17 - Keep Your Friends Close
The exact passage of time had been lost to Kepler's wandering mind as he remained sitting at the bow of his ship for hours, senses overcome by the gentle sounds of waves splashing and oceanic saline breezes wafting throughout helped to calm the raging storm of emotions within him. He understood things had changed, now that they had an Equestrian princess as a prisoner aboard and another incapacitated in the Dream Realm, things were certainly shifting in directions that he had never anticipated. And now, because of the changes surrounding him on every side, along with the circumstances aboard the ship… He had no other direction to go and no orders to follow. And on top of that…
He felt distinctly alone, one could even say adrift in a world not his own.
Considering the fact that while he was indisposed at revolutionizing the Gryphon Empire when he first arrived, he hadn’t thought much of himself or his old world since the day he made his commitment to the gryphon king. Now that he was no longer busy worrying about his own survival, a sharp sense of homesickness struck completely unannounced. Even now, despite the beauty and still mystical nature of this world of untold wonders, he missed the mundane challenges from home, even with so many mysteries left for him to discover. He was still at a loss. A loss that seemed to weigh more heavily with each passing moment. He was so lost in thought that he didn’t hear someone coming up from behind, until he felt a set of talons resting on his withers between his wings.
Kepler slowly turned to see who it was that had disturbed his musings, a biting remark on the edge of his lips until he saw who exactly it was that had approached in his distracted state. Gloria’s concerned expression was all it took to cool the fires of his frustration, at least a little, but it still failed to soothe the broiling emotions that plagued his mind as his thoughts once again turned to the past. He let out a gusty sigh as his gaze turned back to the waves before them, words coming unbidden to his lips as his heart yearned for something beyond his reach.
“It feels so ancient, though it has barely been two years; the moment since I awoke in that wreckage we are now standing on, born anew through hard work and effort.” He felt Gloria lay at his side, her wing taking the place of her talons over his withers as he continued. “I still remember plenty from before then… yet my time being in this land has passed so quickly, I feel as if I’ll be swept away if I don’t find something to hold fast to.”
“Well…" The hen started, briefly stopping in uncertainty, mulling over her next words carefully before starting again, “you never actually told me about your life before we met.” Gloria spoke softly, wishing to avoid breaking the calm spell that had fallen over them, “You did say that your home was in a terrible war, and that your ship had been defeated by a fleet sent after you by your enemies.”
Kepler inclined his head barely an inch, but the hen still saw it. Inside, his heart clenched with guilt as he kept his eyes on the waters before him, “I did not know who to trust back then. And even now I still don’t, at least for most of the creatures in this land.” He felt a ghost of a smile forming on his lips as he turned to look up at his companion, “But in the time we’ve known each other, I have learned one thing. I can trust you, and because of that I am willing to tell you about my past.”
Gloria’s eyes widened slightly before a smile curled the corners of her beak in return, “You don’t need to tell me anything if you don’t want to, I'm not forcing you. I know personally how difficult it can be to trust others, and I never want you to feel guilt for protecting what you think is important.”
Kepler’s wing had stretched out to overlap with hers, the soft skin and downy fur being slightly ticklish brushing along her long, soft feathers, “But I am protecting something important. I’m protecting the trust we have for each other, and the love that I have for you.”
A soft trill bubbled up within Gloria’s throat as she leaned in to kiss him, quick and soft, but meaningful all the same, “You mean the world to me as well. Thank you for trusting me enough to share your past with me.”
Faintly, a shiver trailed up Kepler’s spine in response to the soft caress of her kiss, which faded just as quickly as the mountain of anxiety he had been feeling before came crashing back down on his heart and mind. He took a few steadying breaths before he spoke again, his eyes staying locked on the horizon to settle his nerves.
Inhaling deeply, he exhaled and stopped for a second, uncertain, then began his tale. “As you already know, I am not of this world." At that she nodded slowly, her eyes gently coaxing him to continue. "I was born in a land similar to your own sans the magic. The people—my people, were the predominant species throughout the land as well as the world. But like you and your neighbors, we were divided by nationhood and ethnicity. Your kind as well as your neighbors, believe it or not, are myths from where I'm from. Nothing but creatures to be told of in fairy tales and legends of heroics.”
Gloria felt her beak fall slightly, “Myths? You mean the races of our world weren’t real?” Kepler nodded slightly. “But how can that be? How does your kind even know about us, in fact, what history does your kind-” at that Kepler hushed her with a hoof to her beak. A small, amused smirk adorning his muzzle.
“It doesn’t really matter.” A sigh escaped his lips, “I can never return there, and you need not worry yourself with details and problems that are literally another world away.”
“Can I ask then instead; what is your kind called and what do they look like? I feel that sounds a bit… insensitive.” She seemed at a slight loss for words, but the context was not lost on Kepler.
“Human.”
“Hoomin?” She repeated.
Her attempt got a soft chuckle out of him as he shook his head, “Not quite. Human, hew-man, is the proper way to say it. And for lack of a better term, we are, I was, at least to some skeptics of religion and haughty intellectuals, a more evolved version of an ape. Though admittedly that is a poor approximation based on our origins. Perish the thought of seeing me or another human running around slinging excrement at one another.”
A laugh, true and pure in sound, emitted from the hen that Kepler shared in the moment. “That does sound rather ridiculous.”
“So… what were they like? I mean, what did you look like? Specifically speaking.” There was an excited, almost childlike wonder in her eyes, one that Kepler found himself helpless to resist.
“Well for starters, we are just like your equine neighbors; we come in all shapes and sizes with varying colors; albeit not so much as the rainbow but rather shades of black, white and gray. We have no fur save for a few places on our bodies; like the head and face, the males being the ones with the fur on our faces with short manes, which are often trimmed and shaved for fashion and comfort, while our females have long manes. We have flat faces, no snouts or beaks, just a wedge and contours for noses, mouth, lips, and ears. We're also tall, standing upright in a bipedal stance.” Gloria's eyes lit up and widened in slight recognition, but she remained silent for the moment, “Hell, if I was still myself here, I wouldn't be at your level but above. I'm actually taller than you by a lot, perhaps twice as much your height on all fours. Save for the dragons, we are taller than most species on this world, at least the ones I’ve seen so far, but there are a fair number of us that are shorter due to deformity or unique heritage acclimated to the various environments of my world.”
“That sounds rather unusual. Are you all bigger in length like you are in height compared to us?” Her exuberance helped to keep his anxiety at bay, the pain of homesickness fading with each word spoken.
“I would say yes, but again, not all of us. Our females are almost always smaller than us males, although that is oversimplifying things greatly.”
Gloria blinked curiously. “What do your females look like?”
Kepler, despite himself, couldn't help but dramatically sigh between chuckles before locking eyes with her, and smiled. “Beautiful… and slim mostly, with shapely figures. But they cannot hold a candle to you and the wonders of this world. As much as I may sing the praises of my old species, there is something… more exotic about the creatures here that captures my eye in ways that no human female ever could.”
“Flatterer.” Gloria teased, cheeks tinting pink for a moment before her expression softened in worry, “So…what happened? How did you end up in a war fighting on your old ship?”
Kepler’s mood soured slightly at the shift in topic but followed the need to return to the original subject. With a forlorn sigh, he began again, memories flashing before his eyes of his younger years, “Technology improved after the last era saw achievements that had never been imagined before then, but at a terrible cost alongside a very tumultuous period; monarchies fell in violent revolts, empires and other civilizations collapsed from reason to reason, many of which because of stagnation, corruption, and others because of tyranny with new powers growing immensely. My people, in nationality, were called the Germans; one of the oldest warrior civilizations in our world that saw everything from ancient to present. We came from an empire that once ruled the mainland as a whole, but we were divided long before my nation came into being. The only thing that helped us believe we weren't completely different, was the fact that in our hearts our shared blood was the same that pumped through our veins like our ancestors before."
"Before the war, the… Great War. My people fell on hard times as the world we knew was not so small, but in reality, dwarfed by other countries. They were greater than us not in number but in power. And by power, I mean something different from the traditional sense of the word. My homeland, my country, my Fatherland as we all started calling it of late, was relatively new as a nation. We were once a part of an older, greater, but now dismantled empire. We were late to the current trend known as colonization. We had colonies, but they were minor in comparison to the ones owned by our neighboring rivals, which historically weakened our influence and eventually left us with little more than the soil we stood upon.”
“The only thing we did have that outshined our rivals was the innate business of all mankind… War."
“Mankind?” Gloria asked.
Kepler blinked, “Ah yeah. Another name for humans, in plural, humanity, man, mankind.”
Gloria nodded, “I see, please continue.”
“Anyway. As I was saying, at the time we were catching up to modern politics but had lost a war a few decades before. My country, which was yet to be, after being humiliated constantly by one of our rival countries named France, broke apart from the great empire we once were. And in the years that followed, lived under their ire and paid a terrible price because of it. Our national pride was gone, the spirit of the people broken beyond repair. But in due time, we learned… and soon became the victors ourselves after trial and error.”
“We got our acts together and pulled together the small pieces that made up our nation. We became a separate entity altogether, our distant so-called allies at the time and brethren both provided and strengthened us. Though we kept France in check, and subdued a few of our other neighboring rivals, this all distracted us from what would've helped us in the long run, economic stability.”
“We were so far gone by that point, our national coffers drained of every resource until there was nothing left but paper, that a stiff breeze would have been enough to collapse what was once a powerful nation. We were on the brink of complete societal shutdown when a single person, a visionary, stepped forward and pulled us back from the brink.”
Gloria was paying rapt attention to his words, his gaze catching her face out of the corner of his eyes and pulling a smile out of him at her gob smacked expression, “He was a true leader of the people, a man who could inspire us and helped to give our country hope again. He proposed a world where all people would live under a single flag. No more wars, no more struggling, no more loss at the hands of greedy and cruel politicians. We were a great nation once, and we could be again. The rallying cry of his campaign lit a fire under the people of my homeland, and it was with a fervent belief in our cause that we set out to right the wrongs that had been committed against us by those that claimed to be on the side of truth and justice. Although there were parts of his beliefs and personality that I did not agree with, such as nationalism bordering on racism, the underlying points that drove our people to be better than we had become still held true. It was why I joined the Kriegsmarine, and why I still hold true to those beliefs even though I am no longer in my world or a part of that conflict.”
The pride and fire in Kepler’s belly dimmed slightly as his wings hung low against his sides, “And everything we did was for our pride… A pride that, in my eyes, was bordering on obsession. Yet through everything we accomplished, all the sacrifices we made, it was not enough. Even with everything we had, and with victory so close we could practically taste it… Our losses began. By the time my ship was serviced, we had run out of steam and were running on fumes. Even minor victories earned us minimal gain but greater costs… My ship was supposed to be an insurmountable force to castrate our enemy’s supply lines at sea, but we were overpowered, and my last moments of life were spent watching as the ship we loved sank beneath the waves, carrying me and the bodies of my fellow crewmates to a watery grave.”
Kepler finally turned back to face his love, tears steadily ran down his cheeks as he tried to keep his voice leveled, “That… was why I asked if you were an angel when we first met… I don’t know what magic brought me and my ship here to this world, but I was supposed to die alongside my comrades, and yet I still live, without a home, my people, my family, and no future to hope for if I cannot make myself useful to those around me.”
The shock on Gloria’s face vanished as she pulled him to her chest, wrapping both forelegs and wings around him tightly as soon as he started to cry into her feathers, “Shh, shh, it’s alright. I honestly don’t know what that could possibly be like, going through all of that. But I do know one thing,” she gently lifted his chin with a claw, smiling down at him as she rubbed his back with her other foreleg, “you wouldn’t be here if you weren’t important. You might not know what brought you to our world, but I don’t care. I love you for the person you are on the inside, not because of the ship you command, or the technology you have given my people. I love Kepler, pony commander of gryphons and changelings, and the stallion that saved my life when he had absolutely no reason to do so. You are kind, brave, strong, and smart. It doesn’t matter to me who you were before or what circumstances led you here. All that matters now is you make the most of what you have been given, and the love you have earned.”
She pressed her beak to his lips again, stronger, and more passionately than before, and Kepler felt more tears running down his face even as he returned the kiss, except these were tears of joy instead of sorrow. They stayed like that for what felt like an eternity, their love helping to heal the hole that had been left unattended in Kepler’s heart for too long, only to be pulled from their moment by the clearing of a throat next to them. Kepler turned his head to see who had interrupted them, his face grimacing into a silent snarl as soon as he saw the female drone that was assigned as his aide stood mere meters from their place on the bow.
“Yes? What is it?” He asked, slightly irritated while also hoping his voice wasn’t going to sound like he had been gargling nails.
“My Queen wished to speak with you,” the drone replied, her demeanor betraying nothing about the position she found them in or her thoughts on the matter, “concerning your orders and the next steps pertaining to the invasion of Equestria.”
Kepler stepped back as Gloria did the same, his expression calming as he nodded, “Let her speak. I need to know what our next move is now that the landing at Manehattan is underway.”
The drone nodded, her eyes shifting to those of her Queen and her lips pulling back into a sinister smile, “Well isn’t this a lovely turn of events.” Her tongue slipped out and ran along her lips as she eyed the two of them, “Young love, and so fresh too. Must you tease me with those delectable emotions?”
Kepler stepped between them as Gloria shivered in response to the Queen’s words, “Get to the point, Chrysalis. We have orders to hear and a mission to get underway, or was your drone merely trying to get our attention so you could needle us with barbed comments with no true point?”
The Queen’s smile left as quickly as it had come, “Very well, but do not forget in the pecking order, little bat. I am a Queen. You are nothing compared to my might, and I could squash you like the little rodent you are if I so choose.”
Kepler stood his ground, even knowing the danger he was putting himself in standing up to the changeling monarch, “And you seem to forget, Your Highness, that I am loyal and answerable only to the Gryphon Empire, and that you're on my ship; therefore, I deserve respect. So kindly take your leave if you don’t have anything important to tell us with your chittering.”
In the blink of an eye, Kepler found himself on his back against the decking, Gloria’s cry of fright cutting off mid-shout as both were enveloped in the Queen’s green magic glow. The stallion struggled against the iron grip pinning him in place as he was held aloft before the changeling, Gloria stood immobilized on the deck behind him as Chrysalis hissed in his face.
“I AM QUEEN CHRYSALIS YOU INSOLENT CUR!” The echoing power behind her shout was enough to rattle Kepler’s brain as his ears folded back in a futile attempt to dampen the thunderous assault. “I HAVE LEVELED MOUNTAINS AND LAID EVEN THE MIGHTY PRINCESS CELESTIA LOW WITH MY POWER! YOU ARE NOTHING TO ME AND WILL SHOW ME THE PROPER RESPECT I DESERVE!”
Kepler wheezed as his airway was constricted by the changeling’s magic but kept his calm even in the face of certain death, “You don’t deserve respect unless it is earned, you insufferable insect.” His voice was little more than a whisper, but his words cut through the air like a knife as the changeling’s furious expression morphed into one of shock, “I earned my place in life through hard work and unimaginable loss. I died for the cause I believed in before I ever knew your kind existed. Only through some magical stupidities do I still live, and it is not for the sake of listening to an ant ramble on about how great she is. I will do my part in this war, make no mistake, but it has always been, and forever will be, MY CHOICE!!!”
Kepler hadn’t even paid attention when the Queen’s magic had cut out, his hooves carrying him up and into her face on their own as he pelted her with his voice’s full strength, “You are nothing compared to the dangers I once faced. You puff and bluster and preen like a peacock, but you have never known death, never seen the hopeless despair of soldiers who know they're about to die, and yet still fight on even against all odds and certain doom. I stand beside you now, fighting a war of my own design for your sake, but don’t ever forget that I do so because I believe your cause is just, not under some deluded sense of duty to a monarch I am not beholden to.”
Kepler leaned forward until his nose was against the drone’s, his eyes like steel as he whispered his final point, “You have only seen a fraction of what I can do. Of what my kind are capable of. You'd never get to see the full extent of my knowledge turned against you… Because you'd already be dead.”
With that, he brushed past the speechless changeling, calling over his shoulder as he went, “Come along, my love. We have a prisoner to go to and see some questions answered. We can hear the King’s orders after we get some information from our wayward princess.”
He didn’t wait to see if his beloved was following, he simply held his head high and kept walking, never once looking back at the changeling he left in his wake, knowing that any retaliation would only prove his point. He was beholden to no one unless he so chose, and the Queen knew it.
Kepler smiled as he heard Gloria’s hurried steps catching up to him as he turned and entered the ship’s superstructure, his hooves taking him below as he contemplated his questions for Twilight Sparkle. Time would tell if they would get anything out of the young royal, but at least for now they didn’t have to worry about a roach infestation mucking up their activities.
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I fucking love is chapter, in so many ways. Amazing job :D if I had any other ways to tell you how amazing this chapter is, I would say it.
Is Kepler the only human from Nazi Germany to appear in this story?
11600576
We dunno yet either! 😅
I wounder if a human from the allies will be in Equestria?🤔
Primarily because i feel that it will elevate the story's drama while putting another solders perspective on the conflict could make for interesting challenge for our protagonist.
Also i would like see the battle field leveled out because i don't like one sided conflicts.😤
11600677
Preferably i would love to see vice admiral Lancelot Halland be given a chance to settle his score with the Bismarck!
What if HMS prince of wales appear on eques too? She was sunk by the japanese on 8th of december 1941 at malaya, whould be interesting if that happen.
Seeing this story have an update always makes me smile.
nicely done, as always
Kepler I must ask, where did you requisition those brass balls of yours my guy?
Damn good reading him give a Chrissy the business
Hitler deserves all the hate he gets but we must repect the nravery of the honest troops in his ranks. Not all.were nazis or ss they fought for their country amd frankly Versailles was wrong. Bismark had an entire fleet go against her and it still took time for her to go down.
And now the tension rises
11600681
No, it would be better if it was Ensign like Kepler. A man who can hate the Bismarck and by extension Kepler for killing him. THAT would be good. 2 people who hate each other but whose stories aren't that different.
Excellent story as always Shadow Quill. I like how you portray Kepler as someone who is a fervent German Nationalist but not a die hard Nazi fanatic. It gives him a sense of historical realism, like how Lincoln disliked slavery but didn't necessarily believe in equality.
no just no it matters a lot I never get how are MC well I do they don't need to for the plot so it never happens but id be trying to find out what happened and how to get back maybe even get my nation an alliance in which case I am going to do my best to show off our best and that includes trying to find out what relationship we have that human knowledge about a race that does not live on earth.
so many questions well mainly 2 also I feel weird trying to think up a situation that helps the nazis in need to go take a shower
11602612
Who's Ensign?
11602615
Lincoln DOES believe in equality only thing is he CAN'T enforce others to think that way.
11605059
An Ensign is the lowest rank of officer. They are above the common soldier and the sergeants but are at the bottom of the military officer hierarchy. I don't think there are Ensigns in the US military but they are essentially the rank most officers started at.
11605060
I have to respectfully disagree. If you look at the history of Lincoln you will see he was very much the white man's president and was constrained by the beliefs of his time. He did believe that all human beings should be treated with respect and dignity but if you were to suggest to him about a black man holding a high ranking office, he probably would have balked at the idea.
11605765
Probably? Then I'm afraid I also have to respectfully disagree. Surely nobody at that time as a black person could actually achieve high ranks in society, but Lincoln, a strong believer of equality and a very moral man with Christian values AND as President of These United States, had been in fact, planning on changing the laws in which a black person can have rights as a citizen and therefore own land and have a position to vote and own in society. He had intended to be the first civil rights president but because he was assassinated, Ulysses S. Grant finished the job. That's why reconstruction happened and that's why everything else that followed after the war. Please don't argue because this is 100% the truth.
11605760
But who is this Ensign you were referring to getting back at Kepler?
11605781
Any Ensign. A random Ensign like Kepler
11605777
Hm, that is true. But reconstruction was, unfortunately never really completed. Grant did try to continue the project but ultimately the end goal was never accomplished in his lifetime due to not enough of the white American population caring. It was really as Lincoln said; 'I'm afraid it will take a hundred years for your people to find equality'
11605787
True. But the impact left behind had the intended effect of changing course for the future.
Man, Kepler is such a compelling antagonist. I like how you avoid making him a stereotypical Nazi and give him some nuance.
Rly inspiring speech if you ignore the fact the visionary was Hitler.
11607390
Here's the thing; Not all members of the Wehrmacht were Nazis, just like how not all Germans during the German Reich's reign were Nazis.
This chapter was great, especially the section where Kepler tells Gloria his past. You really captured the thinking of what I'd assume a German Citizen of that time period would have thought. Why Hitler deserves all the hate he deserves, he did provide hope and rekindled the Pride of the German people. He brought their country back from the brink of collapse and you captured the thoughts of an average citizens very well.
On a lighter note, Chrysalis has no idea the power, strength,
and destruction humanity can bring forth. Its gonna be real funny when she gets her buggy ass kicked by Human Enginuity.
Finally, a protagonist with some proper balls. Kepler is so fun to read about.