on the base of Luna's throne. They respond with groans.

Luna looks at them and sighs. "Slapstick... so uncivilized."

"Your highness!" Another one of Luna's thestral guards rears a corner into the throne room. The icy floor also made him skid across until Luna caught him in a magic field to halt him. He stands in attention and proclaims, "we have caught sight of something quite troubling, princess!"

She shoots her eyes open in attention. "How troubling?!"

"You may want to see for yourself."

Luna teleports to the watch tower and surveys the new "trouble" on the other side of the garden: Another snow castle. She instantly figured out what was happening. "Guards!" Luna commands, "keep all eyes focused on me until I return!" She flies off toward the imposing snow castle. As she came closer, its shape became more prevalent. She noticed that Celestia's fort was roughly the same size and had a similar crude structure. Celestia could have made it much more neat and extravagant, but probably just to satirize Luna, she put just as much effort into building the fort for stability rather than design; function over form after all.

Celestia was standing outside at the front gate, head angled upward toward her sister. She gazes at her with the same "stern" look.

"Sister!" Luna calls down. "I see you have crafted an... 'eyesore' of your own." She was starting to get nervous, as Celestia just stared back without any response or even moving.

Celestia's guards also stand in complete attention. All eyes focused on Luna.

Celestia had the same comically stern expression. After leaving her sister to blush from an awkward silence, she responds, "Luna! You do know that by striking me with such hostility, you have just declared war!" On cue, her guards all took snowballs in hoof and held them all aimed straight towards Luna. "Any last words before you become the centerpiece of Moscolt's Ice Hotel?"

Luna's eyes dart around in slight confusion. Soon, a light shone in her head. "'Twas but aaaa...n ultimatum, dear sister!" She smirks uncomfortably as she tries to squeeze her way out of an all-out battle. "Just because one little snowball was misfired, doesn't mean a war should be upon the horizon. Had that hit your precious posterior..." Celestia briefly angles her eyes back at her flank, changing to an embarrassed and dismissive expression. "...you simply would have had the option to leave us be!" Luna continued, "now that a simple accident has you up in arms, you decide to bear them? If you dare return with this," she gestures to all her sister's poised guards. "I will then have no choice..." She flies down to look Celestia up close and personal, then pokes her chest with her hoof. "...but to declare war on YOU."

Celestia was caught off-guard by her sister's shift to a seemingly fearless disposition. All anxious and desperate, then authoritative and threatening?

Luna stared Celestia in the eye with a smug look for a moment, then noticed a shadow forming over her head. She glances up-- *POOMF!* A pile of snow lands neatly and quickly all over Luna's face, causing her to lose her balance and trip forward and down onto the ground between her sister's legs.

This action caused Luna's guards back at her fort to collectively gasp and take battle-ready stances.

Celestia looks down at Luna with all but her mouth and horn being covered in snow. She gives a cheerfully sly grin.

"No magic." Luna mutters from beneath her trap.

"Agreed."

Luna shoots up into the air and retreats to her fort barking orders as she arrives back. "Erect forward walls! Secure choke-points! Keeps eyes in the sky! We are soon going to eclipse the sun with our frozen might!"

Author's Note:

...told in the author's notes...