The Birth of a New Kingdom

by Dranz_89

Not alone anymore

Twelve years have passed since Clover was chosen as the new student, and no other unicorn has been chosen again by Starswirl, he kept Clover and Laurel as his only students. Clover had grown to be a talented, prominent and beautiful spellcaster, now she was sharing classes with Laurel, and her improved skills fed her confidence, yet she heard her master's same words every single day, ‘you still have much to learn, Flower’.

After the sunset, when her classes were over, Clover visited the old pine tree where she used to write on her diary to practice and master the new spells she learned. She placed an apple on the snow, and with a gentle move from her horn, the apple began to slowly change its form into an orange.

Very proudly, Clover lifted the fruit and removed the peel as if turning the page in a book, and bit it. As she munched, the juice of the orange still left the flavor of an apple in her mouth, ‘Dang! I almost had it this time’, she snorted. She was about to try again when a crowd reunited in the square caught her attention, they were all listening to a mare.

"It is time to put a stop! The war has lasted longer than it should and it doesn't seem that is going to end anytime soon! How many more deaths must we endure before opening our eyes? If we put the weapons aside and lend an ear, we can make a difference, we can join together again, not as slaves and masters, but as neighbors! Maybe even friends!"

"Shut up! My brother is out there fighting to rid us from this plague," shouted a mare from the crowd.

"The hornless don't want to be friends! They try to steal our land!" yelled another stallion.

"They killed your mother, the queen. What would she say if she could hear you defend them! You're a disgrace!" one of the unicorns threw a tomato at her, and shortly after, the princess was bombarded with more tomatoes and apples, until the crowd left her alone, standing up and picking up the little dignity she had left.

"That's not the way to treat the princess," Clover couldn't help but to approach the princess, she didn't know if it was pity, she just felt the need of talking to her, "I've heard that you were in favor of the hornless, but I thought it was just a groundless rumor."

"It's fine, it's fine, it happens all the time," Platinum fixed her mane which was still stained with tomato juice, and smiled gracefully, "It's not that I'm in favor of them, it's just that I don't have anything against them. And the correct term is 'Earth ponies' not 'Hornless', thank you very much."

"Nothing against them?! Didn't you hear what they said? THEY KILLED THE QUEEN! YOUR MOTHER!" Clover waved her hoof in front of Platinum's faces, trying to make her react, "How can you think like that? Everyone else can see that, what part you don’t understand!?"

"The part where my mother was still alive, and the earth ponies were tormented, imprisoned and enslaved by us unicorns. Don't you see, Clover? WE are the bad guys, not them! They were just trying to defend themselves! I just don't see the point of all this fighting."

"Look ‘Princess’... I don't really know how the war started, or why it did. The fight has already started and it is still going on, and they will stop at nothing until they destroy us all. I know it's not pretty, but at this point, it's either them or us, that's just..."

"Just the way it is, right? So it is ok to kill hundreds of mares and stallions, and destroy families because they're a bit different from us, because they don't have a stupid horn, because that's just the way it is! Well what if I think it is the wrong way!?"

Clover sighed and turned her back before saying one last thing, "All unicorns think the same way. You are the only one who doesn't. That makes you the one who's wrong. You are alone."

---

With no words left, Princess Platinum returned to the castle, a blue unicorn with a yellow mane was waiting for her. "No luck again, your highness?" asked the unicorn as he escorted the princess, his eyes showing concern. The princess ignored him and went straight to the center tower, but to get there, she had to pass through the throne room, where her greatest demon was waiting impatiently, her own father.

"Platinum, are you still going with this? Why do you insist on defying me?" asked the king, very disappointed, but the princess did not respond, she didn't even look at him. "Look at you! You have lost the respect of the unicorns, how much more you have to humiliate yourself before you understand?"

Still no response from the princess.

"Well you give me no choice, Platinum. You won't leave the castle without permission. Sarge Raystorm, escort my daughter to her room. And make sure she stays in there."

Raystorm saluted the king, and raised his voice, "If I may say something, sire. I don't think that..."

"Sarge Raystorm, my job is to make sure my daughter becomes a respectable leader," interrupted the king, "And yours is to do what I say. Unless you think you can educate my daughter better than me."

The blue unicorn bit his lip, and nodded to the king, "let's go, your highness."

After taking the princess to the central tower, he locked the princess in her room, he inserted his horn in the keyhole and cast a mysterious spell in it. Princess Platinum just dove between the sheets on her bed, pressing her face against the pillow.

Sarge Raystorm turned around to leave, "Is it worth it, your highness? His majesty was right when he said you had lost the respect you once had. You used to be loved and admired."

"I don't want all that love and admiration if it costs the lives of others," the princess' voice sounded from the other side of the door, "They feel more hate and rage toward the earth ponies than love and admiration to their princess. And what about you? You didn't have to take the blame for it. You don't have to punish yourself."

"It's the price I have to pay," responded the soldier, "I deserve it for underestimating the enemy, I was a fool. I should have pulled back and regroup, I should have asked for reinforcements. That day, I learned that the earth ponies are not as primitive as we thought, I learned it the hard way. Because of my arrogance, we lost brave unicorns and our queen. And you, my lady, are the real victim of all this mess."

"I don't blame you for what happened, Raystorm, nor I blame the earth ponies, nor my father. My mother died defending what she believed in. I know it sounds cold from me, but that was her own choice. I'm not saying that it doesn't hurt, but I have made a choice of my own. I want to use my title and power to find a better way to end this war. A way that doesn't involve violence or strength. If I can convince at least one unicorn, I will know that I can make a difference, even if everyone else says I'm wrong. But still, I don't know if I'll have the courage to face death, like my mother did."

"I'd be lying, princess, if I say that I don't think you're wrong. Sometimes, strength and violence are needed to make others listen. You can't speak english to someone who speaks french. You have to speak their language if you want them to understand your ideas. I'll tell you what, if you manage to convince another unicorn, then I'll also join your cause. It's a promise, your highness."

With that said, Sarge Raystorm left and commanded two guard unicorns passing by to guard the princess' bedroom. The guards stood still like two statues each one on each side of the door.

---

Princess Platinum, lying on her bed, she tried to keep her eyes open with all the energy she had left, her eyelids weighed as two huge concrete stones until she couldn't hold the slumber anymore, and her eyes shut against her own will.

She quickly opened her eyes again, and found herself lying on a snowfield. After a big boom echoed from afar, she rose from a boost on her hooves, and ran off as fast as she could, until she found herself among groups of unicorns and earth ponies savagely fighting and killing each other, like hunters and preys. Their shadowy figures, those raging crimson eyes, they were everywhere, Platinum tried to escape as far as possible.

Not far ahead, there was a small house, so she quickened her pace. Once in front of it, she rushed to get inside, but the house exploded in a burst of fire before she could get any closer. She turned around, and those shadowy ponies were just behind her, and without second thought, they attacked her, like a pack of starving wolves.

Suddenly, Platinum found her face against the floor, half her body still on the bed, and woke up panting and huffing. Once she realised she was in the safety of her own bedroom, she stood up and sighed in relief. ‘That same nightmare every night’, she snorted. She stared from the window, it was just dawn, and the wall's gates were opening for the troops of the unicorns returning from the war, and behind them, a group of eighteen chained earth ponies. Seven stallions, four mares and four colts and three fillies.

Platinum desperately tried to open the door of her room in vain. "Open the door, now! Raystorm! Let me out!" she screamed from inside, but the guards patrolling the door ignored every word.

The princess kicked the door as hard as she could with her hind legs until she got tired, and the door didn’t budge. Frustrated and angry, the princess thought on the only exit she had left, the window. It was too high to jump, and the ground was too far down to try and teleport. She tied together a few sheets to create some kind of rope and tied one end to one leg of the bed for support, and the other to her body. She opened the window, stood on the edge and looked down to the ground, ‘I must be the craziest unicorn that's ever lived’, she took a deep breath, closed her eyes and jumped down.

After a few seconds of falling, her shriek of terror was cut short when she was left hanging from the tower. She turned her sight up to her room's window, and one of the guards peeked down from the window in her bedroom, his eyes widened in disbelief, "Your highness! What are you doing!?" he yelled. Platinum stuck her tongue at him, and climbed up to the last window she passed from the fall and looked through the glass and teleported inside, she wasted no time to run downstairs.

She blasted through the throne room, and ran all the way to the castle's main gate and to the streets with a small squadron of unicorn guards chasing her, the gate keeper saw the whole scene and hurried to close the gates before the princess could escape, but easily, the princess just used her teleport spell and passed the closing gate, the only ones trapped behind the gates were the guards behind her.

"When did she learn that spell?" asked one of the guards.

"Sarge Raystorm taught her," said a second guard and sighed, "Oh, this is bad… this is terrible! The king's gonna eat us all!"

---

Meanwhile, Clover was on her way to the study, when she passed through the center square where the earth ponies were exposed as criminals.

"Hornless plague! Non magic beasts!" screamed the crowd. The king, escorted by Sarge Raystorm and a squadron of guards approached them. The other unicorns made silence waiting for the king to speak.

Clover took a glance on the earth ponies, and gasped when she spotted the colts and fillies among them. ‘It's fine... they'll grow to be one of them soon’, she tried to calm herself and kept on her way, but the uneasy feeling wouldn't go away. The words of the princess still echoed deep inside her, ‘WE are the bad guys, not them! They were just trying to defend themselves!’

"I said we would take no prisoners anymore," the king raised his voice, "Exec..."

"WAIT!" the princess yelled from the distance, she dashed directly to her father, "Stop it, now! Don't you remember what mommy said?"

"I will never forget it! She said I must end this hate! That's exactly what I'm doing! If we exterminate the hornless, we will have nothing else to hate! I'm honoring the wishes of your mother!"

"Oh! By all heavens and hells!" Platinum slapped her father straight up to the face, the golden crown on his head fell on the snowy ground, and the king's right cheek was left with a red mark of a hoofprint, all unicorns were shocked and speechless.

"I wouldn't believe it if it wouldn't have come from your mouth! How stupid can you possibly be!?" claimed the princess. "You, guard!" she turned her sight to one of the guards, "I have attacked the king, I'm an enemy, too! Chain me with them!"

"But your highness..."

"I said chain me!"

The guard said as he was told, and Princess Platinum was chained alongside the earth ponies, she warmly smiled at them, and the stallion next to her changed his scared face into a warm smile too.

"Platinum, stop this nonsense!" commanded the king, "Let her go!"

"No one is over the law, dad!" said Platinum, "Not even royalty. If you release me, I'll attack you again and again!"

"What on earth are you doing, princess," Clover said, she just reached to the spectacle she witnessed from afar, "This time, you have gone too far."

"Clover, look at them," Platinum frowned at the spellcaster, "Look at the young ones, look at their scared faces! If this is what you really want, then go and tell them that you want them to die! Tell them that they will never see their parents again! Tell them that it is all because they were born without a horn on their heads! And more important, don't forget to tell them that it's just the way it is!"

Clover was trapped among all the stares of all unicorns around, all of them anxiously awaiting her response. She sighed in resignation, approached the king and stood in front of him, and without a warning, she slapped him too. The next minute, she was chained next to the princess who was smiling. "I warn you that if we die today, I’ll find a way kill you again! You must be the craziest unicorn that's ever lived!"

"You're not the first one to think that. To be honest, I'm afraid and I don't really want to die. But it's ok to be afraid, as long as I don't let it stop me."

The king bit his lip as he rubbed the cheek where he received two slaps, "My daughter, you leave me no choice... you win. No one will die today. Release the prisoners! All of them!"

The guards unchained the earth ponies, Princess Platinum and Clover just like the king commanded. The earth ponies ran straight to Platinum and hugged her, crying of happiness, "Thank you, thank you so much, princess! We owe you our lives!"

"It's fine, it's fine, you owe me nothing. My father is stubborn, so I suggest you run as far from this kingdom as you can. I wouldn't risk my neck if I were you," responded Princess Platinum.

"You just risked your neck, princess, for a small group of hornl... I mean, earth ponies," added Clover.

"And I would do it again," responded Platinum, she smirked and winked at Clover.

The earth ponies were escorted by the princess and the spellcaster, they trotted away as fast as they could while waving back at the princess until they disappeared in the misty horizon. While Clover contemplated the happy face of the princess, a warm feeling invaded her chest, and to her eyes, Princess Platinum was shining more radiantly than ever, she looked taller, as if she was far off her limits, but close enough to try and touch her with her bare hooves. Close enough to be bathed by her shine.

"Turns out you were right," Clover turned serious, "They look different from us, but they also have families, some of them also lost their parents in this war and feel the same pain we feel. We are not that different. Even Starswirl thinks it's possible that earth ponies can learn magic. At first, I thought you were just a spoiled brat. Then I thought you were just an oddball with crazy ideas. Well... I still think that, but at least you are an oddball with GOOD crazy ideas. The king only seeks revenge and more ponies will die if we don't stop him. Princess Platinum, today you taught me something that I cannot learn from books. I learned that a death will never improve a life. I will follow you to any other crazy adventures. You have earned not only my respect, but also my eternal loyalty."

"What about your friendship?"

"Yeah... that too," smirked Clover.