Chapter 22
The usual flash of light revealed the dream for me. From the outside, it had been a calm dark colour. Not exactly a nightmare or a Nightmare, but at the very least a bad dream.
Why wasn’t immediately apparent as I was standing in the middle of a tent camp, rows of tents in several directions, ponies in armour moving back and forth with goods, weapons or doing other jobs.
Before me was a larger tent than the rest, almost a small pavilion, two guards standing outside, one in black and the other in golden armour.
Looking around, I then moved past them into the tent. At the centre was a large map on a table and around it was a bunch of older ponies in armour, ponies, unicorns and a couple of earth ponies. The ones that stood out, however, were Luna, Celestia, Twilight, Cadence and myself.
Luna and Celestia looked younger than before. Luna seemed to be Cadence's age and size and Celestia looked like Luna did now. They were wearing what almost seemed like more ornamental and more expensive versions of the armour of their guards and while their manes were flowing like normal, they were pink and blue rather than their current colours.
Twilight wasn’t wearing armour, instead, she had a simple cloak and tiara on, a book floating open next to her.
Cadence was in silver armour, standing next to Twilight, one hoof on the map as they talked quietly.
Dream me was standing next to Celestia, studying the map. Wearing my Warmage cloak, I had several chakrams hanging from the weapon belts and a sword by my side.
I was also about the same size as Celestia was currently.
Looking over the setting I then moved forward, slipping into dream me before I tapped my hoof on the floor with an application of will.
The dream solidified around me and Celestia shook her head a couple of times as if to clear it, looking around before I smiled at her. “Hello, Sunshine.”
She blinked at me. “Page, Hello.”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to intrude,” I said and shrugged my wings a bit. “It looked like… not a nightmare exactly, but a bad dream. Wanted to see how you were.”
She sighed softly. “I hardly mind, Page. You are always welcome here.”
“How’s your vacation?” I asked as I looked at the map. I didn’t recognize the location, it was some sort of valley.
That got a smile from her. “It’s wonderful. I’m in Cloudsdale and nopony knows who I am. I have to admit, it’s difficult to adjust to not having to… do things.”
“I can see why,” I told her and poked her with my wing. “I have no idea how you handle all this day in and day out. At the end of these weeks, I’m the one that’ll need a vacation.”
She smiled and nodded. “It’s a hard job, but well worth doing. How are things going?”
“Well enough,” I admitted. “Nothing is on fire yet and I suspect I’m driving the local noble population up the walls.”
Celestia giggled at that. “Good, they need some shaking up from time to time,” she said, flicking her flowing pink mane across her other shoulder.
“So what is this?” I asked, looking around the tent.
Her smile dropped and she looked sad as she moved to settle down on one of the large pillows. “The battle for Stardew Valley. During the unification of Equestria.”
“I don’t remember being here,” I said and settled down next to her.
“Dreams do as they wish.”
“Very true,” I agreed. “This was a bad memory?”
Celestia hesitated. “...I don’t believe you wish to see this, Page.”
The dream felt like it wanted to shift and I let it. Suddenly the tent was gone as we were laying on the soft grass, overlooking a valley at dawn.
“I know parts of Equestria's past is hidden from most ponies,” I said and looked at her. “I don’t like it, but that’s how things are. Humans have a saying, those that don’t study history are doomed to repeat it.”
“A wise saying,” Celestia sighed and then nodded. “I suppose you deserve to know.”
I put my wing across her back and pulled her close. “Sunshine, whatever you say, I bet my former species has you beat by several levels of magnitude.”
That got a slight smile from her. “Was that meant to be comforting? All that does is make me curious.”
“...I’ll tell you sometime, but I suspect you would rather not know. I know I was happier before I did.”
That got me a small nuzzle before she looked out over the valley. “Three thousand strong Equestrian force of unicorns, earth ponies and pegasi against fifteen thousand imperial earth ponies.”
“Even with unicorn magic and pegasi support, that doesn’t sound like a winning combination.”
She shook her head and leaned against my side as we overlooked the valley. The armies were lining up. The Equestrian forces looked small compared to the forces against them.
“This was early on,” she continued quietly. “Very early and we stood against the strongest earth pony empire ever seen. If we had lost, the dream of one Equestria would have been over, perhaps for good.”
I nodded. “What happened?”
She smiled sadly. “The world had never seen an Alicorn use her full power in battle before. There were two of us here. We chose this location carefully because of the thick grass and strong winds.”
Oh.
“I cast the spell while my sister and the unicorn mages harnessed the wind to our purpose,” she continued as the valley ignited and turned into a firestorm that ripped through it, igniting everything in its way. The enemy forces turned and tried to flee, but the flames were moving too fast. They were quickly overtaken and hidden from view by the wall of fire.
As the first group were hit, Celestia cringed next to me, shivering. I pulled her closer. “It’s only a memory.”
“I’ll never forget the… the sound. Or the smell.”
Enough of this.
An application of will replaced the valley with her chambers at the castle, the doors open to allow spring wind and sunshine inside.
“You did what you had to do,” I told her quietly, hugging her close with my wing. “You protected your ponies, like always.”
Sighing softly, she leaned against me and closed her eyes. “I know. But I can still hate that I did it.”
“How about a happier subject?” I asked quietly.
“Please,” she said softly. “How’s your new book coming along?”
“I thought we said a happier subject,” I sighed, drawing a laugh from her.
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We still got her beat with the Enola Gay by itself.
Yeah, Celestia will definitely be a lot happier not knowing about things like the Holocaust, but at the same time there is real value in the warning. Of course, the real question is how much does Page know about the history because the really important thing to understand is why it happened so the warning signs can be seen for what they are and action can be taken to avoid those kinds of disasters.
So what is the newest book your character writing, hey what about if you do the Jurassic Park books, that would be cool to see how ponies would react to ancient creatures that never had magic but were large or larger then dragons.
Ha!
Awwww...another good chapter. Lore AND a Celestia moment...awesome.
Change of topics Hiver but...Fluttershy still has Discord in her house. We are not going to address this AT ALL?
History is a tricky subject. On one hand we are removed from it. The death-tolls are numbers to most people, nothing more. On the other, knowing both the kind of world that led to the wars as well as the reasons people fought is very important. We’re the crusades bloody? Yes, but not as bloody as some would have you believe. “Streets flowing with blood” was exaggeration; there weren’t enough people in the city, even including the crusaders, to do that. The nazis? An empoverished country who was given a target for all of their anger and frustration. Yes they lost WW1, but their children were the ones who were paying. It was their children who listened when A man named Adolf proposed a solution.
I’d be interested in knowing what this army was doing. We’re they defending their sovereignty? Were they aggressors? What was their country like? What happened to it?
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I'm betting the Discord subject will come up within his last day or two in court because it would be too perfect for it not to happen.
Interesting
Stardew Valley. (junk rat voice)I love it!
ok first and vary important i just loged in this morning and i see this grate story in the feature box, woot woot party time.
ok on to this chapter witch is grate but some how i think Celestia and Luna need to have a sit down and just talk about the past i am betting just remembering the history of how they got to ware they are will help them to deal with feeling from the past that are not forgotten.
I honestly never expected you to refer Stardew Valley. I assume that you're a fan of it?
You are daring me not to want to draw this aren’t you?
Even in ponyland, War, War never changes......*Cue dramatic music*
That got a chuckle from me too. As always, thanks Hiver, your chapter has once again left me smiling.
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I'd love to see that drawn.
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Me as well.
Has Page decided what books to
rip offadapt for ponies next? Like Dusk Star Shine said, Jurassic Park could be interesting. The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings may be a bit difficult. There are any number of Disney movies he could ponify. Superheroes too. Harry Potter, Stargate, Independence Day, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, King Arthur. I guess it largely depends on what he's familiar with. I mean, no point in suggesting something like Dr. Who if he's never seen any of it.8676955
Ironically, given the dreck they usually put out, the History Channel managed to do something which really helps to bridge that cognitive disconnect. They aired a series called World War 2 in Colour which combines a mix of original colour footage from the period and colourized black-and-white footage with readings of diary entries and letters from civilians and soldiers.
While there were some research issues and they did make some mistakes in the bits of footage they colourized, it's good on the whole, and it's amazing how big a difference colour makes in getting over the "things are different now" desensitization we tend to feel... let alone adding the diary entries and letters.
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We got her beat with the firebombing of tokyo, the closest thing mankind has gotten to glassing an entire area, even the two nukes don't compare. 16 square miles incinerated, bombers flying throughout the night to stoke the firestorm, all in all the area was so devastated it stood barren well into the 1950s
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There was a series a while ago, don’t remember the title, that had a bunch of vets talking about their time in war. The only real specific thing I remember from it was An injury. One guy ended up getting shot in the butt. Likely the only man to have four holes from one bullet, because it went through both of his cheeks.
Page: "Oh, not as bad as I feared."
Celestia: "...What could be worse than this?"
Page: "Hmmm, Vlad the Impaler comes to mind. The firebombing of Dresden and Tokyo, as well. And let's not even get started on the Mongols."
You know, I own that game. Oughta get back to work in there, been lazy.
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Nazi Holocaust. Native American Genocide attempts. African American Slavery. The list is really long and gets longer as you look up more stuff.
Great Chapter!
Ok, so the game wasn’t that far off with her ability’s.
Glad to have Page there for her.
I blame you for having a main Character that fits so well with most of the females in his life.
wut?
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Not a really bad dream, and not a creature feed ing on a bad dream respectively
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What about the rise of Mao Zedong? That psycho killed 45 million in 4 years.
8676798
stalin and mao did worse than the holocaust by orders of magnitude.
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And so much of their work was during one of the few so-called "peace-time" periods in the 20th Century.
Also, Pol Pot deserves "honorable mention" here for his 10 million contribution to the Killing Fields.
Humans have come up with all sorts of ways to kill each other since we discovered fire. Savages, the lot of us.
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Napalm. And that is low on the list. Crazy shite, I tells ya.
Geez, even a horrible war crime that an immortal goddess wants to forget is incredibly tame compared to us.
Page, whatever you do, dont share human history. These ponies wont be able to handle it.
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White Phosphor
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There’s a joke to be made about her playing Fortunate Son in the background.
I wonder how she’s react to him telling her how many times we did the same with smiles for miles. Not much difference between smiles and napalm when in 60s Nam, anyways.
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Worse yet are our genocides and mass killings, done for nothing else but difference in past. Uyghur and Timor are the two I could remember on top of my head. Not to mention those done during the world wars, like Nanking rape or Holocaust
Lose 1 stability
Stardew Valley?
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eu4 stability loss sound effect
Celestia & Luna fight hard for what they have now...
No nation with racism can stand u challenged for long, most likely they attacked to 'destroy the unclean'.
Only to get purged through and through themself.
SHIP!!!!!