A Tapestry of the Hearth's Warming
Huitzilopochtli snorted. “What?” She planted the spear butt into the frozen ground and stared at the messenger. He was barely more than a yearling, a burgundy colt whose heavy bronze armor did not fit around his frame.
“Um, Huiz…Hut…uh…” the earth pony stumbled over his tongue.
“Use my title, foal. You northerners cannot pronounce our names.”
“Warmaster,” the earth pony knelt. “The warbands are ready.”
“Good!” one of the chieftains shouted, a boisterous, pot-bellied, behemoth of a stallion. His war wife stood beside him, equally scarred and armored. “We get to kill some hornheads!”
The cheer was taken up by most of the tent, but not all. A dour-eyed stallion closest to Huitzilopochtli remained frowning, staring at the rough dirt mounds and frozen sticks. He pawed at one of the rocks marking the mage bands surrounding a tall dirt mountain.
“Are we sure those birds offered good reports?”
“The bird you speak of is in this tent,” Huitzilopochtli snarled. The white earth pony's braided pink mane and tail were flecked with bone rings and multi-colored feathers, taken from fallen wings and horns. None in the room had more than the tall mare, not even the chieftains thrice her age. “I trust her.”
“Why?”
“Because we paid them,” one of the chieftains snorted. “The Armada may claim honor is everything, but they like gold as much as a dragon.”
“I’ve heard the unicorns can make gold,” the dour-eyed stallion remarked. “Who's to say they didn’t pay her more?”
“They did,” a voice called out from the back of the tent. Wings raised above the heads of the earth pony crowd, and a slim pegasus in leather armor shoved herself forward. She eyed the hard earth ponies with severe cyan eyes. “And I took their gold.” She bared off-white teeth.
The crowd snorted. For a moment, the pegasus and earth pony stared at each other across the dirt map. The smaller blue mare had hacked her azure mane and tail short, and her wings had bronze knives fitted through them. They looked nothing alike…
…except their fur was marked with swirls around their legs and under their eyes. The patterns differed, but they had a tribal heritage, unlike every other pony in the tent. The blood-red markings on the pegasus’ muzzle shifted as she scrunched her snout.
“I took their money,” she repeated louder, “and I told them you were a bunch of milk-drinkers, less than ten thousand, and that you would attack from the south.”
“You sold out your honor for us?” the dour-eyed stallion questioned with clear doubt. He glanced down at the sticks marking the northern approach.
“They knew I signed a contract,” the pegasus scoffed in a heavy accent. “They expected me to break it. They have no honor.”
“I trust her,” the white earth pony snarled again. She thumped the spear into the ground. “If anypony has a problem with it, we settle this in the dueling ring. Here and now.”
Nopony in the tent met the white mare’s furious, berserker magenta eyes. “Warmaster,” the burly chieftain said with a deep nod. The others echoed him in a wave. As they left the tent, the open flaps blew snowflakes over the map scrawled into the ground.
Huitzilopochtli squinted through the opening, spying the lonely mountain in the distance, and the smoke from hundreds of fires billowing off the side. The so-called ‘Princess’ with her army was well-entrenched, eager to claim her mother’s title.
No matter how cold the wind blew.
The dour-eyed earth pony remained staring at the map. “They’ll have range on us. Their foul magics will tear through our warbands.”
Huitzilopochtli saw no point in soft words. “Yes.”
“We’ll lose hundreds before we make it to their first lines.”
“Thousands,” she corrected. “We have the numbers. They do not.”
The stallion sighed.
“The hornheads are starving on their horny spire,” the mare chuckled. “They can’t fight up close.” She shook her head, and her long braid jingled with bone rings. "Once we close the distance, we will slaughter them."
“Platinum will escape.”
“Of course, Dough,” the mare grunted. “She has foul magic. But she is only one mare. If the hornheads cannot stand against us in force, they will have to agree to a summit.” She spat atop the dirt mound representing the mountain beyond. “Your names are absurd.”
“At least you can pronounce ours,” the stallion said wryly. He spared a final glance at the pegasus mercenary standing across the map. “You trust her? Some tribal bond?”
“Yes.” With the tent clear, the white earth pony twirled her spear in her forelegs. The bronze spearpoint flashed through the air with several quick jabs. Her legs were crisscrossed with pink paint stripes to match her mane and tail. “Leave us. We have final negotiations.”
“We have no more gold.”
“We have food,” Huitzilopochtli snorted. “In this winter, that’s more valuable than gold. Even the hornheads know that. An earth pony will never wear a slave brand again as long as I draw breath.”
Dough looked back to the burn over his cutie mark. His eyes hardened, then he glared down at the map. “Most of the high horns are up on the mountain with their Princess. Especially their mages.”
“We’re not taking prisoners,” Huitzilopochtli declared.
“Good.” Dough left the tent.
The two ponies stared at each other over the dirt drawing. The earth pony was taller and visibly older than the pegasus. The blue mare preened a bronze wing, then tugged a leather strap taut with her teeth. The white mare rested her spear against her side.
“Coyolxauhqui,” the white mare finally said. “You trust the reports from all your warriors?” She spoke in her tribal tongue, one that the northerners beyond the tent could not speak. Any ears turned to the tent heard nothing they could understand.
“My war flock is loyal,” the pegasus snorted in the same language. “They obey the Commander’s orders. And mine.”
“All northerners?” the taller mare asked with a derisive grunt. “What do they call you?”
“Coya,” the pegasus returned with an equally derisive whicker.
“Huitzy,” the white mare offered. “The foals came down here and brought the snow with their strange tongue and their false gods.”
“Deny it all you want, you share part of their blood just as I,” Coya said flatly.
“Father—”
“Is dead,” Coya interrupted. “Crom take him.”
Huitzy’s magenta eyes narrowed and the mare growled. “Take it back.”
“No,” the smaller mare retorted. “Your mudpony mother may have embraced tribal life, but there’s no place for a half-breed in the Armada. I carved my way through the Cloudiseum to prove my worth to Hurricane.”
“Don’t appeal to my pity,” Huitzy mocked. “You piss on us from your clouds just like the hornheads on their mountains.”
“Don’t appeal to mine, Warmaster,” Coya said sarcastically. “How desperate is that herd to turn to you for help?”
Huitzy ground her teeth. “Desperate,” she acknowledged. “The snows will kill us all.”
“The cold struck us first,” Coya responded. Her eyes clouded. “Does your mother live?” she asked in a smaller voice.
“No. Yours?”
“No.”
The two mares were silent for a moment.
“You think we have another sister on that mountain?” Coya asked sardonically. “Father got around.”
“He did,” Huitzy laughed. “I’m sure he would have tried if that axe hadn’t taken him.”
Coya let a small smile slip through her grim warpaint. “Do any know?”
"Dough’s mate,” Huitzy responded. “Smart Cookie. Stupid name, but a clever mare. Any of yours?”
“Pansy. As cowardly as her name. She helps with the letters.”
“Reading?” the earth pony snorted. “By Crom, you have turned into a northerner.”
“If father wanted to raise me in our ways, he would’ve stopped my mother from returning to the Armada,” Coya responded. Her eyes sharpened. “He clearly loved one daughter more: the one that took after him.”
Huitzilopochtli opened her mouth with bared teeth, then a gust of wind blew through the partially opened flap. Both mares shivered. She closed her mouth and thought about her words. “Father loved you. He missed you dearly.”
Coya looked away. “Why did you tell them we were paid? Are you ashamed?”
“No,” Huitzy said in an uncharacteristically kind voice. “But some of the chieftains will claim I can’t be trusted with a pegasus blood-sister. I can’t kill them all in the dueling ring.”
“How’d you even convince Hurricane to agree to this?” Coya whickered. "He even had an augury before I flew here."
“Same way father charmed your mother, I’d imagine,” Huitzy grinned. “We fought. Then we fucked.” She struck a pose, showing off her coiled muscles. “You lithe birds can’t resist mudponies.”
Coya rolled her eyes. “He always thinks with his cock.”
Huitzy burst out laughing. Her braying snort filled the tent. Coya suppressed a smirk until the sound faded into the howling wind outside.
Huitzilopochtli stared across the map at her last family. “We will lose thousands,” she admitted. “The approach has some cover, but…”
“But what?”
“Fog would help,” Huitzy said quietly. “Mist. Or snow.”
Coya pulled in a breath through her nose. “You want me to risk my war flock? Hurricane did not agree to that, and no amount of earth pony sex will soothe that rage.”
The earth pony returned to the map. “I understand.”
Coyolxauhqui flapped her wings. She was quiet for a moment. “If we present a united front against Platinum, she will have to give up her dream of unicorn dominance. She wants you as slaves to secure her food. If she has the food, she has us.”
Huitzy looked back up at her sister.
“We have to fight together,” Coya declared. “No matter what any other says. My war flock will follow wherever I lead it. How about your warbands?”
“I’ve smashed enough skulls,” the earth pony chuckled.
“You’ll get mist,” Coya promised. She began to walk to the tent flap. “Who knows? We might even get peace from this.”
“You want peace?” the earth pony asked with obvious confusion on her muzzle. “That goes against everything the Armada flies for.”
“I want a world where my mother was not compelled to leave my father,” Coya whispered. She reached the tent flap and squinted into the snowfall.
“Wait!” Huitzy called.
“It’s bad luck to try to pray to Crom before a battle,” Coya chided. “He has no time for prayers. Invites weakness.”
“Sister.”
Coyolxauhqui turned around with soft eyes. Her wings twitched. Huitzilopochtli slammed her spear into the ground, then approached her sister unarmed. She was a head taller than her, and several years older, but both sets of eyes were shared a weariness.
Huitzy stopped a hoof away. “I will lead the attack. I may fall.”
Coya nodded.
“Should I survive,” Huitzy declared, “I will name you my blood-sister before the clans, win or lose.” Her muzzle turned pink. “Should you wish it,” she amended.
“Don’t ruin your standing for me,” Coya sighed.
“You are my sister,” Huitzilopochtli said severely. “We are all that is left of our family. If we fight together today, we are blood-bound. Forever.”
Coya blinked, and her lips parted in a brittle smile. “You swear it?”
“I swear it.”
"Swear what, Princess?" Sergeant Nocturne asked.
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This is sooo good! Usually when you read a backstory it's well...backstory...but! This made me want to read more, go Huitzilopochtli!
The intrusion of the present at the end in bold was a nice touch - gives the past a chance to leak into the present.
Wow baron has been very convincing hasn't he
I'm going to choke the life out of Baron.
Okay, now this has my attention.
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Jungle Trek is a Prince, not a Baron, silly.
I'm gonn take a wild guess and say that they do have a third sister from the unicorns and that it's the original amora
God, even if it seems unlikely in Canon, I love tribal Celestia stories. A little bit of a darker past makes her present seem all the brighter.
Well this story looks promising, it sort of reminds me of the prince bake bean story, but focused on Celestia instead, and I think it sounds more interesting that way because it come off as slightly less fanservice(no offence to the other author it was a fun read itself), and develop more Celestia and go more toward exploring her past and history and see how being married complicates things for her. Jungle Trek sounds well meaning, knowledgeable and curious so far but also seems to have ADHD, especially when he is nervous; I wonder how his knowledge of history and anthropology contrasts to Celestia's live in era experience, comparing the the heat of the moment and nightlight of what else was going down back then. I wonder how difference the Heartwarming parabola and the actual history of the events went, from the sound of it, it was very bloody and the hearth ponies were just recently freed from slavery and servitude thanks in part Celestia at the time by the unicorns. From the sound of it this is going to be more of an adventure leaning story then a romance and I am looking forward to see what happened next. Keep it up.
Hey, another one of your stories to follow! It's off to a great start, and I can't wait for more.To be honest though I don't care which of your stories updates all three are very good.
Celestia makes a wonderful bride, that's for sure
Very intriguing
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Who did the cover art?
Oh so those two are Celestia and Luna when they were young… though I don’t think I understand if they were alicorns or not?
Man, I want more chapters please!
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Huitzy is an Earth Pony.
Coya is a Pegasus.
They had different mothers, but the same father.
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Ok
Clicks story... sees avatar sword...
bingo!
I got a feeling like this will end with everyone being perfectly fine XD
This is truly one of the most fanfics of all time, 10/10 will recommend