Equestria and the Olympians

by Mrtyranno

The Pelopeneighsian War: Bakers, Traders and Letters

Bakers, Traders and Letters

Twilight gave a quick sigh of relief as all her companions entered the large crystalline doors to her castle. With haste everyone was seated on the seven large crystalline chairs that each bore the same cutie mark that each of them had upon their hindquarters sans Spike. Amongst her other companions that Hermes had not seen were Applejack, Rarity and Fluttershy.

Spike whipped out a scroll and a quill, ready to write down whatever Twilight would have to say, for if the contents of that letter were indeed dire than she would likely send a message to her fellow Princesses Celestia and Luna. Fluttershy, Applejack and Rarity all looked very confused whilst Rainbow looked deep in thought about something. Spike however figured that possibly Rainbow must have been trying to figure out if she could beat Hermes in a race, though he felt positive that nopony could beat Rainbow in sheer aerial speed.

Twilight focused quietly and let the magic flow through her, directing it to the letter and making it slowly enlarge. The letter grew to encapsulate the large hall and hovered above all seven of them as everyone saw the words.

Princess Twilight Sparkle. It has come to the attention of the mighty Olympians that you were instrumental in returning Tirek to Tartarus. We highly insist on speaking with you at a location of your choice, preferably a spacious one, so that we may discuss matters regarding the state of Tartarus. We are aware of your use of dragon communication, so you may correspond with your fellow princesses before giving your location of choice to our swift messenger Hermes. Failure to comply would result in disastrous consequences for you and your kind.

Signed Zeus Kronos-son, Ruler of Olympus.

Rarity was the first to speak up with indignation, brushing aside her royal purple mane with her white hoof as she did so, “Well, I don’t know who this Zeus is, but he sounds very rude. That letter is nothing short of an outright threat.”

Twilight’s ears flopped downwards as this was the reaction she expected. Truth be told, she didn’t much like the tone of the letter herself. However she had to do her duty for Equestria, so she quickly responded before the others could chime in on their disagreements with the letter.

“The Olympians, “ Twilight began to say, “Are an ancient and long lived race of chimeric beings. Similar to our friend Discord.” she paused, noting a glimmer of recognition in their eyes.

“They were responsible,” She continued, “for a lot of things that went on in the world. Before ponies had magic they were the ones who moved the sun and moon across the skies. Controlled the weather, land, food and forests as they saw fit. They even decided what happened to a pony after they had passed away. You all remember when I returned Cerberus back to Tartarus?”

Everypony nodded inside the room. It was hard not to remember a gigantic three head pit bulldog that had been rampaging through ponyville, only to be stopped by Fluttershy’s amazing ability with animals. Pinkie mused, it was also the day Twilight had been going crazy about her future.

Twilight saw Pinkie snorting, and quickly shut down a bashful smile of her own, “When I went to Tartarus I met the ruler of Tartarus. An Olympian named Hades, he had thanked me for returning his dog to him, but he didn’t answer my question about why Cerberus had left Tartarus in the first place. All he told me was that it was beyond the matter of a mortal.”

“Seems now whatever was ‘beyond’ us, now includes us.” Applejack said sarcastically. As Twilight went on, she was beginning to dislike these Olympians less and less. From what Twilight was saying, they were even more powerful than Discord with much more arrogance. The thought of an entire race of creatures like Discord in his early days made her feel sick to her stomach.

When Twilight was done Spiked chimed in his own question, “What would you have me tell Celestia exactly Twilight?”

Twilight paused for a second then extended her hoof and declared, “Spike make a quick copy of this letter, and send it to Princess Celestia. She’ll have a quick response though I have ideas of my own.”

Spike hurriedly wrote down the print onto one of the scrolls he had gathered. Once he was done he rolled up the parchment and blew his green fire over it. All seven beings in the room watched the parchment disappear in the magical flames and waited for the quick response.

It came half an hour later, surprising everyone who had been pacing around. Spike caught the letter as it fell into his claws and he tossed it to Twilight who unfurled the parchment using her magic.

“What is she saying Twi?” Applejack asked worriedly.

“She says, “ Twilight answered while reading the parchment, “To perform a visual communication spell on my end.”

The others murmured with fellow worry. A visual communication spell used up a lot of magic to perform. I allowed for a magical projection of another pony to appear in a far away location in the form of a large magical screen. Normally it too a group of unicorns to set one up but Twilight had the magical capability to pull it off by herself. They all saw Twilight concentrate deeply as two large screens began to appear over the round crystalline table at the center of the 7 chairs. The screens widened until in one screen appeared Celestia and Luna in their castle in Canterlot, and the other showing Princess Cadance and Shining Armor in the Crystal Empire.

Twilight fell back into her chair with a proud sigh as the large screens hovered above the air. She had opened up her own connection, and now for a while the connection would be stable.

“Are you alright sis?” Shining Armor called out from his end of the screen looking mortified as he saw his exhausted sister.

“I’m fine Shining, but thanks for asking.” Twilight said with a smile.

“Not to be rude everypony, but we cannot hold these screens up for long.” Luna said sharply, the image of her flowing mane slightly distorted by the screen.

“Agreed sister” Celestia noted with a quick glance before turning her gaze on the main 7 individuals in the room. “We were honestly not expecting the Olympians to request our presence. But we have no choice but to respond. We barely know what they want but we doubt it’ll be good.”

“Umm….are they all that mean?” Fluttershy asked shyly.

Celestia gave Fluttershy a warm smile in response, “No, not all, some of them are friends of mine, but most have an arrogant air about them. Though I fear we will be seeing more of the aggressive ones.”

“As for a meeting location that was requested in the letter,” piped Cadence, “I suggest we have them meet us in the Crystal Empire in 5 days time. From what Celestia and Luna have told me, they tend to make grand entrances, so we’ll repurpose the training fields that we used for the Equestria games to accommodate their entrances.”

Everyone nodded in agreement with Cadence, in the background Shining Armor was already calling his guards to help set things up which didn’t offset the amount of dread Twilight was feeling in her stomach. With a nod of understanding, the other princesses used their magic to turn off their screens and the hall was silent.

Twilight leapt off her chair past the tables and made a beeline for the large door. The others followed her while Spike was quickly scribbling the response down on a scroll. As Twilight opened the door she stated with her heart beating fast, “All Right, we’ve all got to find Hermes and bring him back here to Spike. I warn you girls, Celestia tells me that it is hard to persuade them to do something. You’ll know Hermes when you see him, he’s kind of hard to miss.”
Fluttershy felt the most apprehension, as she found herself flying through Ponyville searching for this Hermes guy. He sounded scary like the other Olympians Twilight had been mentioning. What if he was one of the really mean ones?

Fluttershy turned her head swiftly as she heard large gasps and one scream coming from the cake shop belonging to Mr and Ms. Cake. She flew in at speed, hoping the Cake family was ok and what she saw stunned her. Mr and Ms. Cake were sitting down at their largest table, looking half comfortable and half tense as on the opposite end of the table was the gigantic winged horned Tortoise like creature that had started the trouble in the first place. Hermes was eating one of the cakes in the shop and seemed to be enjoying the taste greatly.

He looked down at the Cake family and in a gentle voice that did not seem to fit his large stature. “So you’re telling me, with food this well made, that you never tried expanding your business?”

Mr and Mrs. Cake looked at each other before Carrot Cake looked up at Hermes’ face and gave his thoughtful response, “It’s not like we never thought of doing so. But we’ve seen what happens to a lot of ponies who tried to expand their business beyond their town. Some lost sight of their goals and were too focused on pushing out their product that it lost their quality. We’re protective of our confections being very well made.”

“Plus, “ Cup Cake butted in, looking more confident by the second, “We have two children to take care of and although we have a babysitter, she often has other things to do and we can’t stand to be away from our kids for too long.”

Hermes furrowed his wrinkly brow in slight annoyance before he relaxed his expression with understanding. “Being good at your craft would take priority wouldn’t it? I can respect that, even as a trade lord. Well I have another idea, what if I make a large order from you to be delivered to the Great Plains?”

“THE GREAT PLAINS?” both Ponies yelped in surprise.

“But why there, and how large is this order?” both chimed in unison

Hermes gave a hearty laugh, “I have a friend who is helping his friend throw a large feast there, and although he’s a good cook himself he doesn’t know many of the dessert recipes you have on display here. As for the order, can you make thousands of cakes of your various delicious confections? But don’t worry the party isn’t for several months.”

As soon as Carrot Cake heard the word thousands escape from Hermes’ beak he promptly fainted whilst his wife looked at the serious look on Hermes face. She gave him a stern look and carefully responded.

“And you can pay for all of this?” she asked tentatively.
Hermes gave her a massive grin and brought out several large bags out of his knapsacks. Ms. Cake stepped back as he placed them all on several of the tables in the store as they quickly filled up the space. Looking inside one, she saw a host of gold coins, all in the Equestrian currency of bits. She was speechless as she realized how much money was potentially in all those bags. The jingling rattle of the coins woke up her husband as he slowly took in all the money bags.

Looking at Hermes, he swiftly got up and extended his right hoof,Hermes looked slightly perplexed and then grabbed the pony’s hoof and shook it. Looking pleased with himself, Hermes grabbed a few more cakes for himself and was on his way to walk outside of the door when he noticed Fluttershy standing in his way.

The small pony before him said something, but she was so softspoken that Hermes had to ask her to speak up. Fluttershy squeaked and then told him that Twilight had her answer ready. Hermes nodded and then without her prompting he lifted her up using his magic as he went out of the door, increasing his size as he did so, and put her on his back. With a yelp, Fluttershy hung on for dear life as he raced towards Twilight’s castle.

Author's Note:

While Hermes is indeed a messenger, he is also known for trading and stealing. As for the magic tv, I envisioned it similar to the view screen function from the 60s era Star Trek rather than the holograms of Star Wars, but requiring a lot of power. In my imagination it's a magical version of early phone lines. The Great Plains has been mentioned by Twilight before in the comics so I've decided to use those.