Chapter 3: The Prince and The Palace
To say the palace was in a bad state would be an understatement. The outside of the palace walls was absolutely caked with debris, and erosion almost comparable to Weald's Wall that blocked Cervus off from the rest of the world. Overgrown gardens surrounded the sides of the path leading up to it, though a collapsed tower quickly stopped any further progress towards the front door.
Elegantly carved stonework walls were simply ruined by the passing of time, left as nothing but rapidly disintegrating bricks. Ancient bulwarks and bastions were torn down not by enemies to the once, in ancient times, proud deer, but by wind and rain. Guards in silver plate armor, emblematic of knights, were left standing in random positions staring off into the sky or down at the ground in downcasted states with nothing to their name but ruined armor and shattered antlers.
Applejack let out a whistle as she looked around. "I ain't ever seen a more ruined castle in my life."
"Yeah..." Rainbow Dash replied, looking up at the tower blocking their forward movement. "Even the castle in the Everfree was better put together than this place."
Twilight shook her head, ignoring what her friends were saying. Hey, at least now there was some conflict for her to overcome. She straightened her back.
"Look alive girls," she said, smiling slightly. "We need to get past this and inside."
She was stopped by Applejack tapping her on the shoulder. She turned to her friend only to see her pointing off to the right. Following her hoof, she visibly sagged as he eyes came face to face with a pony-sized hole that lead into the palace proper, right next to a guard who was repeatedly headbutting the wall.
Twilight let out a sigh, before turning to her friends. "Are you sure we can't try to get in through the front door?" She asked, causing them to shake their heads.
"I mean... this is far easier," Rainbow said, already walking towards it.
Twilight was quiet, looking over to Applejack, who merely shrugged and followed after the pegasus. The alicorn bent over slightly, sighing as she did. "I'm never going to have a fun adventure am I?"
She was quick to catch up to them, stepping through the doorway. Twilight herself took a second to pause, staring at the guard who hadn't even noticed them, and just kept repeatedly and rather harshly smashing his head into the wall. She grimaced as she passed him, taking a second to cast a spell on the wall to make it far softer, like that of a pillow.
The deer didn't seem to notice as he just kept giving himself a worse and worse headache. Her grimace widened, but she didn't want to risk confrontation and so merely walked right past him into the palace.
She almost immediately wished she hadn't. The smell of rotten wood forced itself into her nose, smelling like old mushrooms. She almost immediately covered her nose to allow her to look around. The floors were very obviously where the smell was coming from. What once had been a beautifully polished white pine-wood floor had been ruined by water damage becoming a breeding ground for moss and mold. Dust bunnies the size of ponies filled the corners of the room, while the ceiling was crisscrossed by hundreds of cobwebs that formed a rather horrifying image that made the princess shiver.
There was barely any light to be seen, baring that which came through holes in the roof and walls like the one they were currently standing in. It gave the room a creepy atmosphere, almost like they were in a haunted house. It sent a shiver down Twilight's spine. It took her a full minute of scanning the devastation before she finally focused on figuring out just where they were. It appeared to be some kind of antechamber filled with destroyed paintings and collapsed furniture, chairs, and couches mostly.
Twilight hesitantly took a step forwards, the wood creaking under her step. She quickly pulled her leg back when she heard a loud squeaking as mice quickly clawed their way out from cracks surrounding where she had stepped. The three ponies let out a slight scream as the mice scattered in all directions, finding new holes to hide in.
After a couple of moments, Twilight dared to take another step forwards. No mice this time. She let out a sigh. That was good at least.
"How the hay can anycreature live like this?" Applejack asked mouth ajar.
"We don't live. We just wait until we die." A voice in the dark suddenly made them all jump in unison. Twilight quickly turned, shining a light at a deer standing in a darkly lit corner, staring blankly ahead. The deer was wearing a tuxedo-like suit with dozens of holes in it, as if moths had eaten the cloth while he was still wearing it. A bow tie sat untied around his neck, while stains and dust clung to the white undershirt he was wearing, making it look more grey than anything. Applejack couldn't help but think that Rarity would have had a heart attack staring at him.
"Could you stop pointing that light directly in my eyes please?" The deer responded, not even flinching as Twilight's horn flashlight passed right over one of his pupils. She quickly dropped her spell.
"Right, sorry," Twilight said, dropping her spell instantly.
The three mares walked slowly into the room, careful to not disturb any more nests of mice. Twilight straightened her back slightly. "So... I think I know what you're going to say, but... can you lead us to the throne room? We would like to talk to your prince." She said, pursing her lips slightly.
"Yeah sure. But only because it's my job." The deer said, stepping out from the corner and stomping forwards, uncaring of the squeaking boards and scattering rodents. Twilight and the others awkwardly locked eyes before slowly following after him through a rotten doorway and into a hallway.
The deer merely kept walking along, not trying to spark up a conversation or anything as they moved down a wooden floored hallway, rotten paintings along the walls flanked by empty scones, unfathomably old burned-out candles sitting on several of them.
"So... I couldn't help but overhear what you said earlier... about just waiting to die. That's kind of dark." Rainbow said trying to spark up a conversation.
"Well, it's the truth. Not like anything we do matters." The Deer sighed, speeding up slightly in a vain attempt to get away from the pegasus.
"Hey, everything you do matters. Maybe not in the grand scheme of things but I'm sure it matters to someone out there." Twilight started before the deer spun around with a slight hiss.
"Look, I am not taking that from the magical horse who has a special butt tattoo that makes them better than everyone else. What's your's for huh? Being the best magician in existence or something?" The deer roared, poking her in the chest.
Twilight couldn't help but stare in stunned amazement, alongside her friends.
"The throne room is the door to the left. Bye." He yelled, stomping away, mumbling to himself under his breath. "Stupid alicorns. Stupid ponies. Stupid magic. Probably think you're better than us huh?"
The deer stomped up to a nearby door. "Well you're right!" he shouted before slamming the door behind him, making the entire hallway rattle.
The three ponies stood there for a second, half worried the entire building was about to collapse, half still in a state of shock.
"That was... something," Rainbow said. Twilight shook her head and sighed.
The throne room was in a similar, perhaps even worse, state of disrepair than the hallways. Rubble and ruins along the floor. A ruined red carpet sat over a checkerboard tile floor, coated in dust and with many of the tiles shattered or in some cases completely missing. Eroded and ruined statues sat along the wall, many missing antlers, heads or legs and even more just completely collapsed over. Twilight could only assume they were of past Princes who must have ruled in ages past. Twilight wondered if any of the deer even remembered their names.
Overall, the room looked downright pitiful, and it certainly didn't help that they came in through a side door rather than the intended main entrance. Turning their heads to said main entrance revealed two grand double doors loosely hanging off their hinges, one of them completely collapsed to the ground. Staring out past the ruined doors, revealed the other side of the collapsed tower that had blocked their passage earlier, and another overgrown garden.
The two turned their heads the other way to see the throne, with a certain deer sitting in it. He was horribly thin, as if he hadn't eaten in days, with a silver circlet sitting around his head, a light blue diamond sitting just on his forehead. Aside from that, he wore a tattered and ruined white suit and a white overcoat. The deer was doing nothing aside from staring up at the ceiling, blinking every so often as he lounged in a mostly stone throne with a couple of dusty ruined cushions sitting on it, and an entire armrest collapsed to the ground next to him.
Twilight looked at her fellow ponies before turning her gaze back to the deer prince. She cleared her throat, before approaching him quietly.
"Greetings. Are you Prince Forester?" She asked straightening her back slightly and spreading her wings.
The Deer in question merely rolled his head instead of moving his neck so he could look at her from a slightly crooked position.
"Who else could I be?" He sighed, staring down at her. "Let me guess, Equestria is here to try to replace me? Good luck ruling this place. I tried."
The deer struggled to get out of his throne, giving up about halfway through with a sigh.
"No no, not at all. We are here to help you is all." Twilight said, sitting back and waving her hooves through the air.
"Help us? Help us with what?" Forester asked, raising an eyebrow. He turned to one of the many guards in the room, who were milling about uselessly. "Are we under invasion or something?"
"I doubt it, sir. If we were they probably would have conquered us already with like, zero difficulties." The guard sighed, looking down. "Cause, ya know, we're useless."
Forester sighed, sinking even further into his throne. "Yep."
"No, we've been sent by a magical map-" She was interrupted by a scoff.
"Oh yeah, Magic. Everything with you horses has to be magic doesn't it." The prince snarled slightly.
Twilight chose to ignore the sarcasm. "...-to help you reverse the collapse of your nation."
The prince's eye twitched as he instantly sat up in his chair, staring down at the three ponies with intensity. Twilight's eyes widened for a second before the prince let out a sigh and instantly sagged back down. Instantly she pursed her lips.
"As I said. Good luck with that. We're a lost cause. We have literally nothing. No culture, no history, no religion. And even if we did yours would just blow ours out of the water every time. Why don't you just return to your 'magical map' and find some other adventure to do? One that's actually important." He sighed, propping a head up on a hoof as he stared up at the room's roof, complete with a shattered skylight, miserably.
"The map doesn't send us on adventures we can't solve," Twilight said, frowning slightly. "So we are here to help you fix your kingdom. One of the Deer we ran into on the way here explained how you wanted to fix the issues gripping your kingdom. I know you don't want to just spend the rest of your life sitting there on your throne waiting to die."
Rainbow and Applejack both cringed slightly when they saw Forester's eye twitch again.
"Twilight, maybe you should-" Applejack started before Forester let out a guffaw, instantly causing his guards to turn their heads to him wide-eyed.
"Did the prince just..." One of them said, turning to another.
"I haven't heard a sound like that in years..." The other responded, blinking slightly.
The prince sat up in his chair, bags under his eyes. "Look, I get it. You are a super special magical alicorn. You've had your whole life planned out and always get to go on all these life-changing adventures where you beat up the alicorn who's keeping the moon in the sky or stopping a god of chaos from ending the world. Can't stand the idea of a bunch of little deer stumping you because they gave up on life and it's partially your fault." Forester hissed, standing up out of his chair. "Well, you can't help us. Cervus is dead. Our kingdom's been a stain on the planet since we first started. All we exist to be is to be a fun little map filler people see when they study geography. That's it. We aren't magical. We aren't ponies. We aren't a part of the story. So the best we can do is sit back and die so the important people can have our land instead. Capiche?"
Twilight stomped forwards. "That just isn't right! No one exists for no reason! Harmony and the magic of friendship can exist in any creature!"
"And there it is! The preaching! Friendship isn't magic! It's just a relationship! If it was, don't you think we would have had something before we collapsed? Huh? No! Instead, we've had nothing! Period! And you Equines get to exist in the most perfect land on the planet! You get all the magic! You get all the gold and gems! You get all the powerful artifacts! You get a good culture! You get the moon and sun!" Forester roared, slamming down a hoof. "I tried so hard to try to get my people to move on from that. I tried so hard to make them develop a new culture! A new way of life! I did everything I could and instead, you horses had to destroy it all at the last moment! You just had to save the world again!"
"Then let us help you try again!" Twilight roared back, igniting her horn. "We can help you make a new culture. We can help you move on and find your place in the world!"
Forester stopped, his breathing heavy. He turned to his soldiers in the room, who only stared at him, wide-eyed, a couple of them smiling slightly.
"Guards!" he held up a hoof. "Get them out of my sight!" He shouted as said hoof dropped to point down at them. Instantly the deer guards lowered into combat poses, though their antlers were scratched and armor ruined.
Twilight took a step back her eyes widened as she found herself back to back with Rainbow and Applejack, each facing a different set of guards who were slowly marching towards them, heads lowered.
"Finally! Some action!" Rainbow grinned, smirking as she took to the air, hovering above the ground with hooves raised.
Applejack by contrast lowered herself, preparing her back legs for her signature mighty buck. "You've really done it now, sugar cube." She sighed, gritting her teeth.
Twilight frowned, readying some powerful, but entirely non-lethal, combat spells as she looked at the deer who were rapidly surrounding her.
"This might be tough." She grunted. "But try not to hurt them. We are here to help them remember?"
Then she sprung forwards towards the guards, Rainbow and Applejack doing the same. Forester's eyes widened as he watched as Rainbow was the first to bridge the gap, effortlessly slamming into the deer guards and knocking them aside like bowling pins. Those that were still up desperately tried to bridge the gap, only for them to be knocked down by punches and kicks going at supersonic speed, which they had a less than zero chance of stopping.
Applejack was just as powerful. Almost a dozen deer guards tried to tackle her to the ground, but she merely shrugged it off, as if she barely felt it. With a single movement, she kicked them all off her, sending the cervids spiraling through the air where they landed in rather neat piles. Then she drew a lasso, using it with extreme ease to tie up and bind the guards in place that remained.
Worst of all was Twilight. With no difficulty at all she barrelled through the guards who tried to rush to defend the prince, her magic beams shredding their armor and leaving them on the ground sleeping. Levitation spells yoinked soldiers off the ground and in the air before tossing them aside. One got close to her, only for her to spread her wings, flying through the air to dodge his ineffectual attempt at a grapple. Twilight's horn shimmered as a beam of light shot from it, striking the guard on the forehead and instantly knocking him unconscious which caused him to crumple to the ground.
In less than a second, the three ponies had destroyed his forces, who were all left strewn around the throneroom, twitching, and groaning. Twilight finally let out a slight sigh, wiping a couple of beads of sweat from her brow. She turned her gaze to Forester, who ware merely staring at her slack-jawed.
"Now then," She sighed, rolling her shoulders. "Will you accept our help now? Please. I can't stand to see anyone like this."
Her eyes widened when she saw Forester's eyes water as if he was about to start crying. She took a step towards him, mouth open.
"Hey- wait. Are you ok?" She asked. Forester didn't answer her. Instead, he grabbed his crown off his head and threw it to the ground. The flimsy and weathered metal circlet struck the stone floor of the throne room instantly shattering into two.
The guards around the room, merely stared on in horror as the two broken pieces of silver crumpled to the ground, then their eyes turned to their Prince. In a single movement, he turned and started marching away. No one said anything as he opened a side door in the room, no doubt leading deeper into the palace, and walked inside, slamming it behind him.
Twilight only stared at the door, quietly listening as the deer guards slowly picked them up, before returning to skulking about the room. Twilight could have sworn that the ones she saw looked even more miserable then they had when she had first entered the room.
Applejack slowly walked up behind her, putting a hoof on her shoulder.
"Come on Twilight... I think we've done enough."
Stats
Page generated in 0.017 seconds
Total duration
869 users online
1,331,181 hits today, 2,280,440 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
I'm still interested!
Good job ponies. You just showed how the deer suck even more.
Well hey, at least you came back to it, which is still more than most authors seem to do after not updating for a long time
I’m glad that you were able to return to this story and I hope you have fun to continue this story
Or, yknow, fucking leave
Good job on reinforcing the point that you're better, Twilight. Congratulations.
*clap… clap… clap…* Way to go Twiggles and comppany. Now they will definitely accept your magical-pony-help with a smile… Sarcasm… Deercasm?
Keep it up. Really legit wanting to see what our pony trio will try next? Maybe one of them spontanius personal-space invading musical numbers?
We are still interested! This is an ingenious concept! There are several clever ways that this can go and we want to see what you come up with!
Amazing. Whenever the next chapter’s comes, I hope it will not be like everything will do a 180 turn on the side of the deer, like ponies helped us all good now. It would be interesting to see if the ponies' "mission" fails or becomes even more difficult, as they just attacked the prince's guard and defeated them so easily.
No, that didn't kill my interest personally tbh. It's nice to see an update to this interesting story as I enjoyed the first two chapters immensely.
Though I have mixed feelings about the girls fighting against the deer guards. I just find it annoying that they have the nerve to go against Forester wanting them gone. They have no authority there and that they can't just resist and take out the guards without any ramifications, and I mean besides them ruining any chance at actually doing their mission. Sure, they ended up paying in that way, but I just don't like the idea that they think they can enter another land on a glorified mission just because some stupid magic map sent them and can just disobey an order from the ruler there because of it. I hope they get some kind of punishment from it, though if not then I guess I can live with just them fucking up on their mission.
11439380
Well, who's gonna punish them for it? The Deer obviously can't XD
11439443
One reason it's so aggravating. I mean I guess Celestia could catch wind of it and do something, though it likely won't amount to anything more than a mild scolding that they should respect authority when in another nation and as a princess Twilight should know better, if that at all. Yeah, I admit it would be pointless to add and the deer making it impossible to complete their mission just by being themselves is good enough for me.
I think maybe they should just leave.
Another one dropped!