Honeymoon Phase

by UnknownError

A Vase Representing Minotaur-Pony Friendship

“Enough games, Sun Queen,” King Darius’ voice boomed across the fallen. Soleste heaved deep breaths; her mane and tail floated like flotsam. The heat from the sun, her sun, was oppressive, even as twilight stretched out across the battlefield. Sweat and froth poured from her coat and gathered in her heavy, enchanted barding.

Even worse was the lack of magic. The Amulet of Ra boiled the magic in the air. Spells failed near it, being consumed and sent back to the bearer. The land around the mountain pass had already turned dry and brittle from a day’s worth of fighting. It would be a desert for many years, a badlands where no earth pony could make anything grow. It was another patch of land that would be abandoned.

Soleste swayed on her hooves. She staggered over to her spear and ripped it free from the fallen cow. The steel spearpoint trailed gore as she brought it back under a sweaty wing and braced it against the shield strapped to her left foreleg.

“Form up!” Soleste coughed in the waning light. “Get the wounded behind the shield wall and…” the alicorn stopped. She blinked rapidly through the sweat matting her helmet against her fur.

Nopony else was standing.

Arrows, spears, axes, swords…her ponies were gone, scattered after the shield wall broke the fourth time and cut down in individual fighting while their sovereign held her ground. Soleste had a deep cut above a hock, and a laceration that pierced the chainmail guarding her marks, but the blood had clotted and she would live. She could still fight.

Nopony else was alive.

Soleste looked around. Her mouth flapped uselessly as she recalled names, only to see the ponies dead on the ground beside the minotaurs that killed them. Some had died with spears in the back, having attempted to flee towards the stone pass they guarded.

And ahead of her, fresh legions of the Kingdom of Minos assembled ahead of their God-King. Soleste stared at a new cohort, easily five hundred strong. Pilums were braced to be thrown at the final standing target.

Soleste hunched under her shield, lowering her useless horn. She took a deep breath. Three hundred ponies had killed quintuple their number defending the mountain pass. Her dented helmet stuck out above the shield. Part of the crown attached to the stop had already been shorn off; a glancing blow that split open the felt on her horn and exposed the bone.

A horn blew and the cohort snapped to attention. They parted as a pavilion was carried forward by a dozen chained minotaurs. “Enough!” the voice boomed again, heavy and commanding. Even with the falling sun behind her, Soleste could see the King of the Minotaurs lounging atop his golden throne as his slaves lugged it forward.

The golden amulet around his neck lit up his sad bronze face. Darius was unarmored expect for golden loops and bangles. He had even forgone his battleaxe; a slave carried it ahead of the throne. The towering minotaur slammed a hand down on the armrest, and the slaves slowly lowered the throne to the ground with muted groans.

“Enough, Sun Queen,” King Darius stated. “You have lost.” His white horns dipped in sorrow. “Approach the true Solar Throne and submit.”

“Face me!” Soleste roared behind her shield. The spear danced up and down. “Magic or no, I can still cleave your horns from your skull!”

“You neglect your true duty, Sun Queen,” King Darius called back. “My army can fight in shadow or sun.” He lifted his arm, and Soleste felt the wave of boiling magic seize her sun and force it past the horizon. Twilight finally became night.

“You dare!” Soleste roared.

“The time has long since passed,” Darius returned. “But you are correct. I may control the sun….but the moon remains yours, Soleste.”

The dry valley was black, only lit by the stars in the sky. Celestia eyed the innumerable cohorts assembling behind their God-King. The spear wavered. “I named you friend!” she screamed out. “We fought together! We drank together!”

“I still name you friend,” Darius answered empathetically. “And that is why I am begging you to submit! Surrender, Sun Queen!”

“I am a Princess!” Soleste roared back. “I am a Princess of Equestria, and I demand—”

“Cease the delusion,” Darius scoffed with a wave of a heavy hand. “She is forgotten. You think calling yourself Princess will make it easier for two to rule? Luna is gone.”

“Be silent!”

“She is gone, and your kingdom is gone!” Darius shouted atop his throne. His hands waved wildly over the battlefield. “Look at what you could muster! A scant three hundred to counter thousands!”

“I name you traitor!” Soleste’s voice broke. “I name you blackguard and thief!” She shook her head, denying what she saw in front of her and what she knew was behind her.

Everfree was gone, consumed by the magical backlash of the shattered Elements of Harmony. The Principality of Equestria was falling apart at the seams. Earth ponies, pegasi, and unicorns retreated from each other, hording their crops or their clouds or their magic to barter. Soleste’s kingdom was falling apart around her…

…because it had never truly been her kingdom. She had never realized how complex of a puzzle her sister had built in her shadow until she had to pick up the pieces alone. Soleste leaned her helmet against her shield. “I called you friend!” she sobbed out.

“I am sorry,” Darius rumbled with sincerity. “The dogs, the dragons, the griffons, the yaks…all of them are tearing your realm apart. I am merely the first crow to feast on the corpse. I offer you a way out.” He held out a hand. “Bow before the true Sun God, and rise as our tributary.”

“No,” Soleste nickered. She lifted her head again. “My sister would not, and I will not.”

King Darius sighed. “Soleste…I would not know you ever had a sister had you not told me. The ponies we have met since landfall only ever speak of you. And some knew little beyond their own village. Not even you.”

“Equestria is hers as much as it is mine,” Soleste denied.

“It remembers her not,” Darius answered. “It remembers a Nightmare that feasts upon foals—”

“DO NOT SPEAK THOSE LIES!” Soleste roared. She knocked the shield aside and charged with her spear on hoof. She charged towards a cohort of five hundred armored minotaurs without magic and only her earth pony strength. They formed a shield wall before their King in the sweltering night.

Soleste tripped on her bleeding foreleg and tumbled in a cloud of dust. She failed to even reach halfway, barrel heaving and gasping for air. A horn blew and the cohort broke apart again. The slaves carried the pavilion forward before setting the golden throne down beside an honor guard.

“Soleste,” Darius said quietly. “Please. Enough.”

Soleste coughed in the dirt. Her wing still gripped the spear against her side, but her feathers slipped on the blood and sweat dripping from the haft. She struggled to stand and the honor guard braced their heavy square steel shields.

Darius stood up from his throne. “I have no desire to claim your land or enslave your ponies,” he announced. “Your tribute will be gold and you will keep your crown.” The minotaur folded his bronze arms across his chest. The golden amulet in the shape of a sun around his neck pulsed with energy.

“If you wish to die a warrior’s death,” Darius continued grimly, “so be it. The Legions of Minos will be forced to enslave unicorns to continue your duties. I will not deprive the night of the Moon.”

Soleste stared up at the inky blackness above the battlefield. She preferred it that way, where only the stars looked down and judged her. She closed her eyes as she swayed on her hooves.

Darius' voice was pleading. "Please, friend."

The white alicorn knelt.

Pulling off her helmet and unlacing her barding, Soleste discarded her bloody, dented armor and bowed in the dirt. She saved the spear for last, letting it fall from her wing without ceremony. It landed with a thump and gathered dust from the sweat and blood.

Soleste was as naked as King Darius, white wings sagging to the ground beside her. In the light of the Amulet of Ra, her muzzle was clenched and wet with froth and tears. She turned weeping eyes up to the King.

“I take no joy in this, Soleste,” Darius sighed. “Queen Dido insisted once we acquired the Amulet.”

“She was always a wretched harpy,” Soleste sighed.

Darius chuckled. “She wanted me to kill you. I won’t. I may sleep on the throne for the rest of my reign, but I still name you friend.” The minotaur stood on his raised pavilion as the honor guard sheathed their weapons and lowered their shields. He held his hand up. “Rise, Princess Soleste.”

The alicorn slowly rose from her knees. As she did so, her wing wrapped around the haft of the spear fallen to the dirt. She found her grip.

Soleste whipped it forward with all her earth pony strength.

It was a poor throw and off the mark, sinking into Darius’ chest and lodging in one of his ribs. His arm went to his amulet, but knocked against the spear jutting from his chest. The bronze minotaur’s eyes were wide and his command choked in his throat. The guards responded too slowly, too shocked by the betrayal of the betrayer.

The alicorn leapt, bloody wings trailing in a glide as she used her unnatural height and size to make the jump above the shocked honor guard before they could raise their shields. She landed heavily atop the pavilion, wrapping her forelegs around the spear and forcing Darius back into his golden throne.

Soleste bared her teeth at him and snarled. She heaved the spear forwards, but it was stuck in the bone. Her head rang as Darius punched her, and the amulet glowed and flickered between them. Soleste reared back and used all her muscles to ram forward.

The spear broke through the rib and sank through his chest. She felt the shock as it scraped the other rib and exited from Darius' back, pinning him to the throne. The minotaur wrapped his hands around her neck and squeezed even as he spasmed.

Soleste batted at the amulet around his neck with her flailing hooves. Eye to eye, the friends glared at each other hatefully until Celeste caught the golden chain in the wound on her hock and tugged the amulet free with a choking cry of pain. The chain wrapped around her hoof with a swing. She broke Darius’ grip with a desperate slam of her hooves against his chest.

The Amulet of Ra did not return her wounded strength, but her horn sparked. Soleste turned her fiery magic on the honor guards as they advanced to pierce her sides with their spears. Minotaurs were blasted into ash or melted in their steel armor. Deprived of their protection and magical victory, the back ranks broke and the slaves scattered.

Soleste fell to the ground beside the raised throne, still firing wild blasts from her horn. She stood up half-blind from sweat and blood and unleased a wave of fire into the advancing cohort, driving them back. Ash swirled down the mountain pass.

By the time she finished, the night glowed like day for a moment. The torches of the army ascending towards the mountain pass flickered in the distance, then vanished as the army broke apart and fled to their ships. Cries of dismay echoed as news of their fallen God King spread.

Which was good, because Soleste laid panting on the ground beside their dying God King. Her thoughts wandered. Queen Dido was pregnant, and the sow would be in no condition to continue the war for nearly a year. If she bore a girl, it would be doubly hard to keep her on the throne. Revenge would have to wait.

Soleste had just saved Equestria.

And all I feel is empty.

She lifted her head and looked up to King Darius. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

King Darius turned dull eyes down to her. He sluggishly raised a red hand from the spear in his chest. His breaths rattled. “Should…have known…a god…can bleed. Look…at you…” the minotaur forced out with a bloody smile.

“My sister…will come back,” Soleste revealed slowly. “They showed me…the Elements…the longest day of the thousandth year…she will…come back...to her kingdom.”

Darius attempted to chuckle. He only spat blood. “Won’t make it,” the dying minotaur declared. “It’s as dead…as I am…”

Soleste struggled to her hooves with a weary snarl. “You know nothing—” she cut herself off after looking up to the throne.

Darius was dead, glassy eyes looking out over the land he tried to conquer. Soleste trudged up the pavilion and pulled the spear free with the assist from the Amulet of Ra. She felt refreshed, though the night around her continued to swelter and her wounds continued to bleed. The alicorn sat down heavily beside her dead friend, then her horn glowed.

The scarred Moon rose into the sky, and Soleste looked away from her sister’s dark muzzle as it stared down at her kingdom. The Tree of Harmony offered no answers if her sister was awake or aware or even alive, and she had only a vision to cling to. Sometimes she even doubted that.

The last time she had held court in frigid, lowly Canterlot, an astronomer had asked if she knew anything about the Mare in the Moon while they laid in bed together. Later, the alicorn had listened through a door as a servant read her daughter ‘The Tale of the Royal Pony Sisters,’ and then looked guilelessly at Soleste while she poured wine for her sovereign.

Luna had said they never loved her.

And she was right.

Soleste held the spear to her side. She looked over the ashen battlefield and her dead ponies. All two-hundred and ninety-nine, all that she could muster to defeat an invasion. The steel-tipped spearpoint glistened in the night.

“Do you care for nothing but that hunk of magic wood?”

The earth pony-turned-alicorn closed her eyes. Her skill had carried farther than anypony else had ever ventured before. It won her a kingdom and a crown, and a horn and wings.

But it had cost her a sister. And her sister’s kingdom was crumbling.

Soleste was not the pony to rule Equestria. But she could be.

“You swear it?”

She had to be.

“I swear it.”

Princess Soleste dropped the spear.

“I’m sorry, Princess. The kitchen is mostly occupied with pies to stop the siege.”

Comments

[Forcalor]

Powerful
I am pretty sure though that you're talented enough to write without direct references to different media. It makes up for strong visuals, but weakens overall experience imo. Of course, that's how you roll, and you're upfront about it, but still sort of distracting

[UnknownError]

11632390
I do have other, non-derivative, non-horsewords writing which you will never find and I will disavow all knowledge of if you happen to find it floating around. Yeah, this chapter is a 300 reference with a splash of mythology, but even that's subverted because of how hollow Soleste's victory is. People tend to forget that the Persians sacked Athens anyway and dealt some pretty heavy blows to the Greek city-states.

And that amulet is very important.

[Mix-up]

Still interesting so far, and the flashbacks are interesting, but when Celestia when through four and she is still nursing the same hangover it's starting to feel like it's stalling the actual story sense and hour barely seem to have passed in 17k words into the story. It might be best to distribute them more further apart in their own chapter or make much shorter snippets, if the main plot is leads to somewhere. By the way I love the poltrymancer idea, and the subjugation of the minotaur, they really showed how much Celestia changed in different eras and that she had to get hard learned lessons for her after almost losing her kingdom. Trek seems to be adjusting fast to king prince title already, he is pretty fun so far.

[UnknownError]

11632701
The flashbacks would be better spaced in a proper story about Celestia dealing with the fallout of her drunken binge and getting to know Jungle Trek better...but that's not where this one is going. It expanded beyond the 10,000 word one-shot it started as, and the stretch marks show. There is one more flashback, then three chapters in the present.

I didn't really want to write the traditional Celestia ends up in an accidental marriage story.

11632889
I have become undone. (Lune's failure to adhere to proper grammar is a symptom of the Nightmare!)

[Savant Sentral]

11632701
Yeah... I don't mind them, and they're pretty well written, but I'm here like "When's the story gonna start?"
It's like I came for one thing and got something else. Something I don't mind, but... not what I am here for

[StarzGecko]

Loving the story so far. Though I do see what others are saying that they thought the story would be more about “Celestia accidentally married” tale when the title of the story seems a little different from what’s being read here. I don’t mind it but I do understand what they mean.

I’ve been seeing this story beginning with her waking up from Bed and trying to get to the kitchen to the ending like know what… vacation sounds good.

I see what you want to do and that’s fine. You are doing a great job doing a different take.

[EdgarFox]

11622529
Cadillac-dynamite/egil_art made the cover art, though I don't see it posted anywhere. It was made for a joke so I don't expect the full image to be posted anywhere soon.

[_R_E_D_A_C_T_E_D_]

11633677
It was posted on equestria at war Discord server in teasers channel on april 1st.

It's still there as far as I'm aware.

This whole fic exists mostly becouse of that joke.

[EdgarFox]

11633732
Aye, I didn't want to overcomplicate it for someone who's not familiar with EAW

[Mythic Night]

11632393
She made the amulet into her peytral, didn’t she?

[Draco Dei]

11637695
I am actually wondered if she gave it to the Unicorns so they could raise the sun for a while (it could have lost its.power from over-use I in a few decades, making it JUST a museum price now). That would be one less 30 second duty she could hold on to rather than the true duties of a leader. I thought of this while looking up the bit about her only caring about the spear. It turned.out to be two chapters ago when Line saved her from the poultrymancer.

Now I wonder if she will use its magic a burning effect to force the Unicorns back into her fold.