Part Thirty-Seven
“It’s right here, Princess.” Flurry Heart followed the griffon out into the snowy field between the forest and the fence. “I didn’t think anything of it when I tripped,” he gulped nervously. “I nearly dropped my rifle.” He stopped before an outstretched hoof sticking out of the snow.
The blue fur was frozen, but the cold weather preserved the keratin from decay. Flurry’s horn ignited as she swept the snow away with a burst of telekinesis, kicking up the flat field. The pony buried under the snow was a young stallion, ribs visible and sunken eyes staring blankly into the sky.
He had been dumped there.
Flurry looked to her left, seeing another leg sticking out of the snow next to an exposed head. The leg was gray, but the receding fur around the mare’s head was purple. She looked to her right and glimpsed an exposed orange foreleg partially covered by snow.
“The snows buried the pit where they dump the bodies,” Flurry guessed. The griffon, a Nova Griffonian named Sharpe, clutched his rifle tighter and retched into the snow. Flurry glanced over her shoulder back at Ironbend.
There were about four hundred ponies crammed into eight bunkhouses in Ironbend, mostly crystal ponies. Some didn’t have proper mattresses; the Changelings gave them hay as a ration, making them choose between having a warm bed or a meal. They huddled together for warmth during the winter nights. It clearly wasn’t enough.
“Do you want to clear the field?” Sharpe asked. “Bury the bodies?”
“They are buried.”
“Properly, I mean,” the griffon frowned. “Ancestors preserve us, how many are buried here?” He flapped his wings to avoid the ground. Flurry did the same, but flew back over the fence and landed before a huddle of crystal ponies and their pegasi guards. Her horn pulsed as she cast the detection spell again.
The Crystal Ponies shivered in the snow, wearing threadbare gray jackets, if anything at all. Their coats were dim; the luster that gave them their name faded despite the morning sun threatening to peek over the mountains to the east.
“I knew you’d come,” a mare sobbed, tears freezing to her muzzle. She was a crystal pony with a dim coat as red as a ruby. Her mane was patchy and her fur stretched awkwardly around her ribs. “I knew,” she rasped again and limped towards Flurry, but was blocked by the outstretched wings of the guards. The mare smiled a near-toothless smile over the wings and tried to kneel in the snow.
Flurry picked her up in her magic and set her back on her hooves. The mare wobbled unsteadily. Flurry cast a warming spell over the group. The crystal ponies huddled together on reflex and basked in the brief heat.
“The Changelings dumped the dead in the field out there?” Flurry asked. There was a long moment of silence.
“We did,” a stallion coughed out. “It was the only time we were allowed outside the fence.” The old gray stallion pushed his way to the front of the group. “We had to dig a new pit once it was filled up.”
Flurry bit her lip. “Have any of you been to the Crystal City?”
“I-I fought with your father, Princess,” a mare chattered and hobbled forward. The skin around her muzzle was stretched taut by her skull.
“I meant after the occupation,” Flurry clarified softly. The sky to the west was gray, both due to the early morning and the distant storm wall surrounding the city. Ironbend was days away from the Crystal City, but the storm ebbed and flowed around the shield enough to cast a pallor over the sky.
“N-no, Princess,” the mare apologized.
Don’t ever apologize to me again. I don’t deserve it. Flurry nodded again. “We’re going to take the Crystal City,” she said loudly. “This is just the start. Go back the bunkhouses and tell everypony.” She raised her wings and gestured for the guards to dismiss the group.
Duskcrest flapped down from a roof and landed near Flurry. He shook snow off his cap. “Patrols are headed out by the railway, but I’m still not convinced the camp is clear,” he squawked.
“I’ve cast that spell two dozen times this morning,” Flurry argued. “How many Changelings have we taken prisoner?”
“Sixteen,” Duskcrest answered. “It would be twenty-three, but we’ve been prioritizing our wounded.”
“How many?”
“Two dozen wounded, mostly minor injuries, nine killed.” Duskcrest nodded grimly. “Good numbers, Princess. We’re digging bodies out of the barracks to salvage equipment. Probably killed around two hundred total.”
We need ours more than they need theirs, Flurry almost said, but didn’t want to bring morale down any more. Griffons might be stereotypically hard-hearted, but even they staggered around the bunkhouses with wide eyes and twitching wings, just the same as the pegasi. “Where’s Barrel Roller?”
“Train station. I’ll go with you.”
Flurry and Duskcrest found Barrel Roller speaking with a crystal pony in a slightly better jacket and cap. The stallion removed the cap at Flurry’s approach, revealing a straw-like patchy mane and bowed to the Princess. “This is Hard Strike,” Barrel introduced him. “He’s the leader of the ponies here.”
“Are you?” Flurry asked neutrally. “Did the Changelings give you that position?”
“I was chosen,” the stallion confirmed in a raspy voice. “I was mayor of Ironbend during the war. I met your mother once.”
Flurry scanned over the stallion’s jacket, noting how little holes it had. “They treated you a bit better, it seems.”
“We haven’t heard a single bad word about him,” Duskcrest whispered into Flurry’s ear.
“They wanted to keep me alive to stop a revolt,” Hard Strike laughed sadly. “I gave what I could away.” He lifted his jacket with a shaking hoof; his ribs protruded from his barrel.
Flurry flushed in embarrassment, then with anger. “Why didn’t you revolt? Why didn’t you run for the mountains? There’s a trail two valleys over,” Flurry said aggressively. “You had to have known about it. We've had escapees over the years.”
“Each time one escaped, three more were worked to death in retaliation. If there was a mass break out, how many would make it?” the crystal pony asked back. “Some of us can barely walk. The Changelings forced us to mine every day until we fell, then they forced those that remained to leave us in the snow to die.”
“You could have fought,” Flurry snarled.
“I could have,” the stallion agreed. “We might have killed a few with our picks, but they would have slaughtered us all.” The stallion looked towards the center of town. “Including my son. The commander held him in the barracks.”
Flurry’s muzzle twitched, but she didn’t break her glare.
“It’s a fine death,” he remarked slowly. “There is only one to blame for it, and it is not you.” He offered Flurry a small smile with two missing teeth. She didn’t return it. You can't thank me after I killed your son. Flurry instead turned to the railyard and surveyed the armored train engine on the tracks. It was painted snow-white with flecks of black. The paint looked weathered and beaten.
“You picked a good time to attack,” Hard Strike offered. “The Changelings were still loading up on coal. Shipments leave the third of every month. If we don’t meet the weight quota, we have to make up for it.”
“How?” Duskcrest asked.
“Ponies,” Hard Strike replied simply. “None have returned from the Crystal City.”
Flurry closed her eyes. “Has anypony been there?” she asked and her tail reflexively curled around a hind leg. “We need to know what’s there.”
“Trimmel was given command of the Crystal Protectorate,” Hard Strike coughed. “He does little governing aside from occasional decrees. I only have rumors, Princess. Nopony sent to the Crystal City returns, but the mines are rich there. I would not be surprised if we are enslaved across the north, sent back into the mines.” His muzzle twisted in a sardonic smile. “Sombra was crueler, Princess. We can survive this.”
Flurry nodded at Hard Strike, then walked along the station. She waved for Duskcrest and Barrel Roller to follow. The old mayor stared towards the center of town, limping towards the barracks. Sombra did not rule for years.
Flurry entered the small railyard and walked through the disconnected train cars, stopping before several guards watching changelings lined up against a coal car. The Changeling prisoners were standing in the snow, shivering and naked. Their coats and winter gear had been taken to be given to the prisoners. Some were still bleeding, dripping blood into the snow and struggling to stand. If they fell, they were shot and dragged aside.
“We have a train and rail cars. We have a railway. I’ll teleport more in from Evergreen,” Flurry planned and spoke to Duskcrest and Barrel quietly. “How long until the army arrives?”
“Advance force will arrive in a few hours on light trucks,” Duskcrest reported. “Only three hundred.”
“Evacuate Ironbend and set it up as a forward base. Get these ponies out of here.”
“Princess,” Barrel Roller interrupted, “many are sick and weak from winter. A few can’t even leave their beds. Even with the tunnel, they won’t survive the journey back.”
“They can’t get medical care here,” Flurry countered, “and I can’t teleport them; it’s too rough.”
“We can't help them in Evergreen,” Duskcrest said. He clacked his beak and pressed a cold claw onto Flurry’s wing. She stopped pacing. “We need our supplies for the war,” Duskcrest whispered. “We can’t spare it for them. They’ll need constant care for the rest of winter and most will take seasons to recover. They aren’t soldiers or workers. They can't help us.”
“Are you suggesting I abandon them?” Flurry sneered.
“Winter was hard in the mountains when I was young,” Duskcrest said with kind eyes. “I watched many griffons starve and freeze while the government in Weter preened their wings.” His eyes shifted to the side, towards the bunkhouses. “A lot of them are already dead, Princess. And if every mining town is like this, the advance will slow to a crawl. We’ll run out of supplies trying to care for them.”
Starlight and Trixie flashed through Flurry’s mind, bickering over a map of Equestria. She closed her eyes and turned her muzzle to the morning sun peeking over the Crystal Mountains. Celestia's sun struggled to shine down into the valley. Barrel and Duskcrest waited for the Princess to respond.
“Spare whatever you can, but the army takes priority,” she admitted in a pained whisper.
Duskcrest offered a shallow nod. Barrel stared towards the bunkhouses while his nubby ear twitched. “Barrel?” Flurry asked. "Do you agree?"
The stallion took a moment to answer. “I don’t want to be in this situation again,” he sighed, causing his breath to puff out into the cold morning air. “It’s worse this time. As you command, Princess.”
Flurry wrapped one of her large wings around his side and hugged him, ignoring the snow and frost on his jacket. Barrel whickered in surprise, but leaned into it after a moment. After a deep breath, Flurry withdrew and stalked towards the prisoners.
The changelings beheld the tall filly, some staring blankly, some glaring, and some baring their fangs. The guards, all griffons, clutched their appropriated submachine guns tightly and shuffled in the snow, dipping their wings as the Princess approached. Flurry scanned over the changelings, deciding to address the one that initially surrendered in the train station. “I am Flurry Heart of the Crystal Empire,” she stated in Herzlander. “You have stolen my home and my ponies. You are now my prisoners. Tell me of the Crystal City.”
One of the changelings spat bloody phlegm into the snow. “The Queen will have your horn as a letter opener.”
“Original,” Flurry commented. Duskcrest drew one of his revolvers, but the alicorn waved a wing. “Don’t bother,” she said in Equestrian, then returned to Herzlander. “If any of you have been to the Crystal City, I would like to know about its defenses.” She trotted up and down the line. Like them, she was naked, but she was an alicorn. She wasn’t shivering. “Tell me of Marshal Trimmel and his tanks. Are they here?”
“Is this your attempt at interrogation?” a changeling mare coughed, trying to laugh.
“It’s an offer,” Flurry answered. “The one who agrees to talk gets a coat.”
“We’re loyal to Queen Chrysalis,” a changeling spoke up, a stallion with a crumpled wing. Blood dripped into the snow under him. “We’ll never betray her! May she rule for a thousand years!” he hissed. A few other changelings hissed with him, but the majority was silent. Flurry took note of which ones.
Fanatics are useless for information, Thorax’s voice echoed in her head. They will tell you anything out of spite, and truly believe every word they say.
Flurry seized the outspoken stallion in her magic and dragged him over to her. Her magic held him still and clamped his muzzle shut. Before the group, she hooked her forelegs around his and brought her forehead down into his fanged muzzle with a crunch.
The chitin broke apart. Blood streamed down his muzzle and his mouth spasmed with broken fangs. Her magic kept him from screaming. She repeated the strike three times, then tossed the corpse across the yard and over the fence with a burst of magic. It landed roughly in the snow, near the frozen mare.
Flurry wiped a foreleg across her eyes and regarded the prisoners again. They had backed up against the train car. “The one who agrees to talk gets a coat and gets to live,” she clarified.
“I’ve been to the Crystal City!” the mare who laughed at her said quickly. “I know all the defenses!” Flurry studied the reaction of the others. The officer that surrendered licked his fangs and glanced at her, but didn't interject.
A coward will say anything to survive another minute, Thorax interjected in her mind.
“You’ll be telling your account to Thorax,” Flurry said casually. “You should know that name. He’s a changeling like you, so he’ll know if you’re lying.”
“I’m not lying!” the mare clearly lied. “I’ve met Trimmel! I can tell you all about him.”
“What was the rank on her coat?” Flurry asked in Equestrian, eyeing the mare and guessing she was perhaps twenty, judging from the size of the holes in her legs and her wings buzzing in the snow.
“Private,” a guard answered. Flurry’s horn flared and she squeezed the changeling around the throat with a band of magic. The mare’s eyes bulged as her throat caved in. Flurry flung the choking mare out into the field. She writhed in the snow next to the previous corpse while she died.
“We have rights as prisoners of war,” the changeling that surrendered to her said quietly. “You cannot do this.”
Flurry’s horn sparked, and she exhaled into the frosty air. “Are you offering to talk?”
His wings buzzed nervously. “I have been to the Crystal City,” he admitted. “You will never take it.”
“Is that all?” Flurry asked as her horn flickered with blue flame.
“I will tell the Traitor everything,” the changeling answered evenly, “only if you spare the others.”
The blue flame guttered on the tip of her horn. “Fine,” Flurry lied with a shrug, and smiled thinly as the changeling frowned.
“I am the only one with the information you need,” he hissed slowly.
Flurry licked her lips in the cold and looked over her shoulder towards the barracks. More of her ponies were being helped out into the snow and given pilfered coats and clothes. Some were being carried out, more bone than fur and flesh.
Her eyes hardened. “One.”
“What?”
“Choose one,” Flurry explained. “Pick your favorite. They get to live.”
The changeling hesitated. He has more than one friend in this line.
“I am the only one that can tell you what you want,” he said instead.
“I could have Thorax torture you,” Flurry countered, “but it won’t be as effective.”
“The traitor’s a harmonist sap,” a changeling to the officer’s left spoke out. “He won’t do it.”
“Am I lying about that, bug?” Flurry asked back with a bitter laugh. “You should know.”
“My Herzlander is poor,” Duskcrest spoke in Equestrian. “What are you saying to him?” Barrel leaned in as well.
“He has a choice. He gets to pick one other changeling to live,” Flurry summarized.
“That’s monstrous,” Barrel replied, good ear pinned back. Flurry noticed the officer glance at the pegasus. He knows Equestrian. Of course he does.
Flurry turned her head back to the changeling and spoke in Equestrian. “You get to make the same choice you forced my ponies to make every day. You made them pick between survival and each other, enough food or enough warmth. Now choose.”
“You need my information,” the changeling tried again.
“No, I don’t,” Flurry replied flatly. She flared her wings. “Shoot them on my command. If anyone has a problem with that, lend me your gun.” The griffons braced their boots in the snow and assumed firing positions. None took the alicorn up on her offer.
Duskcrest drew a pistol and aimed at the officer’s head, cocking the hammer back. Barrel didn't argue, but looked back towards the bunkhouses and away from the prisoners. Some of the changelings looked ready to rush the line of guards, but Flurry’s horn pinned them to the side of the train car, engulfing their bodies in her magical grip.
"Ready."
“Wait!” the officer cried out. He struggled in her magic. “Please!”
“How many of my ponies said please?” Flurry snarled in Herzlander. “How many begged?”
“We had quotas!”
“Aim,” Flurry said in Equestrian.
The changeling opened and closed his mouth like a fish, then stopped struggling. Flurry inhaled through her nose while the blood froze to her muzzle.
“Ocellus,” the officer rasped. “I choose Ocellus.”
A changeling mare in the line gasped. Flurry kept the others pinned, but allowed him a foreleg. “Point,” Flurry ordered. The officer stared at the mare that gasped, but pointed to another changeling at the far end of the line. The alicorn clamped his muzzle shut before he could say anything.
Ocellus was a shorter changeling mare, perhaps only a few years older than Flurry herself. The changeling shrank down in the snow when the alicorn made brief eye contact. She was shivering violently and looked close to tears.
Flurry hummed and drifted the officer over in her magic. “You didn’t bring your daughter to work, did you?” she asked. “It would explain a lot about Changelings if you did.”
“She’s the youngest,” the officer snarled.
“Good, because if Thorax realizes you’re lying, I’ll burn her alive.” Flurry let her emotions wash over the group. Ocellus cried out in terror. Flurry whirled on the filly, dragging her from the line and sending her sprawling into the snow. “Did you cry for them?” the alicorn snarled, jabbing a hoof into the field. “Did you do anything for them?”
The changeling trembled and shivered so severely Flurry couldn’t tell if she was attempting to answer. Flurry dumped the two changelings near Barrel Roller, roughly throwing them into the snow.
“Fire!” she barked over her shoulder and lashed her tail.
There was a staggered burst of gunfire that made her ears pin back, and then it was done.
Flurry released the bodies against the car and let them slump into the snow. One changeling twitched. The two surviving changelings sat next to each other and looked up at the alicorn with solid blue eyes. Ocellus huddled against her savior. Flurry paused and leaned down to the pair. "I won't kill her if you cooperate," she said sincerely, letting the changeling feel her rage and honesty.
"And me?" the officer asked in Herzlander.
Flurry shrugged.
“They go back on the first truck, under heavy guard,” Flurry ordered to Barrel. “We don’t have any inhibitors for the horns, do we?”
“No, Princess,” Barrel said. There was a gunshot behind them as Duskcrest put a dying Changeling out of their misery.
“If one of them tries any magic, break off both their horns.” Flurry jabbed a hoof at the young mare. “Her first.”
For the rest of the morning, Ironbend was systematically dismantled. The bunkhouses weren’t fit for a command center, but the foundations were crystal. The rest would wait for the engineering teams with the advance force.
The crystal ponies were collected out of the bunkhouses and a rough tally was made of the sick and dying. Four of the enslaved ponies died during the attack from stray rounds punching through the thin wooden walls. Two more died of the cold during the night, and one of starvation.
The others, starved and beaten and whipped, gathered in the snow and held each other while the alicorn cast a warming spell and the soldiers formed a perimeter. Flurry Heart carved away the snow in the field, then her soldiers placed the bodies from the bunkhouses atop the exposed pit. The trench was deep; there were at least forty others buried there, slaves that died during the harsh winter.
Flurry flapped her wings above the pit and poured blue fire from her horn. The flames engulfed frozen fur, muscle and bone. There was no smell; the fire burned too brightly and too intense. The snow in the field turned to steam around the edges and her soldiers looked away, blinking from the intensity of the light.
Flurry stared down into the pit. We could have hit this place at any time. It was right here for years. Her subjects stood at a respectful distance away, watching. Hard Strike stood in the center of the herd. His son's body had been recovered from the barracks; he was only recognizable from his teeth.
None of her subjects cried.
Traditionally, earth ponies and unicorns were buried with family. Pegasi preferred cremation, with their ashes scattered to the wind, but the crystal ponies lived in the frigid north. The ground was often too hard and frozen to bury the dead.
Funerals were a community event, where ponies gathered around a bonfire and watched the dead pass into the Eternal Herd. The warmth of the fire was a final gift of life by the dead. Flurry remembered her mother attending funerals, but she didn’t know if there were any words to say. Jadis never spoke of any, and the ponies offered nothing; they just watched. I know nothing about my subjects, Flurry realized and blinked away a tear.
When the time came to dump the Changelings into the snow and burn them as well, one mare hoarsely cheered and pumped a bony foreleg into the air. Nopony else joined her, more concerned with clutching their pilfered coats tighter and slowly nibbling shared bits of hardtack with tired teeth. Her soldiers gave out their rations all morning. Even the frontier griffons gave freely without orders or prompting from Duskcrest or Flurry.
Duskcrest, flapping his wings above the pit, heaved the burnt body of the changeling machine gunner atop the pile. Flurry didn’t realize she killed the commander of Ironbend, who was playing a card game with the other officers and train crew in the station when the attack began. Laughing while ponies froze in their straw beds. The flames that erupted from her horn nearly turned the ground into glass, so Flurry took a gulping breath and tried to calm down. The mare and her changelings were vaporized in an instant.
Flurry landed on the muddy ground and trotted towards the gathered Ponies and soldiers. The fence had been torn down. She eyed the two changelings, shackled with their own chains they used for disobedient slaves. The one named Ocellus averted her eyes, but the officer met her glare fearlessly.
The snow melted around her hooves as she spoke. “From this moment forward, we do not take prisoners. Every Changeling dies. Even if they surrender, even if they are civilians. Spare only the grubs. Does anyone disagree?”
Only the wind from the mountains spoke out, warmed by Celestia’s sun.
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Ocellus, my little bookworm, what happened to you?
No more Ms. Nice Flurry.
Granted... I'll adjust my position to say she has gone Supremacist through and through with the "kill the bugs" declaration, but it's more out of necessity than anything. Supremacist now, Nonaligned later.
Flurry on her way to genocide an entire species (she is morally justified in her mind)
As it goes, "the steong do as they will, the weak suffer what they must".
Still. This has gone to Eastern Front levels of hate. Such does not bode well for anyone.
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For Flurry, there is a difference between a Changeling and a changeling. For example:
Thorax, Arex, and Falx are changelings.
Trimmel is a Changeling. Civilians moving into Equestria to live on slave plantations are Changelings.
The Changelings deserve death for what they've done to her Ponies, not because they're changelings.
Flurry's not racist against the species as a whole. She never uses 'bug;' this chapter should be the first or second time. She's fine with Thorax feeding off her and freely offers hugs when her changelings look sad. It doesn't come up too often, but Flurry took the time to memorize the appearances of her prominent changelings to tell them apart at a quick glance ("Head fin, holes in the legs, and the pattern on the wings.") She genders changelings correctly and never refers to them as 'it.'
For all of Thorax's failures in this story, his presence and support prevented Flurry from growing up as a frothing racist dedicated to wiping his species off the map. The distinction is going to be lost on her army for former slaves though, and that's going to stoke some ugly fires in the future.
Holy shit... She's gonna commit a fucking genocide. I can't believe I'm saying this but I hope the Griffonian Empire liberates the equestria and the changeling lands
I guess that with the lack of a Mother in her time of strife, Chrysalis was the obvious role model to try and emulate.
Here’s hoping that Flurry’s empire outshines the one that Chrissie built.
Thorax is about to explode on flurry, that or get super depressed.
You know, you made me mad. Not a lot of fics do invoke emotions in me. You managed to do it.
I'm still more mad at the above really, because for me this is just a logical follow up of her primitive, teenage, romantic (as in, the intellectual movement) thinking.
I wouldn't be surprised if future racial element based thinking born from this in the mind of the ponies made them think Flurry having an affair with Grover (considering her Alicornhood) is an act of zoophilia or something.
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It's meant to be a cruel, petty moment from the Princess, immediately counterbalanced with the realization that she just killed Hard Strike's son, and she doesn't have a rebuttal to his answers. On some level, Flurry knows it's ridiculous to accuse them of doing nothing. She's pretty hard on herself over the chapter as well.
Flurry's hit hard with the realization that she can't help her Ponies. They took too long. The bodies are frozen in the field. The ones that survived will be helpless mouths to feed. She can't give them guns and charge them at the Changelings, and they don't have the spare supplies to help them get better. She sure as hell can't tell them to go back to the mines to work for the war effort. Like an emotional teenager, (Reminder: She is.) Flurry pinballs between scapegoats and targets: herself, the Changelings, the prisoners, Celestia and Luna, the River Federation, everyone.
Nothing screams good guys like ordering the execution of all surrendering soldiers.
War makes monsters of us all
Now that's a twist!
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Atrocious war crime? Yes.
Genocide? Eh, not in the traditional sense, no.
She is still sparing the grubs. That means she intends to have either Thorax and the reformed changelings, or well-meaning ponies and griffons who won't hold racial/speciest bias, on raising them. It's more like forcible mass cultural assimilation. Anyone who's already been indoctrinated by current changeling cultural practices under Chrissy is eliminated, whereas those who are young enough to not yet be indoctrinated by Chrissy will instead be sent off and indoctrinated by ponies and griffons.
Really, not that much different than how anglo societies treated indigenous ones. Kill the adults, and send the surviving children to "schools" where they're taught the "right" way to "behave" (and are secretly abused by the staff in the exact opposite way of what they are being taught is the moral way to behave). The main difference here is that the changelings are not really indigenous and are the invaders, not vice-versa.
So, cultural genocide, maybe, but not true physical genocide. Changelings will still exist, and, as far as Flurry is concerned, any grubs to grow up under her rule will be her subjects and will be treated, and protected, as such. Equal to her ponies and her griffons. Whether the other ponies or griffons subjects feel that way is another matter...how ironic that some of the same ponies who detested being treated as second-class citizens under the griffons may instead treat changelings as second-class citizens later on, even if they're fully assimilated into pony culture.
Speaking of sparing grubs, I couldn't help but notice there were no pony foals in Ironbend, dead or alive, nor did any ponies there ask about what happened to any of their foals. Were they sent to the Crystal City? Are they kept in cocoons until they are old enough to work as slaves?
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Ironbend was a small mining camp more than an occupied village. Think forced labor camps. The Changelings tore down most of the original buildings and made Ponies build shoddy wooden structures and bunk together. As for foals in occupied lands, long-term cocoon storage isn't exactly healthy, nor are the Changelings really offering anything to keep their slave population up and sustainable. Ponies just aren't having foals, especially not in a work camp. Some younger Crystal Ponies were part of the crowd at the end, but no foals. Governor Lilac led the reformers in Manehatten, and they've all been killed or sacked after the uprising. Chrysalis isn't intending to kill off every Pony, but she just doesn't care about sustainability.
As far as cultural genocide goes, it's been established that Herzlander is not the natural language of the changelings. Chrysalis is emulating the Reich with her military forces and indoctrinated her officers and younger generation. Thorax has bemoaned the loss of their culture and history from before Chrysalis. (Unlike canon, EaW implies that she's not that old and other queens have ruled. At this point in the story, Chrysalis has effectively erased inconvenient truths from before her rise to power.) Chrysalis has already committed cultural genocide to her own people. This isn't about feeding her people or giving them better lives; it's about her ego.
That's the problem with fighting Chrysalis. She's such an irredeemable bitch that you can do almost anything and sink to nearly the deepest depths and still not be as bad as her. Equestria is dying a slow, drawn-out, death with every day that passes under Changeling rule. Flurry's painfully, viscerally aware of it, and that's why she's prioritizing speed at any cost.
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Genocide is the mass murder of a group of people, your example with the British was genocide, the mass murder of Jews in WW2 was genocide, the deportation and starvation of Armenians in WW1 was genocide. Genocide is the killing of a group of people with the aim of destroying said group, wether or not this succeeds is not the factor which decides if it is genocide.
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Sorry, I didn't mean cultural in reference to their language. I meant cultural as in, knowingly feeding on another creature's love against their will and treating them as inferior. That's part of changeling culture under the queen. And that cultural practice would stop, mostly, if the grubs were raised with love by Thorax or other loving beings.
Thorax and the reformed changelings have entirely different cultural practices than Chrissy's changelings.
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She's not looking to eliminate changelings as a whole/species though. She knows changelings can be good under the right circumstances. Heck, right now Thorax is arguably much kinder and nicer than she, the pony monarch (sort of) is. And she knows it. And she knows that stealing love and being hostile isn't a genetic or necessarily instinctive trait among changelings, but a cultural one. That's why she's sparing the grubs.
The other examples you gave, they didn't try to spare children, except in some rare instances. They wanted the whole kit-and-kaboodle eliminated, children and all.
Flurry's actions are horrific, still, yes, very much so. But not outright elimination of a species/people.
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Genocide of Changelings, not changelings.
at least she hasn't ordered to kill the grubs,
yet
I'm starting to have dark thoughts about post war
Oh I can't wait for the end of the war to come and seeing historians say that Flurry Heart's actions against the hegemony were nothing short of a warcrime like Le May and imperial Japan after ww2, and people try to call her out for it, but Flurry couldn't give less of a shit about it
There's a pair of films which were made for US soldiers occupying Japan and Germany after WW2.
One, "Our Job in Japan", directly counters what a lot of modern-day people think Americans thought of the Japanese. There was no talk of inherited sin or racial inferiority. It was almost entirely a statement that the Japanese people were like anyone else deep down, and that they had been conned by their national leadership into throwing away a bright future in the name of the Imperial Cult. They were to be treated with respect and consideration by occupying troops.
The second, "Our Job in Germany", is the absolute opposite.
It blames the German people, as a complete ethnicity, for both World Wars. The German, US soldiers were told, is an inherently vile and untrustworthy creature, barely human - and not just because of the Nazis or the Holocaust. There's relatively little talk of either throughout.
"Trust none of them. Someday, the German people might be cured of their disease. The Super-Race Disease. The World Conquest Disease. But they must prove they have been cured, beyond the shadow of a doubt, before they are ever again allowed to take their place among respectable nations... we are determined that the vicious German cycle of war (1870), phony peace, war (1914), phony peace, war (1939), phony peace, shall once and for all time COME TO AN END. That is your job in Germany." - Ending Statement
What Chrysalis and her army has done is on par with what the Germans did. And so we can see Flurry Heart adopting the viewpoint of the United States Army in this chapter as she comes directly to grips with her first hellish taste of industrialized genocide.
uh....
What I'm loving so much about how Flurry Heart's character is portrayed here is just how close she is to being the villain of the story.
Like, for real; out of context, most of her actions of late have absolutely been, as has been pointed out, "monstrous".
The ONLY reason she's even close to being a "Good Guy" is because she's going up against Chrysalis. The changelings present such a low decency bar that it's basically impossible to be less depraved than they are. And yet Flurry STILL only JUST manages to clear that bar!
The only thing that makes Flurry even just a smudge more redeemable than Chrysalis is that she doesn't seem to derive actual pleasure from the misery she's inflicting like the changeling queen would. She certainly derives SATISFACTION, but what she is "being forced to resort to" isn't getting her rocks off.
If she ever does start to enjoy this though (and that line feels like it's certainly being tread closely), then we've probably reached "die a hero, etc" territory...
And I can't wait to see how close she comes to the edge of that cliff!
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Another thing to note is the U.S. Army's policy on the Japanese also mirrors Flurry's policy on the Nova Griffonian republican population.