Reinsertion

by ringtail_mane

Chapter Four: Different Customs

Chapter Four: Differents customs

Next morning, still fuming like a four-legged steamroller, Twilight visited Canterlot to expose personally before the princesses what had happened and fill a formal complaint against the commander of the Dark Legion. She was still boiling with rage, to such an extent she hadn’t slept the previous night: Celestia and Luna just watched her stomping to and fro across the breadth and length of the Throne Room, venting her fury… and showing an inventive rarely seen before: The following 20 minutes didn’t seethe sameinsult twice… and her vocabulary ascended quickly to the rank of “unprintable”

Finally she began to calm a bit: “… can’t believe that fruitcake almost killed Spike! How somepony like him can command an army!? I am soooo mad I’d castgladly every black magic spell against him and his armored corpsof savages, they’d pay dearly…!!”

“Twilight, allow me” coughed Celestia so gently, stopping the torrent of invectives for the time being; “let me see if I catch the point: Grey Shadow….. tried to slay little Spike?”

“True from the first word onwards: Hadn’t I been present…” Twilight almost cried “He… he would…,his barbaric deed – justified by a so-called ‘royal order’ – would be a fact… and I would be now weeping the death of my best friend…the death…of…just…. a little child…”

“Princess TwilightSparkle, you shouldn’t be so harsh with him” Luna’s raven-hued wing wiped her friend’s fresh tears.

“Sorry, Princess Luna, I know he is your direct subordinate but… how such an attitude can be justified? That’s an act proper of someone out of his mind”

“Truth to be told, my dear friend, you cannot blame him entirely by this “act proper of someone out of his mind’ do you call it…” Sooner or later, thought Luna, this was bound to happen! Dammit! How did I forget to warn her? “You see, that protocol was one of his more important tasks”

“Why all of a sudden do you defend that monster, that… that… assassin!? I don’t get it!!”-Almost screamed the frustrated Twilight, her rage blinding her to the obvious answer to come.

“You see, my beloved child…” Sighed Celestia, her following words flowing like molasses “that protocol he spoke about… oh my poorand sweet Twilight Sparkle… Luna and I approved and signed it for immediate enforcement more than one thousand years ago”

“You WHAT!?” Luna’s full-scale blow the fateful night Grey Shadow and the Legion were freed from their imprisonment wouldn’t have hit Twilight as hard as Princess Celestia’s so-matter-of-fact statement “Why in the name of all sacred… WHY would you approve that... why would you allow… give him CharteBlanche for unrestrained murder!?”

“As we have told you many times before, TwilightSparkle, ten centuries back things were quite different” Began Luna, using her magic to project three-dimension pictures to illustrate her point “Canterlot, Equestria itself, the kingdom and its inhabitants were very different: the nation was struggling, not to prosper but to survive. Scores of threats, dangers and perils swarmed around us… and one of the worst were dragons. They roamed at will across the length and breadth of our land. They started by devouring small andlesser creatures, but later, they continued with our crops… our food…..even our people. Entire villages were ravaged by them… hunger was the mainstay more often than not… their incursions left a trail of pain, starvation, suffering…”

“That’s the reason we had to enforce Protocol Thundercolt” Sighed Celestia sadly “Yes, Twilight Sparkle, now you also know the origin of that elite squadron, why they are trained in air combat superiority over the field… they were the first echelon of the defense forces…”

“… The Legions, the Royal Guard and its own cadres were the other part” Continued Luna, “they charged too, with the defense of our people and lands against those marauding killers, and they grew to be darn good. With the passage of time, both Legions reached the peak of fame: they were legends like a skilled dragon slayers.

“Their efforts on land, air and sea… oh yes, there too… Equestrian Fleet Task Groups “Haytlantis” “Neighptune” and “Antrotmeda” come from those dark days… served well: many of our subjects could survive and be the cornerstones for what Equestria is today. Dragons eventually got the lesson into their thick skulls; their new generations began to leave us alone… eventually, the day came when no attack was ever recorded. The Dark Legion also gave us a small but very important extra: see the flags waving atop of the highest towers of this palace?”

“Yes” Replied Twilight Sparkle, squinting to better see the triangular flags rustling with the breeze “Can see them from here”

“They were deployed as warning signals for the dragons, so theywould detourduring their migrations: it meant the place was under full-armed, constant protection from the Legion, the Royal Guard and the Thundercolts – in those days the name applied to a full air wing: 60 squadrons, operating side-by-side with the best ones from Gryphon Empire, and a battalion of Procyonian Mobile Infantry, our oldest allies! – Whoever didn’t comply would be attacked immediately and without warning; the presence of a single unauthorized dragon in our skies would be considered an act of war. A truce was therefore agreed between them and us: they didn’t come, we didn’t attack; they appeared and would be wiped to the last one…”

“Grey Shadow himself created, implemented and enforced those rules… and they worked; even today, they work” Finished Celestia, meditating carefully her next words.

“I… I… didn’t know that…”

“TwilightSparkle, consider this is a wholly new world for them: Only I, Celestia and Discord have seen all its long history. They still are instinctive to whatever customs and ways of dealing with life were perfectly acceptable, even necessary, so long ago. Even I must deal with that day after day. Their hardest task nowis to re-learn, to accept that a lot of what it was, it is not, of what is now good and bad, pertinent or forgettable. As your friend, not your princess” Luna smiled shyly “I beg you to give them a chance. I assure you Grey Shadow is not an insensitive and merciless monster: he is just too much in his role of warrior, but he is very intelligent and conscious of what is now going on”

“Well… I… well…” Stuttered the new princess, knowing what followed would not be easy.

“Give him the chance to adapt to these times” Celestia grazed Twilight’s cheek with her own, “to understand, learn and meld with this new, rich and marvelous world we have now: you are the new Princess of Friendship, my dear… offer your friendship to him as a bona fide reconciliation, a chance of a new and fresh beginning between you two”.

“Very well, I’ll do… but….if he dare to touch Spike…”

“Don’t worry; after seeing how did you defend Spike, he’ll not be so fool as to do it again” concluded Luna “He is a tremendous warrior, but not a simpleton: he knows how to obey orders”

Comments

[Lazydrill]

Pretty good chapter mate. You did miss a few 'spaces' in some parts.
Like:

“TwilightSparkle, consider this is a wholly new world for them:

*Twilight Sparkle*

[ringtail_mane]

6263511 yes, i see that, need to recheck it when i copy text from my files, and glad to see you liked n_n