Nightmarish Diplomacy

by Dragonborne Fox

Chapter IV— Vision

King Cauchemar didn't really have much to say about Equestria's air vessels. Sure, they did the job, and well enough that he couldn't immediately lodge anything forward, but that wasn't his main concern. Nor was his concern focused on the rather unusual fish motifs the airships were sporting; his homeland had its artistic choices, or lack thereof, regarding their airships, and Equestria had its own designs on that matter. He didn't even raise any hackles about the food served onboard the damned thing as it took him and his entourage to the capital city of the land, which for him may as well have been hor d'oeuvres if that.

No, no. It was that these vessels, for all of their outward beauty and potential garishness, were rather unarmed. He would dare say they were undefended, even. Just the barest smattering of guards ponies, a few per diplomat, and they were as obvious as they could get, with their blinding gold armor and even more blinding white pelts. A few had gray pelts, but those he could count on a single goat's cloven hoof. It would be such a simple task for him and his Champions, really, to disarm the whole lot of them before Equestria even knew what was up.

But that… that would not do. It was not subtle enough for his plans. Furthermore, the airship was undefended with or without the guards. Seizing its helm and declaring a hostage situation was, effectively, a moot point before he'd even dreamt the thought. Crashing and burning it might have been a hilarious fancy at best, and at worst would just wind up upending everything.

And was all of that really worth it for what was basically a civilian vessel dressed in finery?

He snorted to himself, knowing his Champions would wildly disagree with the assessment if he'd brought it up to them, so that was a musing he carefully kept to himself. A pittance, really, but a necessary one.

It wasn't long as he sat in his quarters within the airship, plotting, scheming, that he felt the tell-tale trembling from deep below the gondola, that he knew he had finally touched down. He glanced out the window; it was barely the late evening now, the light coming in from the sun a dimming orange that reminded him of dying embers, shining against an expanse of lush green as far as his eyes could see. At the foot of the plateau's end, just below the airship, rested a quiet, tiny hamlet.

Oh… this was perfect. Too perfect. As far as he was concerned, the nation had just served itself on a silver platter to him.

He stood up, trotting to the door, when it swung open before he could reach it with either his hoof or his magic. His brow arched, only to resettle into a neutral position upon finding the guards assigned to him on the other side. "We've landed in Canterlot," the one to his immediate right, one of the few with a gray pelt, reported. "Princess Celestia's Day Court should be ending briefly, and we will show you to your diplomatic quarters, that is unless you still wish to speak with her before moonrise."

King Cauchemar nodded slowly, and respectfully. "Excellent," he replied. "Do take me and my Champions in that direction."

The guards nodded, and waited for him to step out of the room before flanking him on either side. King Cauchemar didn't say much about that, as he figured it was a cultural courtesy that he would likely understand only after he initiated things. At least they knew their place and weren't treating him like a prisoner, and as the guards escorted him off the airship and into the most garish city he'd ever laid eyes upon, he could say much the same for those chaperoning his Champions.

Even if said Champions had some… opinions about being shown around, however waylaid they had been by the change in scenery for the moment.

Arachno was the first to speak, "This… this city feels oddly over-decorated. And under-decorated at the same time."

Nycto nodded. "It's tacky. My kind of tacky, but it could do with some more red."

Rainy Parade seemed to wince at the sheer overabundance of gold and marble. "Even if I could smile… this would not make me able to appreciate it," she said.

"Too sterile, for my liking," Agora said simply, shaking her head in pity. "A shame that the colors bleed together, too."

Broken Mirror, tacitly, chose not to say anything. King Cauchemar was certain that if he had glanced at her, however, he could easily see her opinions written all over her expression. The same, generously, could also apply to Redsky Morning, for wholly different reasons that he would, internally, agree with on some modicum.

The guards chaperoning them traded some glances amongst themselves. "Yeah… we kinda get that a lot from other nations," one of them said. "Part and parcel of diplomacy, but at least it's not a hassle to get to the guest quarters from here."

"Would you like a pegasus carriage, or head there by hoof?" another guard asked.

"Show us the way; we can follow easily enough," King Cauchemar replied, lifting a hoof to indicate his Champions to shut their traps before the horseshoe fights could start. The winged guards took flight and took point, and lead him and his group to where they needed to go. Sure, they received plenty of odd looks from whatever locals were out and about at this time of day, most of them shying away at the fierce glares Arachno and Broken Mirror had sent their way, and the few bold enough to ask their escorts were simply told the plain truth that they were diplomats who'd just dropped by unexpectedly.

For all of the garishness of the capital city of Canterlot, itself more heavily defended than a diplomatic vessel for reasons Cauchemar would probably never understand, it was a simple affair to get to the castle proper, as the city had been strategically built near the peak of a mountain. This fact, of practically no importance to the locals, served as an uncontested boon for him; that meant limited space, so the buildings had to branch partially outwards on a platform on one side, and left only few narrow, twisting streets and alleys to get lost in, barring whatever guard posts he had glimpsed on his little bout of sightseeing.

Which, in turn, meant that the city itself was stupidly easy to invade if, say, he threw half of the contents of the Nightmarian army at it. The guards had primitive weapons; only horns, spears, wings and weather from what he had glimpsed so far. Furthermore, the city was packed to the gills with civilians, and businesses, meaning if he had wanted to go the route of petty collateral damage, then it was practically free range as far as Canterlot was concerned.

Which, again, begged the question: how was Equestria still standing in spite of these obvious weaknesses? As far as he knew, the other lands of other sapients might have been more technologically advanced, better armed, more suited for prolonged games of numbers and with better, stronger magics. Sure, the gryphons might have had a decline if his scouts' reports last year were to be believed, and the dragons… well, they were dragons, but those two races were the exception rather than the rule from what he had gleaned.

Which made Equestria's continued existence all the more baffling. A nation just didn't sit around and prosper on its laurels alone, and this he knew from experience; it always innovated, always built and expanded, always shoved the weakers and the lessers aside in its bid for domination. Nightmaria didn't just emerge into existence overnight; it was built, by blood, by sweat, by tears, and by iron in those cold wastes, and he'd be damned if anyone told him anything to the contrary.

Regardless… he had an audience with the nation's rulers to attend to, and the guards were leading him right to it. He'd have some semblance of answers soon enough, and then he could send his Champions to that quiet hamlet he had spied with his little eye come the morning.

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Princess Celestia had quite the busy day, though it generally wasn't any busier than her previous days on the throne. From the start of the morning, she had a lot to entertain, in the strictly governmental sense. She had to tell one petitioner from Trottingham that, no, he couldn't build a bridge from his district outwards into gryphon territory, as that might have constituted an invasion. Blueblood, she had to tacitly remind, once again this month, that he couldn't build a new spa resort without several licenses and ensuring his contractors were also licensed. Most of the suggestions of the other petitioners she had gently turned down as well, a few she entertained for the moment, making mental notes to comb through and address those ones later, and so forth. A princess's work was never done.

She was now watching the remnants of the busy day trickling off into the sunset, alongside the few remaining petitioners of her Day Court who had finally aired their grievances and generously allowed themselves to leave her castle. The remnants were of a gaggle leaving in something of an organized, huffy fashion to attend to the matters of the night. Lately, though, she'd caught rumors that had unusually started with the morning and strangely originated from Manehattan of all places—unverified ones that she sadly couldn't investigate because matters of the Equestrian state of government sadly necessitated that she keep her keister parked for the moment. But the rumors were odd, ranging from inhospitable climes in the far, far Northern reaches, filled with strange, wondrous machinery and even stranger equines, who as far as rumor went didn't have cutie marks, insofar as she could glean.

Yet… she knew what these particular rumors pertained to. She was no fool; a part of her royal duties, after all, was to comb meticulously through Equestria's own history, ensure that it remained factually correct, or else have her own follies blindside her. While history was, usually, written by the winners in most cases, she abhorred that practice, and the first thing she had ever done upon ascending the throne was to pass a mandate which codified into law that history be told in as truthful and unbiased fashion as possible. Alas, the history of the continent that Equestria existed upon was far more vast, further reaching than even the nation's history itself—a fact that infuriated her, due to the simple microcosm of her scholars only looking as far back as the Founding and no further than that.

Mainly, and this small fact threatened to give her an aneurysm whenever she so much as entertained the thought, was because the scholars of yore and present had foolishly, incompetently assumed that Equestria had no history to speak of until the Founding. As if the landmass was uninhabited, as if it was just… there.

The truth of the matter was… well, it wasn't so black and white as even the fussy nobility of the land would have liked to admit. Granted, the whole wedding fiasco was entirely unplanned by her hoof, and the perpetrators were a race who were rather notorious through slipping into all manner of cracks, and thus she could not have anticipated the sheer ruckus that would have ensued if things had skewed in a completely different direction.

She was pretty sure the documents that detailed the falls of Trot and Timbucktu had been penned and exhaustively detailed, describing the threat the changelings posed back then and in the present, but last she checked the scholars had hardly bothered to study the damned things. The scholars also knew about Tirek, because it was well known he'd been sealed in Tartarus, but generally didn't bother delving into his motivations and powerlust even when it was known he came from another nation. Similarly, they'd written Discord off as a lost cause, for pretty much the same reason. They would have written off Nightmare Moon, Princess Luna's alter ego, but once her sister caught wind of that, she stormed over to the scholars' learning spaces to promptly tear strips of their hide off for it, metaphorically speaking.

Truthfully, and she'd never admit this out loud, but that day… was fairly entertaining. For all of the wrong reasons. Hopefully, the scholars would take the hint and knock the dust off of more ancient and venerable tomes to do some more historical studying.

In short, and she had painstakingly ensured as much, the history of the continent even before the nation was founded was compounded. Cataloged. Stretching on scrolls upon exhaustive scrolls, all written in ancient Ponish, that could be now easily translated thanks to the efforts of evolving linguistics. It was right there, practically free for the taking, all there for the ponies of Equestria to learn from, some parts of it in the school curriculum for everypony to read even… and they drew some pretty heavy lines about what they were willing to learn. Granted, a few were willing to learn beyond what their peers had considered 'acceptable knowledge,' but the souls in between the years were few, far between, always drowned out by those who just wanted to plug their heads in the sand and neighsay everypony else in the immediate vicinity. Sadly, she herself was not immune to said neighsayers, as much as she would have liked to be.

And one did not simply sit on a throne for at least a thousand years, letting their brains gather dust and wool—such was the folly of immortals of the past, and such was a folly that she avoided like blazing neon signs strung up over a red light district. Such behavior was effectively tantamount to a death sentence; a state of lollygagging performed only by the then-to-be damned. Many would have liked to assume she did, but she was nothing if not meticulous in her subtle bits of knowledge gathering.

So it was, when the guards came in after the Day Court finished filtering out with concerned faces did she rise from her seat and approach them. One look at their expressions told her that something big just planted its horseshoes upon her doorstep. Yet, she still had to ask as she turned to a specific guard, "What ever is the matter, Lance-Corporal Fleetwind?"

Fleetwind gave a salute, but his worrying expression lingered. Moreover, his raised hoof briefly trembled with his motion. "We have an arrival of unforeseen diplomats," he reported. "They are an entourage consisting of a King and his most powerful subjects; they call themselves the Nightmarians, Your Highness."

Immediately, Celestia's wings ruffled, but only subtly enough to briefly shift her feathers in a soundless fashion that Fleetwind had to take a moment to notice had even occurred. "Bring Princess Luna at once, if she's not already on the way," she said. "Furthermore, bring the Nightmarians into this room."

Fleetwind's eyes went wide. "Y-your Highness?" he stammered.

"Bring the Nightmarians into this room," Celestia repeated, firmly but gently. "If they have dropped by unexpectedly, I will need to establish diplomatic relations with them at once."

"... y-yes, Your Highness," Fleetwind replied after a moment. "I-I shall send one of the guards for Princess Luna." With that, he turned and left the Court, though not before informing the other guards outside of the Court to do what Celestia had told him and them by extension. Celestia drew in a deep breath, calming herself as some part of her anticipated the fireworks launching directly in her face.

And, in hindsight, it was relatively easy for her to detect the makeshift firework fountains that then trotted into her Court. Worse was the fact that she could see the hindsight glaring at her in the face pretty much immediately, when usually that sort of thing would make secondary rounds after the fact.

If Princess Luna caught wind of this hindsight before things even concluded, Celestia mused to herself, she would have been in a riot shortly afterwards. Truthfully, were that to happen, she'd have her sister practically dead to rights about it, too.

Regardless, she only took quick-second glances at those gathered before her, and their postures, before introducing herself with a low bow, one that King Cauchemar reciprocated. "Well met," she said. "I am Princess Celestia, and my sister Luna should be here shortly."

"Likewise," King Cauchemar replied smoothly. "King Cauchemar, Your Majesty." He held out a hoof to, once more, halt the bickering that would have ensued between his Champions as soon as he rose, before shaking Celestia's hoof when she had offered it.

He took an additional moment to scan the room; there were seats stretching on either side of the room, in three rows for petitioners to sit in, each with a marked placard for those who held their sessions in Day Court, and a separate, but identical one for those who used those same seats for the Night Court. The seat from which Celestia had risen earlier was at the far end of the room, a motley collection of about three chairs from which she and her fellow royalty could oversee the entire shooting match. The central chair, illuminating orange with a sun motif, glowed briefly before its colors and patterns changed to the cool navy skies and the moon they housed. The room was somewhat stuffy for his tastes, with an overuse of celestial body motifs in the walls and ceiling, but not unexpected given whom he was looking at and talking with at the moment.

"Ah… don't mind the chair," Celestia said with a warm smile. "It's been enchanted to do that since Luna's return."

King Cauchemar nodded. He had to admit, a chair with that kind of designated purpose and enchantment could have very well been useful in his homeland. Mainly, so his Champions knew when it was their turn to speak; they answered to him, after all. Eh, he could dwell on that whole ruckus later. Right now, he had to keep calm and engage with Celestia.

Heh, 'engage.' The word had wholly different connotations in Nightmaria, but even he was well aware the word itself had multiple meanings. "It is quite alright," he said, smirking subtly, without showing teeth. "I suppose we can exchange some… idle banter about our respective lands as we wait for your sister."

His Champions watched, ears all perked in unison. While they would never admit it to each other, much less themselves, they were all very interested in how this banter would go. They knew better than to speak over their King as he went back and forth with Celestia, and they were eager to see where he would steer the conversation.

"Ah, of course," Celestia said with a placid smile. "You had dropped by, with an entire entourage, rather unexpectedly. I do suppose we can have a small talk about how our lands differ from one another."

Good. Good. King Cauchemar felt his internal glee rising. Celestia was playing right into his hooves. Yet, a part of him knew, very well, that maybe she had done so intentionally—as was befitting her station of a ruler who had seemingly idled a little too long on her throne. Maybe she had made a habit of this, he rationalized to himself—make the enemy think they had won by capitulating to their demands or something, and then blindside them with something else entirely to snatch her own victory from the jaws of seeming defeat. Sooner or later that habit was going to bite her, but right now it was just a passing fancy in his eyes.

An underhoofed tactic if he'd ever noticed one. An underhoofed tactic that he could somewhat appreciate, and at least make additional plans for if push came to shove, one that he would bring to his Champions' collective attention before the next day had announced itself at the earliest. He could feel the words moving the proverbial chess pieces in his mind, at a speed few could comprehend.

"So, what is your nation like?" Celestia asked, seeming to lead the conversation. "I had heard… rumors, though I've not been able to verify anything due to unforeseen circumstances, most of which would rather see me remain within the nation as of late. Mostly, pertaining to machinery within the Frozen North, all unverified of course—and if at all possible, I would like to see those rumors, ah, put out to pasture as it were."

A fair point, Cauchemar had to admit. Such were the burdens of those with the crowns on their heads, a burden he knew all too well. Any ruler, of any capacity, who didn't admit to having this burden was either marked a fool or an incompetent in his homeland, and these days the terminology of both words was really interchangeable. And if Celestia wanted information, so be it; no amount of knowledge would prepare her for the inevitable, should the talk fall through, given what little of Equestria's technological advancements he had seen within his first few hours of the land.

For now, he was all too happy to divulge some information about his homeland. "Well… the machinery, as much as it is for war, is also an eternal engine that keeps the inhabitants of Nightmaria warm and secure every night," King Cauchemar said. "It is powered by our own unique blend of magic, the scholars and researches of which solidify it and infuse it with coal and ores dug up from beneath those same frozen climes to act as a fuel catalyst. Every facet of Nightmarian life, from the most downtrodden civilians to myself, my Queen, and our Champions—" Which he indicated with a raised hoof in short order. "—is accompanied by, somewhat empowered, but never overtaken by our technology. Well… save for my two most elite guards, Trypo and Nocti, who are likewise back home at the moment."

He then gestured to Agora specifically. "Barring the exception of my Champion of Technology, of course," he said, a wry and dry smirk on his face as Agora smiled very briefly in a measured dose of pride. "Agora furthers technological advancements within Nightmaria, for the betterment of all within our seemingly inhospitable land. With the betterment, though, comes… a few fine lines even we wouldn't dare to cross. None of us are omniscient, after all, and the burdens of such would quickly wear away our minds."

"Similarly, my other Champions fulfill important governmental functions on a scale comparable to Agora: medical research, surveillance, economics, law enforcement, military upkeep, research and maintenance, magical affairs, diplomacy…" King Cauchemar's hoof wandered to each of the other Champions, and Celestia noted that for each point rattled off, the hoof seemed to jump between them multiple times. "Truly, they are a marvel to have. Without them, not even a quarter of the work would get done within Nightmaria." Each Champion beamed from the compliments, to varying extents… not that Celestia didn't catch the whole lot of them side-glaring at each other a moment later.

Celestia knew better than to ask just why King Cauchemar brought over his best and brightest Nightmarians for this little meeting, especially since at least one of them was in charge of affairs pertaining to diplomacy. She did, however, hedge a few guesses privately… some of which set alarm bells ringing in her head as soon as those guesses announced themselves. Furthermore, she reasoned, said best and brightest would have seen to it that systems were in place to function without them whilst they were gone; any nation worth its salt would have had such security measures in place or else risk collapsing on itself. Besides, asking that question would have only brought trouble as a perceived insult, and she rarely had the time for even veiled jabs that did little else but flare tempers into outright war.

"That truly does sound wonderful," she said with a gentle smile, though not in a tone that would imply a mother talking to a child who had invented a whole make-believe kingdom. "If half of the nobility here was as bright as your Champions, and put their knowledge towards the betterment of Equestria, I would find myself in a position to say much the same about them." Her head sadly shook. "Alas… the nobility willing to do that are of a diminishing mindset and breed as of late… and these days, the ones who have their heads stuck in the sand seem to be running roughshod whenever I am away from even the capital." Her expression turned into one of pity. "Every time disaster seems to strike, they're usually nowhere to be seen… and they always mysteriously turn up again as soon as the dangers have passed."

King Cauchemar's ears perked. He affected a mournful expression of his own, even as he privately squared away that confession to use for later. "That is most unfortunate," he agreed somberly. "I do wonder whatever could have happened to cause them to behave in such a ghastly manner…" A nobility that would rather fund their lifestyles than better their country? Silver platter weakness right there, and he'd just need to find the accompanying silver spoon to jab into it for some poetic irony.

Then again, much the same could be said of any long-lived nation whose nobility would rather turn their snouts up in the air, he mused to himself. As was true of any nation, their fall often came from degradation stemming within, rather than outside forces. Any nation that fell before reaching that state of affairs, he wagered, had simply formed in the wrong place at the wrong time.

After all… that had lead to the initial fall of the Three Tribes that would migrate and form Equestria, didn't it?

So he shifted the topic a bit, to resettle for another question, "And what of… military advancements here? Surely, something could have been done—still done, I would dare say—about such matters."

An odd question to be sure, and one that had Celestia's ears perking. "Ever since Luna's return, I had been putting in some work to reform the royal guards as best as I was able. I have noticed, Equestria is lagging a fair bit behind on some other nations; the minotaurs of Asterion, for instance, have more advanced fighting styles, weapons, and techniques than my own nation does," she replied, her eyes drifting to Agora, who was idly checking out one of her hooves.

"For instance," Celestia continued, "the military of Asterion has this wondrous device called a woolgatherer; it sounds benign, but it actually dismantles spells by drawing in their magic into them to render retaliation useless—it even repurposes magic channeled by unicorns, pegasi, and earth ponies all at once! I have tried to formulate counters to that device, but the nobility would not hear of it, saying that they could just throw magic at it to hopefully overload it! I can, presume, much the same is true of Nightmaria itself, by that same token."

King Cauchemar nodded. While Celestia hadn't been putting in enough effort with her guards for his liking, given what he had seen so far… maybe, he surmised, the effort was only truly starting to gather steam. A wasted effort for sure, but given the stubborn nobility… maybe she had a few more roadblocks than she was letting on. And that also caused him to make mental notes to himself to check out Asterion at a later, more opportune time, to see if these woolgatherers were as effective as Celestia said they were. If they could counter the ponies of Equestria, it stood to reason that maybe they could also counter Nightmarian magics, as unlikely as the notion was.

Either way, a delicious tidbit of information for certain, though some part of him hedged that maybe Celestia was pulling his tail with that one. He didn't even need to glance behind himself to confirm his Champions had also taken that one to heart; the only confirmation he needed was a few shuffling of hooves to reach his ears as his Champions held another brief glaring contest amidst their own fractured counsel.

At that point, the doors to the Court opened again, and Fleetwind returned with Princess Luna in tow. "Apologies, Your Highness," he said with a salute. "I had to take an additional moment or two to brief Princess Luna on recent events."

Celestia turned to Fleetwind with a smile, and watched as her younger sister trotted up to her with a confused look on her face, though Luna did pause to shake Cauchemar's hoof before she could pass him. "You are excused for the truancy, Lance-Corporal Fleetwind. You are dismissed for the evening," she said, and with that, he turned around and closed the doors behind him.

Celestia then took a moment to, quickly, brief Luna on what she had discussed with their guests, which Cauchemar allowed as a basic courtesy considering she had likely only been told that he and his gaggle were present without the why of the equation. He held out another hoof to halt any further bickering from Agora and the others, and was internally surprised when he heard that Celestia hadn't embellished anything to her sister, much less omitted the information with him in front of her.

"The Frozen North…?"

"Yes."

"And they settled there…?"

"Certainly."

"Wondrous technology… solidified magic…?"

It took a few moments for Luna to get succinctly caught up on everything, and Cauchemar had to admit, few rulers of any nation would be bold enough to do something like this with diplomats practically within horseshoe sandwich reach. Celestia wasn't being sneaky about it, either, a minute concern that briefly had alarm bells singing in his head before he forcibly quelled them. Less words for him to use to catch somepony up, and hey, that was another boon he readily took as it allowed him to gauge in the minute ways that Luna had differed from her sister.

However, he was able to verify the reports that his scouts had sent him at least, pertaining to these two. They seemed… plush, honestly, and not in any negative connotations that didn't pertain to full-on fisticuffs. Within the perambulations of said fisticuffs, however, well… their legs were lanky for starters, with just enough muscle to support their larger-than-average-pony frames and no more besides, with wings likewise big enough to support them in flight given their height.

Furthermore, they were nowhere near as armored as he was, and he made sure to armor himself pretty lightly for this whole diplomacy thing—he maintained his horseshoes, his leg-plates, his reinforced cape-saddle and barding, and of course, his two-horned crown—his obsidian pearl necklace wasn't armor, due to the brittleness of the material, and really only counted as an ornamental jewelry. He idly lifted a hoof to touch the necklace, a gift from his beloved Queen… and some part of him already longed to be with her again. Oh well; once business here concluded, he could make time for her again, he mused.

The sisters, on the other hoof, treated their armor more as jewelry than anything worthwhile to wear almost at all times—just their crowns, shoes, and rather sparse barding seemed important enough to continuously wear and no more besides. Furthermore, the metals used in their sparse armor consisted of silver and gold—weak metals that wouldn't have held a candelabra to even the slightest alloys made of bronze in the field of combat. In his homeland, gold and silver served some purposes, yes… but their ornamental value came secondary to their primary function of keeping the other nasties around Nightmaria outside of his kingdom.

Something in his mind mused that these two survived enough assassination attempts between them to forgo the armor entirely and just be passively saying 'hey, look at us, our necks are exposed!' before then taking the would-be assassin to task. No other explanation would suffice in his mind; that was his revelation, and he was sticking to it. His Queen would surely get her kicks out of that one when he reported that to her.

Some part of him internally snickered at the thought.

But the reverie was cut short once Celestia had finished catching her sister up, and turned her attention, once again, upon Cauchemar. "So, would you like me to tell you about Equestria? After all, you did share information on your homeland," she said.

King Cauchemar grinned. "After I retire my Champions to their guest quarters for the night," he said, before turning to his six. "Go take a rest, and have the guards here see you to your quarters if you need to do so. I'll reconvene with you on the morrow." The six did not fuss to him, and immediately obliged him, trotting out of the Court to do as they were bid. Some fussing occurred outside the doors, probably the Champions finding a guard to escort them as needed, and then silence and some semblance of normalcy settled.

"I presume they have had a long day," Luna noted as an aside, to which Cauchemar nodded. Even he had to admit, those six… were something of a hoofful.

"Any more time spent clustered together within the same room, and they just might have started a spat," Cauchemar said. "They… how do I say this delicately… don't get along. I brought them here to see how… the average ponies here conduct themselves on a daily basis—the Champions are fairly rich, you see, and sometimes forget the struggles of the less fortunate. A change of scenery just seemed like something the doctor had ordered, so to speak." A half-lie, he had to admit, albeit one that sadly had basis in Nightmarian reality. Thus, the omission of the more unsavory details would suit his purposes just fine here. The blowout between the six would come anyway; better let the Equestrians see that fireworks' showing for themselves.

Princess Celestia nodded. Even she, for all of the foolishness that was real and perceived by Cauchemar, could tell that the powder keg would have tipped anyway, and so did not raise any objections to it. So she entertained her guest with tales of how his homeland and hers had differed, chiefly the fact that her nation had a 'throwing hooves as an absolute last resort' policy, as they would have preferred to garner strength and allies through befriending them, than clobbering them into submission with overwhelming military might.

Eventually, though, the talk did wear Cauchemar down, and he too had to retire to his diplomatic guest quarters for the night. Celestia and Luna watched him trot out of the Court, evidently amused with the tales they had traded with one another. A pity that he hadn't revealed to them whether he wanted to forge ties with Equestria that night, but his presence gave the two an excuse to have the Day and Night Courts take a day off on the morrow so they could hash out those fine details.

As soon as Cauchemar had departed towards his bed, Celestia would turn to nuzzle her sister… and pause as her mind flashed with images not forged from even her own memories, her face and gaze going blank as she was, for lack of a better term, assaulted by something she could only call dark and foreboding. Luna's own expression shifted to match her sister's as she, too, beheld the same terrible sights that neither could really see with their eyes… but instead with their hearts.

Impossible ships, both naval and aerial, coming from the North, clad in ice and blazing magic unlike any Equestria had seen—a foreboding presence, wrought of a dark design that did not house anything remotely friendly. Flying ponies, looking like the earth ponies but with their hooves ablaze, wearing impossibly advanced armor, wielding an impossible branch of magic the nation was wholly unprepared for. Falling thunder, striking blizzards, the sky falling cataclysmically.

Impossible reparations being demanded of all of their little ponies, reparations that they had no knowledge about and could not carry out… because that fault never truly lied with them, but rather, their ancestors of yore. Blood debts upon blood debts being reclaimed, forcibly repaid… at the helm of it all, the very King with whom they had engaged in pleasant conversation not moments ago.

And the harrowing memories finished off with a tableau of the land their nation called home, now forever reduced to ash, before rewinding itself as if going back through time to the one thing that would trigger this cataclysm: six odd, but otherwise unassuming Nightmarians who loathed each other entirely, boarding a train headed for Ponyville. The sisters gasped, recoiling as their eyes refocused and they remembered where they were. They had to take a moment to catch their breaths, shake off enough uneasiness to then act.

Celestia was the first to speak, and Luna didn't raise any objections as she said, "... Twilight. I need to write a letter to Twilight. I need to warn her that danger is headed her way, and for her and her friends to be on guard." She acted immediately, summoning a scroll and quill with a flash of her horn, and an inkwell to write with as she hastily scratched out her dire warning to Twilight before enchanting it and sending it on its way once she and Luna had read it over once to make sure the message had been conveyed.

Well within the night, about to head to bed in a crystalline castle that could have only come from a fairytale dream, a princess received a letter from her peer, announced by way of dragonfire. Any questions as to why she had received a letter died in her throat as she opened the scroll, which bore only a few short words. The more she studied the harried writing, the otherwise immaculate hoofwriting that she decided was authentic… the more alarmed she grew.

The only question she could ask… was what had prompted Celestia to write this out to her? It had the royal wax seal; it mustn't have been a fluke… was it?

CATACLYSM ARRIVES IN A SIXFOLD FEUD. THEIR METHODS DARK, THEIR ENMITY ACCRUED. ONE TINY SPARK CONFLATES INTO WAR. FIND THE KEG, LET NOT THIS FLAME SOAR.

-PRINCESS CELESTIA

Comments

[I Question That]

Interesting. I like how even after seeing that vision/prophecy they’re still smart enough to know that a hard rejection of the “bickering six” might be just as wrong as passively accepting them (maybe even another way of causing the destruction) and instead give the advice of “Don’t let it flare up into war.”