Part Eighty-Five
Twilight’s voice rang out through the throne room.
“Fight the Hegemony!”
The projection froze on her muzzle, defiant and proud with hope in her eyes. Twilight stood tall, unbowed and unbroken, despite her disheveled feathers and the bags under her eyes. The Princess of Friendship wore no regalia, but she did not need to. Her cutie mark of stars was visible on her flank just before her legs shimmered into sparkles.
Twilight Sparkle blurred as Flurry walked through her aunt. The Princess of Friendship quickly reformed, still standing defiantly with a gaze that encompassed everything and nothing. Her niece was able to look her in the eye, then her horn glowed with a gentle gold light. Twilight vanished with a burst of purple sparks, and the crystal laying on the floor dimmed.
Flurry Heart, Princess of the Crystal Empire, soon-to-be Princess of Equestria, and the Princess of Ponies, took a deep breath and pushed it out with a foreleg. “This was the only message?” she asked in confirmation.
“Yes,” Sunset Shimmer nodded. Her voice was soft, having lost the heat and bite she usually had. Ever since the battle, the mare’s yellow and red fire had guttered to a slow burn. She levitated the crystal back over to her hooves.
Flurry looked around, clad in her black padded jumpsuit for her armor and the purple crystal band below her shaved mane. The throne room was packed with her command staff and lower officers, many of which she did not know personally. Regardless, all of them had bowed to her and stared enraptured at the recording. Even the Nova Griffonians, who proclaimed not to care about Equestria, watched with serious eyes.
Flurry walked down the central aisle to the open doors, then exited out to the courtyard. Hammers and saws reverberated as a great scaffolding was expanded below the pronged arch of Chrysalis’ Hegemony before Canterlot Castle. Flurry didn’t consider it truly necessary, but some display was needed.
Equestria did not practice the death penalty. The fabled Canterlot Dungeon was truly a glorified guest quarters; the actual jail was in Middle Canterlot. Generalmajor Pagala had converted some of the rooms of the castle into something that could be charitably called a dungeon, but the mare was dead.
Pagala was hanging from one of the first ropes set upon the gallows. Flurry was certain the body stank after so many days, but ponies still stopped and spat at her. Lord Commander Lacin Cardo swung next to her, held upside down by his legs. Flurry looked over a wing to Thorax and Jadis behind her.
“Are you sure that’s the Lord Commander?”
“His muzzle is ruined,” Jadis added to Thorax. “That could be any ‘ling, no offense.”
“They said it was, and he was wearing the armor,” Thorax replied. “I trust their version.”
Flurry accepted it with a nod. She waved a wing down the stairs at the workers, all earth ponies with Limestone overseeing them. The mare gave a gruff wave back from the scaffold. Nearly a dozen bodies, all commanders of the Changeling garrison that had refused to surrender or died in the attack, swung in a slow breeze. It was a cloudy day, and the rumble of distant thunderstorms rolled across the northern sky. It was too cloudy to see the pink horizon.
Flurry returned to the throne room. Twilight’s crystal had been carefully placed back in its velvet-lined, padded box and reverentially closed. Rainbow and Sunset stood next to it. The blue pegasus flicked her metal feathers constantly with cold eyes.
Upon Flurry’s reentry, the room bowed as one. Dusty Mark, Duskcrest, Zecora, Tempest Shadow, all of her commanders except Spike and Limestone were present. Flurry Heart raised her wings.
“Rise.”
The room stood and moved to the sides of the hall, standing beside the support pillars and stained-glass windows of swarms of changelings and their Queen. Jacques innocently wheeled a cart with a gramophone forward from a side door. He whistled through his beak. Several glared at him.
Flurry walked down the black rug. Her army nodded to her as she passed. The alicorn stopped just before the steps to the obsidian throne and looked to Jacques. The griffon had wheeled his little cart to the edge of the dais, and carefully setup the gramophone atop it.
“Did you find it?” Flurry asked the griffon. Jacques’ brown fur and yellow feathers regrew slowly along the strips of bandages swathed around his left side. The Aquileian’s tail bobbed.
“Cruel, Little Flurry,” he said chidingly. “Sending a burn victim to hunt for a record.”
“It’s called delegating,” Flurry corrected, “and you seemed eager.”
“True,” he clacked his beak. He flourished his right wing with a vinyl record slipped between the feathers. “I did happen to find it, and I also happen to enjoy theatrics.”
“Princess Flurry?” Gallus called out. He was standing beside a pillar to the right side of the room, escorted by two knights. The blue griffon waited until Flurry turned to face them, then slowly walked to the center of the rug and dipped his head.
“Kaiser Grover VI would request a copy of the message.” Gallus eyed the pony and changeling photographers replacing their lenses near the back. “We would like to have it filmed.”
“Sunset, Tempest,” Flurry stated. “Have the crystal brought over to the east wing. Escorted at all times. We’ll send it over tonight,” the alicorn said to Gallus.
“It’s a delicate spell,” Sunset added. “Copying it won’t be easy.”
“I understand,” Gallus nodded. He looked to Sandbar and Yona in the crowd with uncertain eyes. The yak and earth pony stood near the double doors.
“This is an Imperial and Equestrian matter,” Flurry announced from the first step, “but you may remain as a representative of the Griffonian Reich. Take whatever place you wish.” Gallus traded a look between his old friends and his escort, then returned to the knights and leaned against the pillar.
Flurry took the steps in a long-legged stride. Atop the obsidian throne, a purple book with frayed pages rested on the hard surface. Flurry gingerly picked it up with a wing, then gracelessly sprawled on the seat and wiggled her lean flank. It was deeply uncomfortable, but the crystal throne in her Empire was harder.
“Chrysalis had cushions, certainly,” Thorax called up from the bottom of the steps.
“Get your ass up here and turn into one, then,” Flurry retorted. “Get up here, uncle.” The alicorn let a large wing droop to the floor, laying sideways on the throne like it was a couch. Her purple band glittered from the chandeliers hung in the rafters. Once the crews were done with the scaffolds, they would begin stripping all the black marble and tile from the throne room, but this was to be settled first.
Thorax buzzed his wings and flew up the steps, landing in his purple uniform and standing like he belonged there. “Rainbow,” Flurry called out. “To the right of the throne.”
The pegasus similarly flew from the crowd and stood with an expressionless muzzle. The Air Marshal was wearing her leather jacket above a Wonderbolt flight suit, scuffed and worn from service. Her eyes were distant as she surveyed the windows. “You’re tearing all of this out, right?”
“Yes.”
“Good,” the Element of Loyalty snorted. “You gonna keep the purple?”
Flurry looked at the purple accents on the pillars and the purple checkers on the tile floor. “No,” she decided. “I’m stripping all of it and we’ll sell it off.”
Rainbow nodded like it was a reasonable decision to gut Canterlot Castle.
“Jadis,” Flurry called out. “Bring them in.”
The crystal pony raised her bent foreleg, then exited out the doors to the foyer with a small squad of ponies. The double doors remained open as everyone waited. Jacques set the vinyl record up and adjusted the gramophone. He held the needle up in a claw as he cast yellow eyes up the throne to Flurry Heart.
Flurry waved a foreleg. Jacques let the needle drop, and the record spun. The Princess recognized the opening riff, though this time there was no jaunty polka and other Changeling instruments. Sapphire Shore’s melodious voice followed the opening.
“There is a house in Canterlot; they call the Rising Sun…”
Flurry spoke to Thorax from the side of her muzzle. “How hard was it to find?”
“We couldn’t find it at all,” Thorax answered. “I have no idea how Jacques got his claws on it, but we’ve been busy with more important things.”
Flurry let the jab roll off her feathers. “That’s why I asked him.”
Jacques snapped a talon to the beat at the base of the throne.
Flurry laid sideways atop Chrysalis’ black throne as Jadis returned. She stopped in the doorway and checked her rifle with a hoof, then bowed against the edge of the rug. Flurry waved her sprawling wing forward as the song echoed through the throne room.
The crystal pony and two dozen mixed soldiers marched down the pillars with five figures between them. Four were changelings, shackled by their legs and wings with rings on their horns. They were naked. Two of Flurry’s griffons pulled a litter with a tan pegasus wrapped in a white sheet behind the four ‘lings.
Duskcrest spun a cylinder of his revolver as the group passed the Nova Griffonians. He twirled the silver-plated pistol on a talon with hooded gold eyes before holstering it back under a wing. The group moved slowly, stymied by Jadis’ limp and the chains around the changelings’ legs.
Yona, Sandbar, and Duty Price glared as the procession moved by the gathered ELF veterans. Price had removed his hat; he used a knife to slowly peel off the end of a cigar. The few yaks in attendance were uncharacteristically silent, letting the song ring through the throne room.
“Oh mother…tell your foals…not to do what I have done.”
Flurry gripped the Friendship Journal in the crook of a bent foreleg as they approached the base of the dais. Sunset and the Mage Units stood just before the throne in a line, joined by Tempest Shadow in her black Storm Armor. It was scoured clean to a shine that rivaled the black marble in the room. The duumvirate of the Equestrian Liberation Front had locked eyes on the group from the moment they entered. Sunset’s horn burned at the tip with a red flame.
“Well, got one hoof on the platform…another on the train…”
Rainbow scraped her metal wing along the back of the throne. The sound peeled under the musical interlude. The prisoners stopped before the throne and Jadis whirled around with a smooth movement and shouldered her rifle. The escorting soldiers formed a square around the prisoners and took several steps back with weapons drawn. The two griffons set the pegasus down and joined the formation with submachine guns.
Arex and Ocellus emerged from a small group of purple-uniformed changelings closest to the throne. They partially ascended the steps to the dais after the unicorns broke rank to let them pass. They stopped together after bowing to Flurry, then stared down at the five figures.
“Well, there is a house in Canterlot; they call the Rising Sun…”
Jacques raised a talon to the gramophone, but looked up to Flurry. Her horn shook to the side down at him. He failed to suppress a smirk on his cheeks as he let the song continue to the end. The five supposed ringleaders of the coup attempt waited. None of them looked above their hooves to the alicorn lounging in their Queen’s throne.
The song finally ended, and the faint sound of a needle on a record skipped through the throne room. Jacques lifted it off the vinyl with a talon, but still whistled the song quietly. The guards at the double doors pulled them shut, and the clang tolled through the throne room.
“I must’ve heard the original at some point,” Flurry mused, “but I couldn’t quite recall it. It’s a good song; I understand why you wanted to copy it.” She brushed her wing against the bottom of the throne. “Have you heard it before?”
None of them answered, so Flurry continued. “There was a general in the Duskwood, back when there was a Duskwood. He was playing your…imitation…from his tank. You don’t happen to know who that was, do you? I didn’t get his name before I killed his entire army.”
None of them answered again.
“Very well,” Flurry said languidly. “We’ll get started.” She rapped a hoof on the side of the throne.
“Jachs von Volistad,” Arex declared. “Former Generalmajor of the Canterlot Commissariat.”
The green-eyed changeling stallion in the center of the group shifted his hooves. He did not look up. He was very well-built and broad-shouldered with large wings, standing taller than the others.
“Alcippe Xanade, former Oberstleutnant.”
A maimed changeling mare shifted closer to Jachs, as close as she could. She accidentally bumped into Jachs and he steadied her after the mare misjudged the distance with her one purple eye. The left side of her muzzle was covered in bandages, and several wrapped around the bottom of her jaw. She would have been very pretty, but her muzzle was now crooked.
“Marsilio of Vanhoover, Generaloberstabsarzt and Surgeon-General of the Heer.”
The doctor looked the worst out of all of the changelings. His carapace was a sickly gray, and the veins on his wings were discolored. His eyes drifted up to the throne and around the room, but they were cloudy. He was very thin, to the point that the chains had to be looped through the holes in his legs because the cuffs were too large.
“Finicus Vesali, CEO of Main Hive Industries.”
“I’m bankrupt,” the last changeling said in a dry voice. “I don’t own anything.” He was slimmer than Jachs, and a slightly lighter black. His long ears twitched. “Went bankrupt last year, actually,” he rambled.
One of the surrounding pegasi raised a rifle to his muzzle. The barrel was nearly close enough to touch one of his fangs. Flurry rapped her hoof on the throne again. “Make a note,” she responded with equal dryness. “Bankrupt.”
“And,” Ocellus swallowed. “Second Wind, Kommandant of the Canterlot Guard.”
The tan pegasus laid on the litter, breathing shallowly. Part of the linen sheet was stained red, and the overall shape was asymmetrical. Flurry lifted the sheet off with a horn.
Second Wind had lost both legs on his left side, along with his wing. The pegasus stared up at the ceiling, part of his mane shaved away with stiches along the left side of his muzzle. He kept both eyes, but they stared up at the ceiling blankly as he breathed.
“Is he aware of anything?” Flurry asked.
“We’ve kept him sedated with medical spells,” Sunset answered from the mages. “We stopped a few days ago for this.”
“Was that necessary?” Flurry asked. Probably not.
“All the remaining leadership of the Canterlot Guard died in the assault of the castle,” Thorax answered. “He’s the only remaining survivor of the officers.”
“789 surrendered with the Changelings,” Flurry recalled. “How many are still alive?”
“765,” Thorax answered.
Flurry’s horn glowed and Second Wind was enveloped in a golden glow. His breathing steadied after a moment and his eyes started to focus slightly. The alicorn snorted a drop of blood onto the base of the throne after the spell ended. “Let’s not make it 764 yet. Soldiers, at ease.” The square shouldered or slung their weapons and took another step back.
Flurry stared down from the throne. “I am Flurry Heart,” she called out in a half-powered Royal Voice. “Daughter of Mi Amore Cadenza and Shining Armor, niece of Twilight Sparkle, the Princess of the Crystal Empire, rightful Princess of Equestria, and the Princess of Ponies.”
The throne room echoed with three beats. It rattled the stained-glass windows. The alicorn in the throne waited until the sound faded.
“Were any of you involved in the attack on my parent’s wedding?” Flurry asked.
None of them answered.
“Jachs was,” Rainbow said from the side of the throne. “I remember him.”
“I thought you couldn’t tell changelings apart?” Flurry said back.
“Yeah, but the asshole got a medal for capturing us,” Rainbow responded. “I was gonna kill him until that Jaeger got me.” She scraped her metal wing against the throne again. It sparked.
“Well,” Flurry shrugged her hoof. “Thorax was involved, and I hardly hold that against him. You might as well share,” she said down to the group. “Doctor Marsilio? Is that the correct title?”
The gray changeling did not respond, but Flurry suspected he may have been incapable of doing so. He looked as bad as the corpses on the gallows outside. She kept going anyway.
“You were born in Vanhoover? My mother was born near there. I hear Chrysalis tried to make it another Great Hive of the Hegemony. Did you help?”
Surprisingly, Marsilio responded. “Yes,” he croaked in a harsh dual-toned voice. “We all did. It failed. It’s all concrete and black spires. It’s pathetic.”
“I’ll see it for myself,” Flurry replied. “It’s a good port, right between Olenia, the Changeling Lands, and western Equestria. I never knew that changelings lived there before the wedding. It’s a shame Chrysalis ruined that. A shame you worked for her afterwards as well.”
The throne room descended into silence once again.
“The next question I ask,” Flurry said in a cold tone, “will be answered. When did you find out?” Her hoof gripped the purple book to her chest.
The room was quiet, and then Jachs answered in a dull voice. “When I was Generalmajor.” He sounded tired.
“Before the ELF?” Flurry asked.
“Yes.”
“When?” Flurry asked again.
Jachs was silent.
Flurry’s muzzle twitched. “Before Aquileia fell?”
The changeling’s eyes finally shifted up to the throne. “Yes.”
The alicorn let out a short breath. “She was in some cave. I saw it a few days ago. You stuffed her in some cave to rot while you sucked away everything she had.”
Finicus interrupted, “The Queen’s Guard kept it a secret.”
“Do not-” Flurry cut herself off and took a deep breath. “You knew for years,” she continued. “You knew for years, and what did you do? Did…" the Princess hesitated. "Did you ever talk to her?”
Jachs looked back down at the floor.
Flurry laughed, high, shrill, and harshly. “Oh, that’s wonderful! What did she say?”
“We could spread a little bit of harmony wherever we went,” Jachs answered. “She…she didn’t expect us to let her go.”
“W-we w-would’ve been executed,” Alcippe added in a lopsided mutter.
“Now you find your voice,” Flurry snarled.
“We tried,” Jachs said. “We tried to make it better.”
Flurry choked on her words. Her muzzle spasmed as the room tensed in one great motion. Rainbow beside her gave a low growl.
“What?” Flurry eventually spat.
“I paid my ponies,” Finicus added. “Drove my company bankrupt, destroyed my entire family’s legacy.”
“Synthetic Love,” Marsilio remarked. “It would’ve ended our dependence on taking it.”
“You don’t need to take it,” Arex hissed.
“Look at where you are,” Marsilio shrugged a wing.
“I’m above you,” Arex retorted from the steps. “Fucking parasite.”
“You were going to make it better?” Flurry asked in disbelief. “While my aunt died in a cave?” She clutched the Friendship Journal to her chest. “While you kept her book?”
“They wanted her alive,” Jachs responded slowly.
“So she could watch it all burn!” Flurry snapped. “That’s what your Queen wanted.”
Jachs’ ears flicked and he licked his fangs. “We made progress. Things were getting better.”
“Until the ELF,” Sunset snorted. “That’s what you mean. Say it, bug.”
“Chrysalis was content with her artillery cannons and useless projects,” Jachs replied.
“She’s a monster,” Sunset countered. Heat returned to her voice. “Celestia’s School burned while you were Generalmajor. Twilight’s book burned. POW camps drained, Vanhoover mutilated.”
“Our Princess,” Jadis snarled, “plugged into a cocoon and cut apart! Our ponies stolen!”
“I know what she is,” Jachs sighed, “but-”
“I hate you,” Thorax said from beside the throne. He stepped forward, and his voice carried across the throne room. “Out of all the changelings I’ve ever met, I hate your kind the most.”
Jachs closed his mouth.
“You know who I am?” Thorax hissed.
“The harmonist,” Jachs answered. "The Princess' adopted uncle."
“The Traitor,” Thorax corrected. “The idiot, the pony with a skin condition, the ‘ling that’s been executed seven times over the years, the pet. All the titles I've gotten from the Queen's Guard and VOPS, but I still hate ‘lings like you the most.”
Thorax descended the steps in his uniform. “I pity the fanatics,” he began. “They’re so blinded by it all that they barely know what they’re doing. The cowards and opportunists? They’re in it for themselves. And some just don’t care at all. They enjoy it. But changelings like you are the worst of us.”
Thorax stopped a step above the base so he could see over the line of unicorns. “Why’d you join the Heer?” he asked. “Why’d you stay? Were you born under Chrysalis, or one of the other hives?”
“Under Chrysalis,” Jachs answered.
“Like me,” Thorax nodded. “And like me, you saw exactly what she was. And you followed her anyway.”
“I should’ve killed her,” Jachs said. “Is that what you want me to say? The Queen’s Guard would’ve annihilated Canterlot, everything that I tried to-”
“You failed!” Thorax hissed. “You failed just like I did, and you’re too blind to see where you’re standing! What she’s been doing while you played around!” He burst into green fire and his clothes collapsed.
An orange tabby cat leapt out of a purple coat and slunk between the legs of the unicorns, then burst into flames as Thorax reappeared within the square of guards. He stood naked, shorter than Jachs but with smaller holes in his legs. His wings flared.
“We all look the same to them!” he shouted in Herzlander. “All of us! You take away that blue armor, and the Queen’s Guard are just us! Don’t you get it!? We aren’t even speaking our language!”
Jachs and the other three changelings stepped back as Thorax advanced. “There’s no other Queens! Have you heard from Helvia? Yaria? Argynnis? She's the only one that ever existed now! Look around! See it! See it!” He jabbed a foreleg at the windows. “We’re hers!”
Flurry scanned the windows. In all of them, one tall changeling was the centerpiece. The quality varied, as did the detail, but Chrysalis stood out in all of them, standing or flying or pointing a hoof as an army of changelings advanced or bowed. Sometimes ponies bowed with the changelings, always positioned at the base of the window. The alicorn could recognize Chrysalis’ sea-green mane. No other Queen was depicted in any of them.
“We’re hers!” Thorax screeched in Equestrian. “You think it matters what the fucking Queen’s Guard did!? You still don’t get it! Chrysalis tortured Twilight Sparkle!”
He took a step forward. “The Queen’s Guard tortured the Princess of Equestria!” Thorax burst into green fire, and purple wings flared out of the pillar of flames.
“We tortured the Princess of Friendship!” Twilight Sparkle screamed at the changelings in front of her. There was another burst of fire. Flurry inhaled at the pink wings that emerged first.
“We killed the Princess of Love!” Cadance shouted in a wild snarl. She advanced another step. Fire burst around her again as Jachs tripped on his chains.
Flurry Heart stood before the changelings with green magic vibrating around her horn. “They told stories about us for years, and we went and proved them right!” The Princess of Ponies abruptly shrunk down in a flicker of green flames, and Thorax stood muzzle-to-muzzle with the taller stallion. He panted raggedly.
“The other army out there thinks they’re fighting a holy war,” Thorax rasped. “Who’s going to tell them they’re wrong?” The changeling pulled himself back from the stunned stallion.
“I’m sure you did it for the Hives,” Thorax admitted with a broken voice in Herzlander. “That’s what your kind always says. There’s no Hives anymore. She already broke us while you were too blind to see it. There’s nothing left to break. If you cared about changelings at all, you would’ve put a bullet in Chrysalis’ head or freed Twilight years ago. She would’ve been the last one that could’ve stopped the fire.”
None of them responded. Thorax stared down at Second Wind, then shook his head. “We’re all going to burn for what Chrysalis did. I have one last question. Don’t answer. I already know.” He paused for a moment and looked around at the crowd of ponies with sad blue eyes.
“When Flurry was ten years old, Chrysalis came for her in Aquileia,” Thorax said in Equestrian. “If she had been taken, she would’ve ended up with her aunt. What would you have done if you found a ten-year-old filly screaming in a cocoon with a drill through her horn?”
Thorax bared his fangs at Jachs, then lowered his lips. “What would you have done then?” The smaller changeling twisted away with narrowed eyes and raised a hoof to leave.
Jachs opened his mouth behind him.
Thorax suddenly whirled back around and hissed, a true, proper, screeching shriek that echoed through the throne room and made ears pin back, tails lash, and feathers rustle. It didn’t sound like a changeling’s scream; it was a feral cry of pure anger and hunger, like an animal.
Or a monster.
Jachs stumbled back on his hooves and fell to his flank with wide eyes. Thorax sneered down at him, then spat something in the lilting language of the changelings. It sounded wrong when coming from such a raspy, angry hiss. He stomped away to a side door with twitching wings. The crowd parted to let him past.
Flurry gathered his clothes and levitated them over. Thorax noticed at the door and collected them out of her aura. He bundled them into a rough ball and carried it between raised wings.
“What would you do?” Flurry called out.
“It’s your decision, Princess,” Thorax stated back.
“That’s not what I asked.”
“I would kill them,” Thorax answered immediately.
Flurry blinked on the throne and looked down to the changelings surrounded by her soldiers. “They surrendered.”
“They did,” Thorax accepted. “Changelings lie.”
“There will be reprisals,” Flurry tried.
“Gallus!” Thorax shouted across the throne room. “Has the retreating Heer started draining villages yet?”
“They’ve done it since the start,” Gallus responded. “Worse now, they’re trying to slow the advance down, tearing up the railways and burning some of the smaller villages.” He cast his eyes up to the throne. “We aren’t stopping.”
“Don’t,” Flurry countered. “We’ll keep the supply lines moving. Sunset, we’ll need to organize more relief units. Catch up and kill them.” She turned down to the changelings, moving from Arex and Ocellus to the ones in chains. “Do you want to...” she hesitated, “recruit any?”
“Any of the ones I wanted to take would have been drummed out years ago,” Thorax answered. He spared a look at Ocellus. “I don’t have the time to go through 40,000 of them, nor do any of my changelings.”
Flurry sighed. “Dismissed.”
“I’ll see you when you’re done,” Thorax promised and bowed. He left through the side door, and it closed like the sound of a gavel declaring a judgement. The throne room descended into a deep silence as Flurry rustled her wings against the obsidian stone. She kept the Friendship Journal clutched to her chest.
“Just kill us,” Marsilio sighed from the center of the group. “I spent my life sensing emotions, inhibitor ring or not. You want to kill us. Just do it.”
“I want to kill you,” Flurry admitted, “but I won’t.”
Her announcement caused heads to turn from the changelings up to the throne.
“I accepted your surrender,” Flurry continued. “I’ll keep it. You’ll live.”
Alcippe whimpered against Jachs and pulled him back to his hooves. Their chains looped together, and the guards closed in and untangled them. “Have them taken to the warehouses with the others,” Flurry Heart ordered. “We need to make plans to ship them east, away from the frontlines.”
“Princess,” Rainbow growled.
“I know you want to kill them all, Rainbow,” Flurry said from the side of her mouth, “and I know that more will die anyway. Please.”
The pegasus glared at Flurry but nodded and took a step back. “He deserves to die,” she said with her magenta eyes drilling into Generalmajor Jachs.
The changelings were separated. Jachs and Alcippe looked relieved. Finicus looked ambivalent, and Marsilio’s eyes remained unfocused and cloudy. The guards supported him, practically dragging him away from the throne. Two griffons picked up the pegasus.
“Not him,” Flurry called out. “Hang the pegasus.”
Jachs and Alcippe stumbled in their chains. The guards shoved them and tensed. “What?” the changeling stallion shouted.
“I accepted the surrender of your garrison,” Flurry remarked. “Soldiers of the Hegemony. Second Wind is a former guardstallion, sworn to the Equestrian crown. He committed treason, and so he hangs.”
“No!” Jachs shouted. Frosty Jadis slammed the butt of her rifle into the side of his head and the changeling sprawled to the rug.
Marsilio stirred in the hooves of the guards dragging him. He turned his head back. “He took a grenade for Twilight! Killed Lacin Cardo!” The guard rattled him and the doctor vomited a sickly pink slime across his wings. The ponies dropped him in disgust.
“He…” Jachs slurred from the ground. “He saved her.”
Flurry vanished with a crack of golden lightning. She burst back into existence in the middle of the guards and knocked them back from the concussive snap of her overcharged teleport. Jachs blinked as the Princess suddenly stood over him with a burning horn, tall and terrible with icy eyes.
“Saved her?” Flurry shouted. The force of her voice physically pushed him down the rug and his ears bled. “He saved himself, all of you! Cowering behind her like Trimmel!”
The crowd winced and lowered themselves. Jadis rolled back with her bad hoof wrapped over her head. Flurry flared her clipped wings and reared up, still holding the Friendship Journal clutched to her chest.
“You imagined you’d build a better future atop her bones. And when that failed, you clung to her to save yourselves. Like rats,” Flurry sneered. “Or parasites.” The windows rattled again, and Flurry took a deep breath and pushed it out with a foreleg. The crowd slowly recovered and Jachs was hauled upright.
She landed on three legs and set the Friendship Journal down. Flurry trotted to the litter and Second Wind. The pegasus’ eyes struggled to focus on her as she stood over him. The alicorn inhaled and knelt down beside the litter to listen.
“Did you know?” she asked in a quiet whisper. “Before?”
Second Wind blinked. His mouth moved for a few seconds before he managed a faint, “Yes.” Flurry closed her eyes and held her breath. The pegasus worked his jaw. “I’m sorry,” he exhaled in such a breathy rasp that the alicorn barely caught it.
Flurry stood up. “Hang him,” she said loudly. “Make sure his neck breaks. Don’t let him dangle.” She glanced at Sunset. “Could we use any of the others?”
“We don’t want them,” Sunset snorted.
“That’s not what I asked.”
“We can use some of them,” Tempest countered. She walked from the base of the throne and regarded Second Wind. “For a while. Some might get fragged.”
Flurry’s muzzle scrunched. “What?”
“Friendly fire,” Sunset explained. “We can separate them into units to keep it to a minimum.”
The Princess twisted and looked over her shoulder. “Price!” she called out.
Duty Prince lowered his knife and sheathed it. “I’ll find a use for them. Clearing minefields if nothing else. Or caves. They want to redeem themselves; they work for it.”
“Hang the worst offenders, if they aren’t already dead,” Flurry said to Tempest. “Accusations of bribery or cruelty or whatever.”
“Princess!” Jachs shouted again. Flurry reared back around and flared her wings. “It’s my fault!” he continued before she opened her muzzle. “It’s mine!”
Flurry ground her teeth. “Yes. It is,” she growled.
“He tried to kill Chrysalis!” Jachs shouted again. His head was bleeding from the fin and Jadis moved to hit him again with her rifle. Flurry caught the stock in her magic for a second and Jadis relented.
“Explain,” the alicorn ordered. She waved her wings for the group to be dragged back to her and Second Wind. The tan pegasus’ eyes rolled to them and his mouth moved, but no sound came out.
Jachs licked his lips several times. One green eye blinked as blood ran down the eyelid from his head. “He tried to kill Chrysalis before she was crowned Empress of Equus.”
“She’s the Queen of the Changelings,” Flurry rolled her eyes. “She crowned herself Empress of the Crystal Empire, too. How many titles do you want to give her? I already have too many with three.”
“I talked him out of it.”
Flurry scoffed. “That really helped his case.”
Jachs looked down at Second Wind. “He didn’t know about Twilight-”
Flurry’s horn sparked.
“He didn’t know until afterwards. I didn’t tell him. He would’ve made a different choice.”
“Don’t answer for him,” Flurry said lowly. She cast an eye down at the crippled pegasus. “Is that true?” she asked him.
Second Wind’s eyes were glazed over again. His mouth moved, but there was no verbal answer. “He’s my friend,” Jachs pleaded. “Our friend.”
“Your friend,” Flurry sneered. “How nice. He knew for years, then. And left her. Like his friends.” She straightened her neck and glared at the other three changelings. “Well, friends. You can hang with him, if you want.”
None of them responded. Jachs looked away from Second Wind. Flurry snorted again and waved a wing. “Get them out of here. Hang Second Wind.” She looked around the room and saw disappointment, but it was disappointment that the changelings were leaving alive.
Just as Flurry turned her head back to Sunset and Tempest, chains rattled. She paused, then looked back. Marsilio had pulled himself free from the guards and flopped to the floor. He struggled to stand under his own power. The guards aimed their submachine guns at his back.
“Hang me,” Marsilio coughed. “With him.”
“You clearly want to die anyway,” Flurry said.
“I was there with your aunt,” Marsilio slurred. “I was there when we found her in the cave, and I was there when she fell into a coma. I knew they were hurting her for fun.”
Flurry’s legs shook.
“She said it wasn’t my fault,” the doctor rasped, “but it was. I don’t care anymore.”
“Fine,” Flurry managed.
“Oh, hell!” Finicus spat in Herzlander. “I don’t have anything anyway!” He tugged against the guards. “Rope me up! I won’t have to pay all my debtors! No ‘ling wants to buy my art anyway! I wanted to be a painter!” The guards looked to Flurry. She nodded with twitching lips.
Jachs looked to Second Wind, then to Alcippe behind him, and finally closed his eyes. “I love you, Aly,” he said softly. He pulled himself forward to stand beside the pegasus with a bleeding head.
Alcippe wept from her broken muzzle and her legs shook in the chains as the guards restrained her.
“Get her out of here,” Flurry sighed. Her breath caught. “Hang the rest.”
Alcippe was dragged nearly to the double doors before she twisted back. Her voice was muffled from the bandages around her muzzle. “Me!”
Jachs looked over a wing. “Aly-” Flurry clamped his muzzle shut with her horn and he bit down on the tip of his tongue.
“Me,” Alcippe repeated softly. Her eyes went to Second Wind from Jachs. “I w-was t-there too.” The guards looked to Flurry. Her wings shook against her side.
Flurry Heart stared at the four changelings and one pony spanning the breadth of the throne room. “Well,” her voice cracked. “I wonder which one of you is Honesty, Generosity, Loyalty, Kindness, and Laughter? You’re missing Magic. You left her in a cave. Hang them all.”
Flurry turned back around as the griffons picked up Second Wind and dragged him to the doors with the rest. Sunset and Tempest nodded to Flurry, and ignored the tears in her eyes. “I want...” Flurry paused to control her breathing, “find the second-in-command. Or third. We’ll have to get with the Reich about moving them.”
“Of course, Princess,” Tempest agreed. The two unicorns stepped back as Flurry waved her trembling wings to the throne. She lifted her hoof.
It froze above the Friendship Journal she left on the floor. Flurry inhaled. I nearly stepped on it.
She exhaled with a sob. “Wait.” The alicorn sobbed again and her cry rattled the widow panes. The chandeliers swung above her. The throne room scuffed hooves and claws on the floor from the sound.
“Princess,” Sunset started. “You don’t…”
Flurry ignored her and picked up the book with a shaking wing. She turned around with tears rolling down her muzzle and walked to the guards waiting by the doors. They had stopped with the five prisoners that abandoned her aunt.
The Princess of Ponies halted in front of them wearing a black jumpsuit and purple crown. Tears ran down her muzzle and snot hung from her nose as she sniffled. The alicorn extended a quivering wing to Jachs with the book balanced atop the feathers.
“Take them all down to the warehouses,” Flurry ordered to the guards. “Second Wind with the rest of the Canterlot Guard. See that he gets treatment.”
Jadis bit her lip as her blue coat glittered. She nodded. “As you say, Princess.”
“Thank you, Princess,” Jachs said quietly.
“Take the book,” Flurry bit out. “I don’t forgive you. I’ll never forgive you. But my aunt would.”
Jachs, under wide, focused eyes from Jadis, accepted the book and tucked it under a chained wing. This close, Flurry noticed a scar running down his muzzle, along the side of his jaw. She sniffled again. “Why?”
The changeling did not answer.
“This would be easier with her,” Flurry whispered in Herzlander. “I can’t stop the storm, even if I wanted to. My mother could’ve. Twilight could’ve. It’s just me.”
“I tried,” Jachs said back, green eyes averted from the tall, weeping teenager.
“Words are wind,” Flurry sobbed. “I hope you live. For all of it. She could’ve done better.”
“I’d rather we all burn,” Jachs whispered.
Flurry wiped her muzzle with a wing and looked at him questioningly.
His ears pinned back. “It’s what your uncle said.”
Flurry Heart eyes swept over the changelings and her guards. “I never want to see you again,” she said in a louder voice. “Dismissed!” her voice cracked on the command.
The throne room stomped a hoof or pounded a claw. The four changelings and one pony were taken through the foyer out of the courtyard, then down a sideway and away from the main entrance and the gallows. Flurry trotted back to the dais and ascended the steps on shaking legs. She sat in the throne and rubbed her hooves together. Even with her height, it was a large, ugly stone designed like Chrysalis’ crown. Rainbow bit her lip and flapped her good wing beside Flurry.
Sunset, Tempest, Dusty, Duty Price, and Duskcrest waited below as the crowd filtered out of the throne room. Gallus stopped for a moment beside Yona and Sandbar, then looked to the knights and simply waved. They waved back before the griffon left.
Flurry sniffled again and wiped her muzzle on her clipped feathers. She trailed snot into them. “Yes?” she asked after a moment.
“I’ll, uh, get started on that, Princess,” Duty Price said. He bowed awkwardly and backed away from the throne.
“What else?” Flurry gasped.
“Actually,” Duskcrest shrugged a wing. “Not important.” He pulled Dusty Mark away with a claw. “We’ll get with, uh-”
“Us,” Sunset answered, covering for Duskcrest. “We have some things to discuss.”
“I’ll be there in a bit,” Flurry promised and scrubbed her muzzle.
“It’s not important,” Tempest assured her.
“Don’t lie to me,” Flurry sighed. “Dismissed.” She turned to Rainbow. “I know you wanted to kill them. I’m sorry.”
Rainbow blinked back tears. She scrunched her muzzle. The pegasus leaned in for a moment as if to hug her Princess, then receded and flapped down the steps. The Element of Loyalty nodded at the bottom of the dais. “I understand,” she rasped.
Her commanders left. The throne room wasn’t truly empty; several dozen soldiers stood along the pillars, though none met the alicorn’s eyes. The griffons and ponies scanned the room as the double doors were pulled shut.
The refrain from Sapphire Shores’ song whistled from below the throne. Flurry blinked and leaned down. Jacques still sat with the gramophone on a cart. He looked up at her and ceased whistling. “I spent a long time looking for this,” he said in Aquileian. “Seems a waste to just cart it off.”
“I’d like to listen to it again,” Flurry choked out.
“Of course, Little Flurry,” Jacques agreed. He quickly spun the record back and held the needle up with a talon. “It is a good song. It would be better in Aquileian.”
“You could sing it,” Flurry suggested.
“Oh,” Jacques squawked. “I am banned from singing in Griffonia and Zebrica. The ladies could not resist. I have no desire to add Equus to the list.”
Flurry giggled and it turned into another sob partway through.
“Little Flurry?” Jacques asked from below. The Princess looked down again. Jacques smiled. “Your aunt would be proud of you for that.”
“She wouldn’t be proud of a lot of things I’ve done,” Flurry swallowed.
“But she’d be proud of you for that,” Jacques replied. He let the needle drop and the song began again.
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Flurry NOT killing them all where they stand? She's going soft. Jachs should've died.
The slow road to righting ones past.
Tragically the war is still far from over.
I curious about AJ faith.
Mercy is a quality alongside Generosity, Loyalty, Kindness, Laughter, and Honestly. Just following orders is a terrible defense. But sometimes it's that or putting your own head in front of the barrel.
11563421
I don't know if this is truly mercy. From Flurry's perspective, it is, but it's also a punishment.
They're traitors and cowards, hated by everyone in that throne room and the world beyond it. They served their Queen loyally, then turned on her to save themselves and hid behind Twilight Sparkle...
Except that's not really what happened.
Jachs had no expectation of really surviving; he just wanted to die doing something right.
Finicus burned his company to the ground rather than resort to slavery.
Marsilio did everything he could for Twilight, and the failure destroyed him.
Alcippe was just trying to save her stallion, the one she followed into the fire.
Second Wind, in the end, took a grenade for Twilight without hesitation.
It's just years too late. They had a thousand moments before to do something, but it took being pushed to the absolute brink and already facing ruin for them to find themselves and start really trying. In-game, they find Twilight Sparkle effectively unguarded, which is so egregious that I can't mention it in-story because there's no way they don't get immediately torn apart by an angry mob.
If you know the event chain for the "good" ending of Pax Chrysalia, I've implied that it happened here and there. They had a vision quest, and they decided to be better. It just didn't end well, because all of their efforts at internal reform depended on Chrysalis being distracted forever. And as Thorax points out, they were so concerned with making it "better" that they completely missed Chrysalis utterly ruining changelings for years. Their language, history, and culture are dying, twisting into "Show Chrysalis," a swarm of changelings that follow their Queen. That's what she always wanted; Thorax saw it a long time ago. That's why he hates Jachs and 'lings like him so much. They could see it too, if they tried. What's coming is their fault as much as it is Thorax's for not trying to assassinate her before all this happened.
Flurry spares them for her aunt. They might be the last changelings that Twilight Sparkle ever forgives. And they get potentially the worse fate of living to see the consequences of that.
Good chapter!
Is Finicus based on Oskar Schindler?
11563529
Nah in the mod AJ was doing Schindler stuff.
My favourite part is when Flurry said "Its harmonin' time" and harmonied all over Jachs, Finicus, Marsilo, Alcippe and Second Wind.
11564502
Yes, that is probably the source of what I was thinking of.
I got hit by a car December 31, 2020. A few days later I caught Covid in the hospital. Since then, my memory has been like Swiss Cheese.
I really ought to Google things before relying on my memory.
Sure did a bang-up job of that, huh?
Rope is cheap, indeed.
As for what Thorax said, while in most respects he’s right (at least in-story—I’ve never actually played Changeling Lands, much less Pax, and don’t know how the “good” ending is presented in the actual game), I think it is also unfair. To say those five are “A day late and a dollar short” is an understatement that would rival, and probably surpass, David Beatty’s most famous understatement (“Something’s wrong with our bloody ships today,” said by the admiral in response to no fewer than three (3!) of his Battlecruisers (Battleships that trade armor for speed) blowing up in a spectacular and catastrophic fashion within, I think, 30 to 60 minutes), but…they tried. Because of their high positions of power this is not a particularly apt comparison, but I am reminded of a story I read about a Concentration Camp Guard who didn’t… “refuse to surrender” when it was liberated, because he snuck food to the victims and other small kindnesses, and those victims intervened and put in a good word. As a normal citizen, the state—especially a totalitarian one such as Nazi Germany—has multiple very powerful ways to coerce people (for example, running away from the camp could very well lead to the guard’s arrest and/or execution, punishment for his family, and that’s before we get into cultural norms and expectations. So, he couldn’t leave, and he’s not Superman and can’t take direct action. He also recognizes the monstrosity and evil that is taking place. So, he does what he can, and helps keep a few people from starving to death.
Now, the much higher level in society and power those five had makes it different, but it is an easier decision to try and change things for the better from the inside using that power than to say “it’s all rotten” and burn the whole damn thing down. Indeed, while we do not know the full details of what didn’t go to plan, I think it is safe to say that the story and saga of those five are a textbook tragedy, and while Flurry most certainly doesn’t view it this way, one might view letting them live is a much crueler punishment. Hanging is short and (ideally) painless. Living with the guilt of your failure, which was at least in part because of cowardice and a lack of moral fiber, and the consequences of those mistakes? What’s not a living nightmare if not that?
11563496
Pretty well said. Like I said: they tried, and while a cold, cold comfort in the face of failure and those consequences, that should count for something. (Also if we’re gonna say that Twilight was under lock and key from the get-go, with breaking her out impossible, them not committing suicide by trying to do so seems…understandable at least.
If Jacques is indeed Discord, that means a lot, coming from him. They may not have always seen eye to eye, but he respects her ideals.
You know its bad when the Princess of Rope is the least blood thirsty person in the room.
But its good to see Twi's ideals are still alive, I have a feeling that if they did all hang, she would've died. Hopefully she will temper the hangings from here on out.
She is going by her promise to keep Twilight's house clean. At least as clean as she could make it. I'm just happy this hasn't turned into another Crystal City. If Twilight represents harmony on life support, then all of them being sent to their death, along with the rest of the garrison, would probably lead to Twilight's death. I have a feeling she's going to wake up after Flurry truly discovers harmony, or her empire does.
This story has been mostly war, and cruelty, its nice to see things turn away from that as slowly the forces of harmony wins. Lets hope the victors don't step on the friendship journal to ensure their victory.
But she had to do it, or at least that's what she wants to believe/ I believe. I still think her greatest sin is what she did to the Republicans of Nova Griffonia, they were not evil, or actively trying to hurt her ponies, they mostly just didn't care and were interested in liberating the Griffs of Griffonia. She killed them mostly because they were in the way, and while yes, many of them were shitty, I think out of all of the people she killed, they deserved to die the least, as in they didn't deserve to die.
Everytime I return here
i.ibb.co/GtvdXHX/well-yeah-Imgur.png
Damn it... it's so emotional that it made me cry again