The Princess of Ponies
The armored hoof sank fetlock deep into the ash.
Flurry Heart moved out of inertia more than anything else. She hated the rigidity of the armor overall, but she was deeply grateful for it now. The stiff joints kept her upright and her wings from dragging. Her entire world was the next five steps in front of her, and once she reached that, the next five steps beyond.
The alicorn walked east, back across the Celestial Plain. The helmet occasionally swung to look at the corpses, both griffon and changeling, that disappeared under the growing blanket of gray. She almost fell into one of the partially buried gorges in the once flat plain; Flurry was forced to leap over it with aching legs. The armor kept her from falling over on the landing.
The hollow shell of a Changeling panzer passed by to the alicorn’s right. She tiredly gazed at it from the side of a bloodshot eye. It was too intact to be from her. Chrysalis’ trident crown was burned over, only visible as a warped shadow on the side of the wreck.
Flurry did not stop to inspect anything. She kept marching east on numb hooves, moving back towards Canterhorn. There were lights at the base of the mountain, and lights in the trenches beyond, but the mountain above was only lit by a dull glow of burning fires.
It was not yet dusk; it was only the afternoon, but the ash cloaked the Equestrian Heartland as if it was almost night. A shroud had fallen over the battlefield. The Celestial Plain had already been cleared, the wounded evacuated to field hospitals and the Changelings that survived her explosion executed. The Reichsarmee was never truly inclined to take prisoners, not after finding cocoons and infiltrators. But her army was not inclined either. The Reich was tearing north to slam the overstretched attack against her shield wall.
At least, that’s what Bronzetail said they’d do. Flurry had no idea if he was alive. She didn’t know if Spike or Thorax or Fizzlepop or Sunset survived. The alicorn did not have a radio; she had no way of contacting anypony after she blew out her shield. She had to walk through the glassed forest and back out of the crater. It was difficult, and slow. Several empty planes crashed down in the bowl, though none near her.
By the time she reached the edge and climbed back onto the Celestial Plain, the fighting had long moved north. Flurry was alone; she’d been alone in the crater, and now she was alone with the dead on the plain. Her horn throbbed, deep at the base. She didn’t need to see the rest of it to know it was charred black from base-to-tip.
I’ll have to borrow a hornfile, Flurry thought sluggishly. She reserved what little magic she had left in case anyone tried to kill her while she marched across the plain. She didn’t dare teleport back; she’d drop like a puppet with its strings cut on the other side.
Headlights appeared through the ash in front of her, small pinpricks shining through the cloud. The falling ash had continued for hours, thickening like a mist over the Celestial Plain. Flurry recognized the shadow of a flatbed Grifftruck without the canvas back. More headlights appeared behind it.
Flurry did not change direction, and the trucks were turning north. They drove slowly, moving through the ash carefully and watching for the cracks in the earth from her earlier spells. The alicorn eventually trudged into the headlights as she crossed paths with the convoy.
The lights made the purple armor swirl with fire again, but most of the effect was dampened by the layer of ash stuck to the crystal. Her wings were entirely gray; the blood stuck the cinders to her feathers. The same happened with her helmet. Her lower jaw was only spared by the half-helm, but the pink fur was stained red from blood.
Not all of it was hers. Most of it wasn’t.
The ash gathered in the pockmarks along the crystal armor. A decent amount filled the chunk missing from the side of her helmet near the eye slit. Flurry felt some of it dislodge when she marginally turned her head to the headlights. She did not stop moving.
The truck slowed and turned to go behind her. The one behind it instead turned slightly to go ahead front of her. Flurry peered up through the eye slits to see the griffons in the bed, having lowered her head to see her hooves as she walked.
They were mechanics, clad in jumpsuits. Shells and ammunition boxes bounced along in the back of the truck with them. Probably headed north to resupply the tanks. All of them, male or female, only had a dusting of ash. The boxes were relatively clean as well. The trucks worked their windshield wipers with a soft swishes, barely audible under the sputtering engines as the exhaust struggled under the cinders.
The griffons stared at her, all of them, including the driver. His beak gathered ash as it poked out the window. None of them made eye contact with her, but they stared. Flurry recognized the stare as the same ones the maids and servants had when she was growing up.
“You always were a monster,” Flurry remembered. How does it feel to be right, Sunburst? She kept walking as the convoy slowly drove north. Not a single griffon called out to her, either as a challenge or to offer her a ride. The final truck passed far behind her mutely; Flurry did not even hear a radio crackle. Monsters win wars.
After another hour of walking across a desolate and deserted Celestial Plain, Flurry risked a teleport. Her horn sparked with golden light, flicking like a lighter, and she vanished with an abrupt crack. She felt sick to her stomach and closed her eyes.
She reappeared a dozen hooves above the Nova Griffonian trenches to the south of Mount Canterhorn. True to her fears, she tumbled down like an unstrung puppet. The alicorn flailed to her side and did not rise, fallen between two of the forward lines. Blackness encroached in the corners of her vision.
Should’ve just walked, even if it took me all night. Flurry’s legs moved slowly as she gathered them under herself. She felt the dull slaps of claws on her armor.
Flurry blinked as a beak swam into view. “What?” she whispered.
The beak twisted and shouted something into the distance. Flurry felt more claws on her armor, pushing her up. Two claws wrapped around the gorget and pulled.
You’ll need a lot more than that, Flurry chuckled in her head. She was too tried to laugh.
Surprisingly, more claws joined in, some grabbing at her legs as she finally began to stand up. They avoided her bloody and ashy wings, and some even shoved against her flank. Flurry blinked rapidly as her eyes focused.
Two dozen Nova Griffonians had flung their weapons to the ground around her. They grabbed at her, pulling her back to her hooves through the sheer weight of numbers. A few formed a chain and pulled on each other due to the weight of the armor.
Flurry glanced down at the purple Imperial Snowflake band on the right claw around her gorget; it was partially obscured by gray smears. The female griffon attached to the claw was visibly puffing to pull the alicorn back up, even with two more grabbing her shoulders and assisting. She fell back and tumbled over her paws as Flurry finally stood back up.
Shouting voices overwhelmed Flurry. She couldn’t pick out any of them. Someone dumped a canteen on her left wing; she whickered in surprise. Another followed quickly with the right.
A canteen was thrust up to her muzzle. Flurry managed to tilt the helmet back in surprise to see Duskcrest standing before her in an ash-coated uniform. He mouthed something at her.
It took Flurry several seconds of working her jaw to reply. “What?”
Duskcrest held up a claw in a fist. The shouting stopped. “Princess,” he repeated. “I know this is a stupid question, but are you alright?”
“Are you?” Flurry asked back in a near-whisper.
Duskcrest uncapped the canteen and drank from it, then held it up to her muzzle. He slowly angled it back himself until Flurry coughed, then pulled it back. “We’re fine, Princess,” he assured her. “Minor incursion.”
Flurry felt the blackness in the corners of her eyes as she struggled to stay conscious. I’m not dreaming, am I? She considered it. No. Mom would be here.
“What happened?” Flurry rasped. “I saw the fires.”
“Gabe,” Duskcrest ordered to some griffon behind him. “Fly ahead.” He twisted back to Flurry. “Princess, can we get you out of that armor?”
“Not…easily,” Flurry said slowly.
“Can you walk?”
I need to or I’m going to pass out. Flurry forced a leg forward, then another. Duskcrest stepped backwards, walking ahead of her and guiding her. Flurry nearly walked into another trench before following Duskcrest.
“This way, Princess,” Duskcrest said quietly. “It’s a short walk up to the camp. Thirty minutes. Can you make it?”
Flurry kept walking forward instead of replying.
Duskcrest lead her past the entrenched anti-tank guns and machine gun nests. Out of the darkened corners of her vision, Flurry noticed all the griffons staring at her. Most left their positions to follow for a moment.
“I saw the fires,” Flurry whispered again. “I wanted to go back.” Her guide clearly struggled to hear her.
“The Changelings attempted a breakout,” Duskcrest explained. “The Field Marshal ordered Canterlot to be shelled. The eastern road was badly mauled, but we held.”
“Casualties?” Flurry coughed.
“Let’s get to the camp,” Duskcrest dodged the question.
“Tell…me.”
“I don’t know, Princess,” Duskcrest claimed. Flurry wasn’t sure if he was lying. They continued walking in silence. Flurry heard the crunch of steps behind her even after he started guiding her up the mountain proper.
“We sent scouts to look for you,” Duskcrest began, “after the fighting slowed. We rammed the Changelings back to the city. The ash made it difficult to search from the sky.”
Duskcrest clacked his beak. “The Reich bastards were no help, all of them going north after the bug push. Tried to get on the radio and see if you were with them, but they stonewalled us. I finally shot one of the fuckers in the leg and he still couldn’t tell me where you were.”
“What?” Flurry asked numbly.
“He was fine,” Duskcrest shrugged a wing in a way that indicated the soldier was probably not fine. “Come on, just a little bit further, Princess.”
For a moment, Flurry considered she was walking into another ambush. She slowed and listened to the movement behind her. She risked taking her eyes off her hooves and turning her head over a wing. The helmet moved very slowly.
Nearly three hundred Nova Griffonians were following her up the mountain trail. All of their uniforms were covered in ash, purple bands and brown uniforms mostly obscured by gray. A few were flying, flapping their wings above the crowd. Flurry turned her head back to her hooves.
“They want to see you,” Duskcrest said quietly. “The fighting’s moved on from the trenchworks. And I can’t stop them even if I tried.”
What’s there to see? Flurry thought. Some poor little princess dead on her hooves?
They climbed the inclined trail at a snail’s pace. Flurry’s hooves dragged across the ash and left smears on the ground. Duskcrest occasionally reached up to her gorget to steady her, but it was a futile gesture; the armor was too heavy. The Nova Griffonian was too quiet.
“When’d you stop drinking?” Flurry rasped suddenly. She needed to hear something beyond ash blowing in the wind and the crunch of hooves and paws.
“What?” Duskcrest asked, nonplussed. “I didn’t stop drinking.”
“Your flask is full of coffee now,” Flurry stated. “I could smell it.”
“It’s distilled the same way as our moonshine,” Duskcrest elaborated without a single trace of sarcasm. “It’s just as strong, a proper frontier brew.”
“I never tried it,” Flurry began, “when I was out in the frontier. I should try it.”
“We’ll be happy to make some for you, Princess,” Duskcrest said deferentially.
Flurry lifted the helmet at him. The brown griffon, now mostly gray with ash, continued to walk backwards up the mountain trail to guide her. A few trucks were parked along the sides of the narrow road, all of them empty. Boxes and empty shell casings littered the backs from hasty supply runs. The black paint of the repurposed vehicles faded to a dull gray.
Duskcrest stopped as they made eye contact. Flurry looked down at him, even with her head slumped forward. The armor made her a head taller. The griffon took a deep breath. “Can you keep going?” he asked with a steady voice.
He’s afraid of me. His dark golden eyes tracked her horn, even when it was a useless, blackened spear. The griffon had to force himself to look at the Princess.
Flurry kept walking towards him out of inertia. “Yes,” she whispered. Lead the wolf to the sheep she’s supposed to protect.
Even through the ash, the northern sky still glowed pink. The sun had begun to lower in the east, and the world was quiet. Her mother’s voice echoed against her flattened ears.
“It’s not your fault. You were born on the eve of war.”
By the time Flurry stumbled to the edge of camp, it was twilight. The thought made her very sad, but she was too tired to cry. A large crowd had gathered around the tents and artillery pieces, looking down the trail at the approaching alicorn followed by hundreds of Nova Griffonians.
Flurry stared over Duskcrest’s wings to see yaks, griffons, pegasi, earth ponies, unicorns, bat ponies, crystal ponies, and even changelings. All of them stood in one herd. Ash covered their uniforms, no longer brown or blue or green. Everyone was gray.
Thorax stepped out of the crowd, descending to meet Flurry. His black chitin was smudged with ash; streaks smeared across the purple uniform matched it. As he trotted down the road, ash clogged the holes in his bare hooves and stuck to the dried blood along them.
“Uncle,” Flurry whispered. She pulled her chapped, bloody lips into a smile.
“Niece,” Thorax replied. He smiled, fangs and all. “We saw the flare. I knew you’d make it anyway.”
Duskcrest stepped to the side, now following Flurry and Thorax. He nodded to the changeling before disappearing into the crowd of Nova Griffonians. The changeling scanned over the alicorn’s limp wings, held up by the armored wing joints more than her own muscles. Flurry did not stop to hug her uncle, nor did he embrace her; he took Duskcrest’s position of walking backwards ahead of her.
“You’ve lost some feathers, Princess,” Thorax chided with a hiss. “You won’t fly right until they grow back.” He buzzed a wing. “Not that I’m an expert.”
Flurry was too tired to laugh, and she knew Thorax too well. “How...many?”
“Many,” Thorax admitted with a chitter.
“Who?” Flurry whispered.
“Barrel Roller was killed during the initial assault on the road,” Thorax reported quietly, speaking in a soft, dual-toned hiss that echoed between his fangs. “Spike took command after Limestone was hit. She’s alive.”
Flurry kept walking. They reached the edge of the camp and the crowd parted as the alicorn marched towards the distant radio tower. She didn’t have the energy to look up at them; she simply trudged forward with her eyes on her hooves, occasionally glancing up through the slits to the changeling guiding her.
For once, no one had a comment about her being led by him.
“How’re your ‘lings?” Flurry coughed.
“Some wounds from scuffles with infiltrator teams.” Thorax bared his fangs. “We fought better than they did.”
Flurry inhaled. “Spike?”
“At the radio tower,” Thorax promised. “With Marshal Tempest and the rest of your commanders, Princess.”
Tempest? Flurry licked her lips and attempted to laugh. It came out in a breathy wheeze. “Who else?” she asked after recovering.
“We lost two dozen in the Mage Units,” Thorax responded. “Magical Exhaustion.” He eyed the blood under Flurry’s bare muzzle, but didn’t say anything more.
There was a cart amongst the tents, piled with the bodies of unicorns from the high slope. Flurry forced the helmet over to see them. A bedsheet had been draped over the pull-cart, the ash weighed the edges down and pulled it back slightly.
Amongst three muzzles, Flurry’s old tutor stared up at the falling ash. His muzzle was caked in dried blood from the eyes, ears, and mouth. The mustard-yellow unicorn’s fur was a pale and brittle white, and it was not from death. Far Sight had pushed himself into cardiac arrest.
I didn’t even know he was here. Flurry’s jaw worked soundlessly. Thorax followed her look and buzzed a wing. A yak stepped forward from the crowd following her and pulled the sheet back over the entire cart. Yona did not make eye contact with the alicorn after she finished. The brown yak was entirely caked in gray.
Hiding them doesn’t mean anything. Flurry closed her eyes, then forced them back open as she felt the darkness close in again. “Who else?” she repeated.
Throax licked his fangs. “Scootaloo was killed-in-action over the north after the Reich fell back. Rainbow’s at the radio tower. Half our planes are gone.”
She was like a sister to her.
Herzlanders landed from their trenches, flying up the mountainside. Edvald broke rank and walked between two tents, then joined the ragged group trailing behind her. The other Herzlanders followed and joined the Nova Griffonians. They made room without bickering about it.
Shapes moved between the tents in the corner of Flurry’s eyes. Creatures, people of all kinds, moved parallel to the alicorn, following her towards the radio tower. The figures marched through the ashfall almost in unison. Flurry Heart remembered the armored ponies plunging through the snow to the Crystal Heart.
We will face them together! All of us!
The sky glowed pink around the top of the mountain. Canterlot hung above the camp, alight with dull red fires through the ash. Echoes of gunshots carried through a moaning gale. Flurry tossed her head back to stare up at it; ash fell onto her exposed jaw. Her vision swam from the movement and she struggled to focus on the city.
Twilight Sparkle will die first.
It was the hour of twilight. The setting sun to the west was completely obscured by the cloud of falling ash. It was not yet nightfall, but the sky was only lit with the dull glow to the north. Even it struggled to break through the falling clouds.
Thorax followed her look; Flurry’s head drooped back down to her hooves. She had nearly stumbled on a rock hidden under a pile of ash. Her hooves stepped unevenly for a moment.
“Canterlot rebelled,” the changeling sighed. “We’ve pushed them up the eastern road, but we don’t have the numbers to break through. There’s fighting inside the city, but it's quieted for the past few hours.”
“Did we find a way in?” Flurry whispered.
“No,” Thorax answered immediately. “Duty Price blew out some tunnels with his task force. We stopped the breakout.”
“Who else?” Flurry asked again. She was almost at the radio tower. The tables were gone; all the repurposed bullets and shells taken away to be fired by her army. Flurry’s helmet was facing her hooves. Her neck strained against the stiff metal gorget around her neck to see her hoof steps.
“Commanders Altiert and Eagleheart are dead,” Thorax admitted. “The Aquileians took the full force of an armored assault in the northern trenches.”
“How many?” Flurry exhaled.
“Thirty-five,” Thorax answered.
That’s not too- Flurry’s brain caught up to the thought. She blinked slowly, feeling the dried blood on her eyelids.
“We used balefire,” Thorax continued. “We withstood the attack. Jacques led a few survivors through the fires to a fallback position.”
“He’s here?” Flurry asked absently.
“Of course I am,” a voice called out behind her. The light-yellow griffon appeared from the crowd trailing her, walking along Flurry’s right side. He bent his head down nearly to her hooves as he walked on all fours.
“You are not so little anymore, Little Flurry,” he said with a sharp cough. Flurry didn’t turn her head all the way, but she saw the bandages swathed around his left side. Many of them were raw and discolored. “Feathers and fur can grow back,” he assured her in Aquileian.
“Good to see you,” Flurry whispered.
Jacques nodded and stopped. The crowd caught back up to him and he blended in, disappearing into the creatures. Flurry kept moving forward.
What was left of her commanders and friends awaited her, surrounded by a massive crowd of several hundred creatures. My subjects, Flurry thought. All that’s left of them.
Frosty Jadis stood beside Arex and Ocellus. The crystal pony’s smile glittered in the fading light, even as sparkly tears trailed down her muzzle. The other crystal ponies in the crowd no longer shone, their coats and manes too covered with gray.
Thorax broke from his position in front of her and crossed to the two other changelings. They stood side-by-side in the falling ash, all gray instead of black. No one looked at them with suspicion.
Duty Price sat next to Jadis’ other side. His booney hat was covered in cinders, and he used a smoldering one to keep his cigar lit. The blue earth pony was completely covered in dirt, mud, and blood. He nodded at Flurry around the glowing end of the cigar. His eyes were tired.
Duskcrest flapped over to Dusty Mark. The unicorn was already gray, and she rubbed ash and char across his uniform as she embraced him. Rather than laugh or shove her away, the griffon leaned his beak atop her head, mindful of her horn. They pulled apart only after a long moment.
Nightshade and Murky held each other, the older sister supporting her younger brother. Amoxtli stood to the side. Flurry shifted her helmet towards them. The two siblings embraced with their eyes closed.
Echo…
Amoxtli met Flurry’s eyes, looked down towards the alicorn's armored, ash-covered left hoof, and shook her head. The Thestral’s tribal markings on her wings were completely obscured. She stood slightly aside from the siblings, but Murky’s wing was extended and laid against her own.
Rainbow Dash sat beside the bat ponies with a bloody metal wing. Her buzzed mohawk was all red and gray. The pegasus still breathed shallowly between bared teeth, even after an entire day’s fighting. Her hooves coiled under an ashen flight suit, ready to lift off at a moment’s notice. The short pegasus stared up at Flurry and gave her a savage grin, but nothing else.
Zecora stood under the radio tower's supports, the black and white zebra now entirely gray. Her mane had flattened down and fell around her muzzle. She hummed quietly as she swayed, some old Zebrican melody on her chapped lips.
Sunset Shimmer stepped forward from behind a tent. Her mane and tail bounced with dislodged embers. The tip of her amber horn was a dark black and smoked. The unicorn glared up at the Princess, particularly at the blood around her muzzle. Sunset’s own muzzle was caked in red, even smeared with old cinders.
Tempest Shadow followed, black armor battle-scarred and covered in pockmarks and blood. She approached after Sunset, eyes ahead but not truly looking at the Princess stumbling towards them. Her opal eyes were lost, seeing something far, far away and in a past she hoped to leave behind. The sun and moon she scratched above the Storm King’s lightning bolts had been covered with falling cinders.
I bring ruin to everything I touch, don’t I?
Cerie leaned against the radio tower. Her wings were hitched into medical slings, so the Aquileian reared up and hauled herself up the metal support beams. Her claws shook from the effort, but she held on to stare at the Princess from above a gathering crowd.
Flurry finally stopped before a half-circle of her commanders. The armor prevented her from swaying and her wings from trembling. The alicorn slowly moved her lips, but nothing came to her.
Yona and Sandbar joined the half-circle together. Gallus shifted forward between two tents with three knights escorting him. The blue griffon stopped at the very edge of the almost complete circle. His black coat was only half-covered with ash, so he couldn’t have been there very long.
Flurry eyed the ash falling like snowflakes and forced her head up. It lolled, caught by the gorget and the helmet. She was now surrounded by her army, but the alicorn only faced half of them.
She didn’t even register Spike standing beside her until the claws brushed against her lower jaw. Flurry blinked slowly and looked through the eye slits. Spike stepped into view from her left; the dragon’s green eyes were tired. Several of the scales were missing in a line under his right eye and a nostril was bloody.
The dragon’s uniform was more hole than cloth, pockmarked by bullets and sliced with knives. His right wing was folded into a sling behind his back. Spike smiled at her; one of his lower fangs was chipped.
“I came back,” Flurry whispered.
“You won,” Spike agreed. “We can see flashes in the north. The Reich is using your shield wall to entrap the remnants of Synovial’s army. They’re going to break them.” He unclipped her helmet and gently lifted it.
The padding stuck to the fur around her ears and eyes. Flurry felt the dried fur peel away uncomfortably. Spike was careful to pull the helmet up at an angle, but black bits of char fell from the alicorn's horn. He finally tugged it free and held it between his claws. The crystal was burnished black at the six points under the horn slot. The damage looked like swirls of fire, not burn marks.
“There was a message in Canterlot,” Spike said quietly down to Flurry’s muzzle. “We saw it on the road. A projection of Twilight. One of the pilots confirmed it.”
Flurry inhaled with a shudder. “Changeling?”
“No,” Spike shook his head. “We couldn’t hear all of it, but the fighting started inside the city afterwards.”
She was alive. Flurry’s muzzle trembled. Her eyelids were heavy with crusted blood.
“It was a recording,” Spike said in a low rumble. “She must’ve recorded it after she teleported me away. I don’t know who could’ve had it all this time.”
With the weight of her helmet off her head, Flurry stood up straight. Lights had been strung up on the radio tower and illuminated the camp’s center. Flurry looked up again at the smoldering city above them. Spike stepped away, carrying the helmet back to Thorax.
Flurry flicked her ears, no longer pressed against the helmet. She felt the dried blood stains that streaked down from them through her fur. Her eyes had similar trails, her glacial pupils deeply red-ringed and bloodshot. The alicorn took a deep breath through her nose, also smeared with trails that ran down to the gorget fastened to her neck.
Her army stood around her. The camp was quiet.
“I’m sorry…” Flurry apologized in a broken voice, “…that I wasn’t here.” Her voice did not carry very far.
Sunset stepped out of the circle with hard eyes. They drank in the teenager’s bloody muzzle, the pockmarked battle armor, and the tattered wings only held up by stiff wing joints. After a long moment, she squeezed her eyes shut and took a step back. The amber unicorn seemed to physically deflate as the fire left her.
“I think,” Jacques said from behind her, “that you have done plenty, Princess.” He stepped out from the circle and waved his unbandaged wing with an unusually subdued look.
Flurry jerked her head over to Gallus. “Why are you here?” she asked slowly. Each word took conscious effort.
The griffon coughed and his claws brushed through the ash on the ground. “We would like to know your battle plans,” he said in Herzlander. “The Reichsarmee is advancing to the north.”
Flurry turned to Fizzlepop. She tossed her head slightly to focus her eyes. “Field Marshal…” she paused to swallow thickly.
“Tempest,” the mare provided in an absent voice. The unicorn took a deep breath and the contralto returned. “What are your orders, Princess?”
Some of the ash and embers that fell onto them came from Canterlot above. Echoes of gunshots still rolled down the mountain on the wind. Flurry did not look up at it, instead looking at her exhausted and shattered army. Limestone Pie had crawled forward in a neck cast, carried by two other earth ponies. Others that could still walk had followed her into the camp from the field hospitals.
Flurry met Limestone’s hard yellow eyes, then paused. The mare’s armband was thick with ash, as were the ponies below her. The alicorn slowly wrenched her head over the crowd, over all the identical uniforms and armbands, then to Cerie on the radio tower, then above the Aquileian to the top of the mast.
The ELF’s Sun and Moon and Imperial Snowflake blew in the ashfall at equal height; the fabric was coated gray.
It was impossible to tell which was which.
Flurry took a breath. Her chest rattled. “We take Canterlot tomorrow morning.”
“If they fell back through the city,” Sunset interrupted, “they’ll hold around the castle or the estates. We can punch hard there.”
“We will take the road,” Amoxtli spoke up.
“We will,” Thorax agreed readily.
Flurry breathed in again. The crowd stared at her through the falling cinders.
“I will lead the assault and breach the wall.”
Not a single voice spoke out in argument.
“Rest,” Flurry continued as her voice gave out. “Get whatever we can scrape together. Everything. Whoever’s not injured or can still fight.”
The alicorn glanced at Gallus. “Whatever…” she gasped in Herzlander. “Whatever the Kaiser wishes to provide will be appreciated.”
“As you say, Princess,” Gallus nodded, then hesitated and looked around at the crowd. No one had moved, and everyone was still staring at Flurry. She took another rattling breath and coughed from inhaling a piece of ash.
Dusty Mark stepped forward, as she did seven years ago on a small freighter headed towards Nova Griffonia. Her gray eyes swept the gathered crowd, then she bowed deep in the ash and touched her horn to the ground.
“Princess,” she intoned.
Jadis limped forward. Price helped her kneel, removing his booney hat and stamping his cigar out in the ash. They bowed together, earth and crystal pony side by side.
“Princess," they said quietly.
Yona knelt, the yak heavily touching her horns to the ground.
“Princess.”
Sandbar followed her, closing his eye.
“Princess.”
Arex, Ocellus, and Thorax, changelings and supposedly oathbound to follow the Queen of the Changelings, knelt together and pressed their horns to the earth. Thorax smiled a fanged grin up at his niece.
“Princess,” they hissed together.
Rainbow gave Flurry a vicious smile and bowed low.
“Princess,” the pegasus rasped.
Nightshade and Murky, the duet that was once a trio, bowed with extended wings. Amoxtli bowed with them. She chittered a tribal dialect as they said the word in Equestrian.
“Princess.”
Zecora, the Zebrican zebra with no real allegiance to Equestria, ceased humming and opened her eyes. She knelt onto her knees and inclined her head.
“Princess.”
Tempest Shadow dropped in the heavy armor, pressing her broken horn forward as ash gathered on the stump.
“Princess,” she said softly.
Sunset Shimmer stared west, towards the dark cloud obscuring the setting sun. Her eyes were searching, but the alicorn she hoped to see was not there. The unicorn turned back to the alicorn before her and bowed with collapsing forelegs. Her voice was a mere whisper.
“Princess.”
Duskcrest bowed beside Dusty, claw clasped to his chest and wings extended. The silver-plated grips of his pistols flashed in their wing holsters as he lowered himself to the ash.
“Princess.”
Jacques limped forward and laid on the ash, sprawled like a supplicating pony. There was not a single trace of mockery in his yellow eyes before he closed them.
“Princess,” he said with absolute sincerity.
Cerie climbed down from the radio tower. She vanished into a crowd of kneeling, bowing figures. It rippled through the camp, down from the command center. They moved as a wave, uncaring of the glowing cinders drifting through the air. Limestone was helped into a bow, as were the wounded in the crowd.
Spike held the helmet and dropped to a knee to look up at her. Flurry gazed down with bloodshot, tired eyes. He nodded to her, seeing Cadance's daughter and the niece of Twilight Sparkle. The dragon inclined his head and took a deep breath.
“Princess,” he rumbled at a near-roar.
Gallus watched the gathered crowd bow and twisted a head to look back at the helmeted knights escorting him. Their wings and tails rustled against the plate mail. He turned to look up at Flurry. They were the only creatures still standing before the alicorn; they were not sworn to her, and they had no responsibility.
Gallus clasped a claw to his chest and bowed as if he was bowing to the Kaiser, prone on the ground and wings extended.
“Princess,” he announced.
The knights shuffled their paws and claws, then knelt behind him. Their beaks echoed from their helmets.
“Princess,” they said with only a slight stutter.
Flurry Heart, only still standing due to her armor, looked over her subjects.
Creatures that had never knelt to a pony before, that had never knelt to her before, that had never submitted to the rule of Equestria or the Empire, now bowed low and waited for her to say something to them.
Flurry wanted nothing more than to pass out for several hours.
But they knelt and bowed and awaited her command as flurries of ash fell around them.
One of her bloody ears twitched at the sound of the wind. A voice, nothing more than an memory, carried from the north.
Destiny is a choice.
Flurry Heart closed her eyes. And she imagined the future.
She would never be a teacher.
She would never take a student.
She would never write a purple-bound book.
She would not be a guide.
She would not be an example.
She would not love them as the others did.
They would not come to her for advice or reassurance.
They would not stand before her to be married.
They would not be her little ponies, to be protected and coddled from the world.
They would love her and hate her and fear her and adore her and fight for her and die for her.
And there would always be a distance between them.
A distance that the Sun did everything she could to bridge, and the Moon found unbearable.
A distance that her mother and father and aunt never had.
Love is the death of duty, Flurry.
The Princess of Ponies took a breath, and her voice carried down the mountain.
“Rise.”
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Excellent fucking chapter
I love how much detail you put into your work. It stands heads and shoulders above so many other fics. There is still a while to go until this is all over. So many questions to be answered. So many stories to be told. I hope with all my heart that you take this fic of yours, that should (at least in my opinion) be one of the best rated and viewed on this site, and go all the way with it.
The deciding battle has been won and the end of Pax Chrisalis is inevitable. But that does not mean that “God Empress” Chrisalis will even consider for a second that she is going to lose. She and her empire will fight to the last fanatical breath to achieve the impossible. They will fight with increasingly desperate and horrifying tactics. ALL WILL BE FOR NAUGHT. I already believe that the Changeling dropped the first nuke on the Crystal City and killed Cadence from the strain of upholding the shield. They seem to have mothballed any future progress until now. It is only inevitable that Chrisalis will decide that if she can’t have the world, then no one can.
Anyway, it’s far past one A.M. for me, good night and see you on the next chapter.
Absolutely amazing chapter gave me chills.
Poor Flurry Heart all choices taken from her at such a young age. At least she did everything in her power to restore Equestria even if it came at the price of being seen as a Goddess of Death and War.
🦀🦀🦀Scootaloo is gone🦀🦀🦀
so I will ammend a previous comment to say.
flurry is fucking terrifying.
Perhaps in a thousand years. I doubt Celestia and Luna were viewed differently after the unification (well, that assuming there were unification wars, but it could not be that there were none).
11546622
As far as anypony knows, there weren't any wars to unite Equestria. The others weren't killers.
But...
Princess Celestia's in-game biography:
In a world with radio, photography, and film, it's hard to erase the truth. And there's been enough of that with Chrysalis and her endless lies. Flurry will be who she is. Maybe what she was meant to be.
She can't be the Princess of Friendship with the blood of her enemies dripping from her hooves.
She can't be the Princess of Love after turning her horn on her own ponies.
She can't be the Princess of the Sun or Moon, eternal and peaceful and mysterious.
But she can be the Princess of Ponies, and she can lead her subjects through the war and beyond.
11546723
Welp, we will never know the truth about sisters. Let them wear the white coat, I guess... (it sounds funnier if we apply this term to Celestia)
Let them be unreachable beacons, if ponies will still look up to them...
Did anyone catch this, ninety percent of orders and troubles in this universe are belong to mares.☕
11540986
Which chapter is that part , I want to read it again.
IMO, Pinkie's family = Manenite
IRL
originally Anabaptists (against infant baptism) they split apart to Amish & Mennonite in the late 17th century. Amish tend to be stricter & more isolated
They are one of the Peace Churches (along with Amish & Quakers).
They recognize that the military serve a purpose but usually anyone serving in the military is excommunicated (& possibly Shunned) & NOT allowed to rejoin until
1) They've left the military
2) Publicly apologized & atoned
3) Rebaptized & rejoin the church.
In my head canon Limestone has lost her religion (& possibly any surviving family members).
Loyalty. That's how it's earned. They see her beaten, bloodied, and bruised. And still walking to do it all over again. Because she is there Princess and they have seen her walk into the fire and molten steel for them.
11548768
From the conversation between Arclight and River Swirl we get that the possibility of attack is still open. Probably the second-best moment to attack will be just after the war in Equestria ends: it will take time for main forces to arrive and deploy on the border.
Hey um,... Where is the nasty parts you New, anthrax and stuff.
It's gonna make this story m rated, isn't it.
so are you going to do another chunk of chapters at a later date like you just did.
11549111
(Probably) not. This was the "epic battle sequence" of the entire story.
Future chapters will be Flurry or Grover centered with irregular release dates, as before.
11549185
That's nice.
It's kinda not mean anything anymore but I can't help but asking,
Are grover and flurry really don't have any feeling for each other.
What an amazing chapter, Battle of Canterlot was definitely worth the wait.
11549665
That was battle of Celestial Plain I believe?
The storming of Canterlot is coming up.
Excellent ending. Those last few lines really nailed it. Was that all original, or did you have inspiration to seek guidance from?
Hmm...so I guess Scootaloo's death is confirmed? Thorax said so, but there was no mention of a body. You've killed off major characters before, but this could be a twist where she shows up later, maybe? How will Dash explain it to the other Crusaders, I wonder? Loyalty demands she be the one to do it, but sometimes when it comes to emotional decisions, she has a tendency to be as intangible and finicky as the wind she flies on.
11551156
Scoots is gone. She was in a plane that probably went down in a fireball.
Starlight Glimmer is rather obviously dead, even though her body was never discovered and some hold out hope.
Dusty Mark never found out what happened to her husband either. It's war. Sometimes people just vanish in the chaos.
11546723
The one pitfall to being born an alicorn is what you are Princess of, if anything, is unclear.
However, I suspect that most will not care. Sun and Moon left them. Love and Friendship did not, but they paid with their lives, and Love and Friendship do not stop bullets, do not stop armies, and alone are powerless to stop cruelty and evil, for evil cannot comprehend good, and malice simply sees them as weakness.
In a world like that, one who is willing to break the ideals of Harmony in order to not just protect it, but, more importantly, to protect their citizens is what’s needed, and I think most recognize that.
Flurry couldn’t be more different from the 10 year old who shared her entire cake with dirt poor frontier children and left none for herself because “they need it more than I do.”
Flurry is exactly the same as the 10 year old who shared her entire cake with dirt poor frontier children and left none for herself because “they need it more than I do.”
11553964
Flurry,
Princess of War.
Baptized in fire
Forty thousand to one...
Didn't have a fimfic account and had to hold myself back from opening one just to comment on this (I found this through HOI4 obvs) for ages but can't anymore.
Why the flying buck isn't she EMPRESS!
Seriously, why!??! Given how every scene with Grover has gone it's CLEARLY to make sure chickin spit boy stays the 'superior'. Bucking hell there was literally a scene where she had to beg and grovel at his literal feet - what is it with this obsession that Grover has to be the dominant superior? Like she is literally an immortal super-mage and basically a DEMIGOD, but NOOO the asshole male character still has to be the one in charge and the far stronger literally better in every way female character has to follow his orders and be his bitch-slave.
There is absolutely no reason for them to be 'engaged', he had to invade the Changelings ANYWAY and all she had to do was clearly display her strength and Grover wouldn't DARE betray her. There was absolute NO NEED for her to sign over Equestria and the Empire as puppet states and herself as what is basically a sex slave. Completely unnecessary. She was almost single-handedly wiping out EVERY invasion he threw at her in Nova Griffonia, and she could literally teleport and fly to any of his cities and wipe them from existence. Once she took over Nova Griffonia she could have wiped out a city at a time until he sued for peace - it's not like she needed him to surrender or anything, just to cancel the invasion and attack Chrysallis instead (which he was always going to do ANYWAY).
This fic is acting like Grover has ALL the leverage and she HAD to make an EXTREMELY one-sided deal when if anything it's actually the other way round.
He should be bucking groveling at her feet begging her not to wipe his precious 'Empire' off the map. But noooo clearly the end goal here is the 'ship - and Flurry being subordinate to him - to the detriment of all else.
She should fuse Equestria into the Crystal Empire as one Empire with herself as Empress and say to Grover the deals over and it's up to him whether he wants her as an ally or enemy after the Changeling war is over.
Equus is still going to be resource rich but devasted after the war is over, so there's still PLENTY of opportunity for Griffonian companies to invest during the rebuild and to buy resources on a ACTUALLY equal footing (none of this puppet state economy and sole rights) and he NEEDS her as an ally as a counterweight to the River Fed becuase there's always the THREAT of Celestia and Luna actually getting involved so he NEEDS an Alicorn on his side...plus, you know, not having the living weapon of mass destruction as an enemy. Always a good idea that.
This 'deal' they have is the stupidest thing I've ever seen. She needs NOWHERE NEAR as much stuff off Grover as this deal indicates while Grover needs a LOT more off her. It should NEVER have been this extreme and stupid, especially NOW.
No marriage where she becomes his bitch-sex-slave mistress (she has LITERALLY agreed to bend over and take it whenever he wants and to do everything he says while he has a family with someone else, that's not marriage, that's slavery), no puppet state where Equestria and the CE became an appendage of Griffonia.
Just an alliance with a free-trade area between the two (so Griffonia has favorable terms to invest and Equstria/CE gets an influx of capital to rebuild) and an agreement that Griffonia has no claims on Equus and Equstria/CE has no claims on Griffonia.
That's it. That's literally ALL the deal needs to be.
Can you imagine if France or Britain agreed to become - OFFICALLY - America's puppet state where the US owned basically every level of the economy, had priority rights to ALL resources, and in the UK's case then-Princess Elizabeth agreed to become the Presidents sex-slave-mistress in return for America attacking a country they were already going to be at war with eventually ANYWAY?
(and oh yeah, Princess Elizabeth could single-handedly wipe out entire German armies and cities)
Cuz that's basically what's happened here.
And no one has pointed out how ridiculous this is - instead everybody is fanboying over Grover and saying they can't wait for the "romance" (you know, that "romance" where Flurry can't say no and has to do whatever he says)
11694910
Most comments are usually about how Flurry's acting like a dick to the guy with the army actually fighting on the frontline, so the other side is interesting to read...as for how one-sided the deal is, it's more of a "all the power in the world" situation. Flurry has a great deal of physical power, but not necessarily political capital as a "Warlord Princess" that's claimed territory by a dubious ancient bloodline and the point of her horn. She needs Grover's help economically and diplomatically to get Equestria and her Empire out of the hole.
Flurry attacked him in Nova Griffonia, then couped the government with the demand of a shaky ceasefire to focus on the war. She did damage the overall war effort, and it looks bad to "forgive" the winged horse that killed a lot of his griffons. In her mind, she had to offer something of immediate value and not long-term postwar, so she offered marriage in a similar play to Guinevere/Grover II before her. And Grover knows exactly what she is better than Flurry Heart even. If it's not obvious by The Princess of Ponies, the poor guy is massively jealous of her, and probably always has been from the moment they met. His plan really relied on her accepting that offer letter, and the front stalemated on his own. As you say, she's better than him in every way. It doesn't matter how much she demeans herself, she's still taller and stronger and better. He's the Kaiser of Griffonkind.
Did not expect "Flurry Heart should be more of a Mary Sue" to be a criticism, but uh, thanks for making an account and commenting.
If they ELF needed a worthy leader, a worthy symbol, a worthy fire, that would be Flurry.
Well, guess in the next few chapters we will finally find out if Twilight survived this whole ordeal, or found herself at the end of a changelings bullet.
My personal theory is that she is technically alive, the feathers and what not, but Chrysalis did something really terrible to her after Starlight's failed assault, where she might straight up be unrecognizable as a pony. We've done way to much building up for Flurry to just find her dead with a gunshot in her skull.
Can't wait to find out what you cooked up.