• Published 12th Jan 2013
  • 4,259 Views, 368 Comments

A Song of Storms: Snow and Shadows - The 24th Pegasus



With the onset of the windigo curse, Commander Hurricane and the other tribal leaders leave in search of new lands. They aren't the only ones to face challenges, as the tribes inch closer and closer to ripping each other apart with each day.

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Chapter 13: The Wind Turns

Chapter 13: The Wind Turns

“By the Gods! Hurricane, sir, come look at this!”

Hurricane grunted and sat up from the rock he was resting on. Pan Sea had gone off to scout a little while ago, leaving the Commander to sit and rest in the meantime. Now the private was barely keeping himself from bouncing in place as his wings fluttered in excitement on a distant hilltop.

“I swear, Pansy, if it’s another bird nest like last time…”

Just then he stopped and took the time to adjust his slackened jaw. There, stretching before him for innumerous miles was the verdant and rolling green hills of a fresh land untouched by the wintry strife of home. The ground rose and dipped in gentle fashion for as far as the eye could see, until it finally met with the sapphire blue sky at the base of an incredibly tall and solitary spire far, far to the west.

“Gods above,” Hurricane breathed, “I think we found it.”

“Isn’t it great, sir?!” Pan Sea exclaimed. Without any further delay, the Legionnaire jumped into the air and began to fly in circles over the landscape. Hurricane only shook his head and followed from below, absolutely stunned.

There were few conceptions of beauty the Commander held on par with that of the countryside around Zephyrus or the impressive skyline of Stratopolis, but this land was something else entirely. The grass was the greenest he had ever seen, and flowers seemed to hardly be able to control their blossoms as they burst forth in blinding vibrance. Trees stood tall and proud against the wind that gently but firmly swept over one hill and down the gullies between.

Not only that, but there was warmth and energy to the land as well. Hurricane closed his eyes and stretched his wings into the morning sun. His feathers told him that it was a pleasant sixty-seven degrees, even though it felt much warmer outside. Hurricane supposed it was the effects of having lived in the cold for so long. Even before the Blizzard, the Compact lands rarely got into the upper seventies in the summer. It reminded him of the heat Nimbus was subjected to in the summer months.

“Can you believe this?!” Pan Sea called down from above Hurricane’s head. The yellow pegasus was resting on a soft cloud of cumulus that he had clipped from some high-flying body. “It’s so warm! So green! So full of life!”

Hurricane laughed and began to trot forward. “You seem to be enjoying yourself, Pansy.”

Pan Sea took up a sheepish grin. “Heh… yeah…”

“There’s nothing wrong with it,” Hurricane assured him. “It’s just that I’ve never seen you this… excited, before.” Squinting into the distance, Hurricane took a deep breath and fluttered his wings several times. The pain in his chest was finally starting to dull away. Raincloud always said he was a fast healer. Perhaps in a day or two he could fly again.

“See any good spots to plant a flag from up there?” Hurricane asked.

Pan Sea raised a hoof to his forehead and scanned the distance. “I’d love to get something on top of that huge mountain over there, but it’s a little too far of a walk. Erm, sorry, Commander.”

Hurricane rolled his eyes. “Anything else closer by?”

“Mmmm… Aha!” Emphatically waving his hoof, Pan Sea pointed towards the north west. “There’s a fairly large hill about a two hour’s walk from here in that direction. Looks like it’s got good windage to keep the flag fluttering.”

Hurricane smiled and started to walk in that direction. “Well, how about we get started then? The first step towards acquiring any new territory is to stake a claim.”

Pan Sea saluted from his cloud before hopping off to walk by Hurricane’s side. “Sir, yes sir!”

-----

Princess Platinum and Clover the Clever happily trotted along a small stream that split off from the delta at the edge of the strait. The feeling of mud beneath their hooves, originally a revolting thought to Platinum, was a welcome change from the snow and ice they had plodded through for over a week.

“Can you believe this, Clover?” Platinum called back from her position in the lead. “It’s been ages since I’ve seen anything other than snow and ice and rock! Why, this is simply wonderful!”

Clover only had a cheerful and awestruck smile on her face as she tilted her head to peer through the tops of trees. “Imagine how many new species of plants and animals there are here! I can’t even begin to fathom it all! Why, it will take the best unicorn taxonomists years to even begin to scratch the surface!”

Platinum lightly shook her head with a soft laugh. “Of course that would be the first thing you think about. I’m much more interested in the greenness of it all! Trees, bushes, berries…” she bent down and took a ladylike nibble of the grass, “oh, even the grass tastes divine! Perhaps we stumbled into the afterlife and didn’t even notice? I certainly don’t remember dying at Onyx Ridge!”

“Technically you wouldn’t remember dying if you were dead, because your brain shuts down when you die and can’t form any new memories—”

“Hush, Clover dear,” Platinum interrupted. “Just sit back and enjoy all this majesty! Blue sky, green plants, birds chirping overhead, cool and clear water—this is simply too good to be true!”

Clover didn’t deny that it was beautiful. In all her years she had never seen paradise such as this. It certainly beat the choking town that the Blizzard had reduced River Rock to, but even before then the city hadn’t looked as magnificent as this on its best of days. River Rock (and the Diamond Kingdom as a whole) was known for being a series of mountains and valleys, and the natural coloration associated with that terrain was gray. Sure there were trees and grasses aplenty in the summer, but it was always windy and cool around the mountains. It hardly compared to the warmth and vibrancy here.

“Oh, I can’t wait to show this place to my father!” Platinum shouted, trotting from tree to tree. She bent over and took a long whiff of a patch of flowers before leaning back with a dazed smile across her face. “The sights, the smells, everything about this place is perfect!”

Clover smiled and trotted further through the undergrowth, eventually finding a point where the stream twisted across her path. Rather than step around it, however, she simply waded through the water. As she did so she felt dirt and aches from years of servitude in Burning Heart wash away. She emerged on the other side, feeling like she had somehow contaminated the purity of the water.

“Come on through!” she shouted to Platinum. “The water feels great!

With only a short pause at the edge of the bank to test her hoof in the running water, Platinum levitated her robes across the stream and set them down on the other side. Then, with a small breath, she began to wade across. She soon let out the air in a relaxed sigh as she felt her limbs cleaned of all the filth she had accumulated on her journey. When she arrived on the opposite bank, it was all she could do not to step back into the stream.

“Mmmm,” Platinum hummed. “Divine.”

As the two unicorns walked further into the forest, they stopped several times to observe some new creature, enjoy the sights, or browse some of the local berries and plants until their stomachs ached from overconsumption. Compared to the pangs of hunger that had plagued them for the past month, it was an amazing change.

After they had waited several minutes in the sun to let their stomachs digest, Clover rolled onto her hooves and stood, facing west. There the midday sun bathed a distant and rocky hill in light and warmth, and only the gentlest of breezes caressed the branches of the trees along its crest.

Platinum stood up next to her and saw it as well. After a few minutes of contemplation, she dug through a small saddlebag until she found a bundle of cloth. With her Arcana, she unfurled the cloth until it formed a fluttering banner. The sigil of the Diamond Kingdom, a white unicorn’s head angled to the side and surrounded by gold diamonds set in royal purple, flowed with the breeze.

“What do you say we place a flag on that distant hill, Clover?”

Clover softly smiled and nodded her head. “That sounds like an excellent idea, Princess. Then we can gather food and water and prepare for the return trip to River Rock.”

Platinum shook her head as she descended into the valley that opened up into a wide field. “One thing at a time, Clover. I’d like to savor this warmth and grandeur while it lasts. The cold will be waiting for us when we get back.”

As Platinum walked away, Clover trotted at a distance behind her. The Princess was right. They could spend a day here in paradise. She didn’t see any harm in that.

Hay, it was much better than freezing to death back in Compact lands.

-----

It was around noon when Chancellor Puddinghead and Representative Smart Cookie made their way out of the nearby forest and onto a stretch of wide, flat ground around a looming stony hill. Smart Cookie realized that with the events of the past few days he should have been tired as hay, but for some reason the sheer beauty and magnificence of the new land he found himself in rejuvenated his aching body.

Leaving Jade behind had been hard; in all his years, Smart Cookie felt like he had never been as close to another pony, let alone another mare, as her. He had wanted nothing more than to stay by her side as she went through the arduous task of trying to consolidate her victory into the true realization of her dream, but even that much was impossible. Puddinghead was determined to head west, and even though the Chancellor’s general bluntness had grated Smart Cookie’s nerves, he couldn’t deny that Puddinghead had a point. True, the Low Valleys controlled most of the food going to the tribes, but even what they had was bound to be running out at some point. The longer they dilly-dallied out west, the closer the earth ponies would get towards extinction, either from famine or through war with the pegasi and the unicorns.

“This land! This land, Smart Cookie, this land!” Puddinghead exclaimed as he hopped from rock to rock and sprinted from grassy knoll to grassy knoll. “Would you look at this land?!”

“I see it alright, Chancellor,” Smart Cookie assured him. “You’ve only been saying the same thing for about an hour now.”

“I know, but would you look at this land?!”

“It certainly is nice. There’s lots of life to be found. Plenty of land for farming as well. Why, in no time we’ll turn these green fields into rolling hills of amber grain!”

Puddinghead bounced up much higher than what should be possible. “It’s a whole lot greener and livelier than our lands back home! Why did we have to settle there anyway? Couldn’t the original settlers have just come to this amazing place and found the Low Valleys here?”

“They didn’t know what was beyond the Narrow Strait, Chancellor,” Smart Cookie reminded him. “We’re probably the first to cross it in Sun knows how many years. The Founders didn’t see any need to go farther west, the fields around Amber Field were healthy and fertile. Besides,” he added as he adjusted his hat, “it wouldn’t be called ‘The Low Valleys’ anyway. Do you see any valleys around here?”

Puddinghead took the time to make a complete revolution before shrugging his shoulders. “It’s all a matter of perspective, Smart Cookie. I mean, look there.” His brown hoof pointed in the direction of the rocky hill to the west. “That could be considered one-half of a valley!”

“Then it would be ‘The Low Half-Valleys.’”

“Shhhhhhh,” Puddinghead shushed as he held a hoof to his muzzle. “They don’t need to know that!”

Smart Cookie looked around. “Who doesn’t…? What?”

Puddinghead squinted into the foreground and scowled before his usual quirkiness returned to his face. “Doesn’t matter! They got the message clear enough. Now, what was I saying? Oh yes, my logic of why this place should be called the Low Valleys being sound as a rock.”

“It’s not really—”

“Ah ah ah, not now, Smart Cookie.” Raising a hoof to his forehead, Puddinghead looked towards the west before beginning to happily bounce away. “This way! We must find the perfect mound of dirt to plant our flag in!”

Smart Cookie rolled his eyes as he cantered to Puddinghead’s pace. “There’s no need to stoop to unicorn stereotypes, Chancellor.”

“What’s a stereotype?”

“For the love of—!” Smart Cookie groaned. “I love you, Chancellor, but sometimes you’re just a little too far out there.”

Puddinghead came to an abrupt stop and faced Smart Cookie. “What are you talking about? I’m like, barely more than twenty feet ahead of you.”

“Yeah. Right,” Smart Cookie muttered as he passed Puddinghead. “Well, take a look around. I’m sure we can find someplace to claim and be on our way back home.”

“Hmm… Alright, but first it’s gotta be the bestest, greatest spot there could be! Are you with me, Representative?!”

Smart Cookie gave a noncommittal shrug of his shoulders which Puddinghead mistook for actually giving a buck.

“That settles it! We shall not leave until we’ve found the perfect place to plant our flag!”

True to his word, Puddinghead didn’t give up until he had searched and evaluated every potential candidate for receiving the honor of holding the flag of the Low Valleys. When he finally found a suitable spot a few hours later, it was all Smart Cookie could do to maintain a level of professionalism and not jump for joy.

Puddinghead had no problem with that last stipulation. “This place is perfect! I can feel it in my hooves! The air! The trees! The dirt!” With a ceremonious belly flop, the Chancellor plunged into a mound of mud and rolled around several times to evaluate its consistency and texture. After several painstaking calculations he came to a simple conclusion: “This dirt is the dirtiest dirt in the whole dirt world!”

Smart Cookie trotted over and scooped up a hoofful of soil. At the touch of his earth pony Endura, a small seedling suddenly sprung to life out of the pile he held aloft. “Fertile, too. I thought Amber Field had some great land, but this place is perfect for growing food.”

With a squelch of mud, Puddinghead rolled onto his back and sighed. His formal attire was smeared and stained from shoulder to tail with dirt, but he didn’t care. “It’s been ages since I’ve felt good, solid dirt beneath my hooves. Seriously, all that ice and snow? Totally cramping my style. That’s more of unicorn weather anyway.”

Smart Cookie took the time to nibble on some grass before slacking back on his haunches expectantly. “Hey, Chancellor, now that we found this place, you wanna stake a claim so we can load up on food and skedaddle? Maybe with any luck we’ll cross paths with Jade again at Onyx Ridge.”

“Right!” Puddinghead exclaimed. “But first we need to give this place a name!”

“’The Low Half-Valleys’ wasn’t enough for you, Chancellor?”

“Of course not! In the name of the earth ponies, I’m going to call this place… uh…” Puddinghead scratched his chin. Thinking up names on the spot was awfully hard. Wait! Best. Name. Ever.

“Dirtville!”

Smart Cookie’s facehoof almost gave himself a black eye. “Sir, if you can’t think of anything else, how about we leave it as ‘Earth’ for now until the Board can think of a better town name?”

“Right-o!” Puddinghead chirped. “Now and forever, on the hats of all my ancestors and of my future children, this land shall be called Earth until somepony thinks of a better name!”

With a cheer, Puddinghead pulled a flag out of his hat and harshly speared it into the ground. “We found our new home!”

-----

It took several hours of walking and climbing, but neither Clover nor Platinum seemed to mind as they simply enjoyed their time in paradise. As the sun reached its climax over their heads and began its descent, they finally reached the foot of the hilltop. The two ponies stopped and craned their necks upwards to admire its majesty.

“Very solid granite this is,” Platinum remarked as she ran a hoof along the stone. “This would be the perfect place to set up a new castle when we move here—at least, until we can get to that impressive spire another few hundred miles inland.”

Clover trotted up beside her and admired the rocks as well. “I didn’t take you for a geologist, Princess.”

“There are things that you learn if you’re bored enough in a town surrounded on all sides by impressive cliffs and valley walls, Clover dear. While you spent your days following Star Swirl around and learning from his impressive mind, I would sometimes take a walk around River Rock with my father. He taught me a lot about the city then. It’s a shame he doesn’t get out much anymore with the Scourge.”

“Well, I’ll be,” Clover remarked. “I’ll have to take a good look around River Rock when we get back. In the meantime, what do you say we climb this slope?”

“Splendid idea. Come, I see a path that isn’t so steep.” Then the Princess began to climb up a craggy cut into the side of the mesa, her hooves making careful and minute adjustments to the rocks beneath them as they shifted with her weight.

Clover followed her, and together the two mares made slow but steady progress towards the top. When they were about three quarters of the way to the top, the cut into the hillside became something resembling a path, and that path soon widened into a natural balcony over the fields below.

“Ooh!” Platinum exclaimed, galloping towards the balcony and leaving Clover behind in her wake. “Beautiful! I haven’t seen anything like this in years!”

Clover accelerated and stopped at the edge of the balcony, letting the gentle breeze toss strands of her dark green mane into her face. “You’re right! It’s absolutely stunning!”

When she realized that the Princess wasn’t facing in the same direction as she was, Clover turned around and raised an eyebrow. Instead of seeing Platinum taking in the sights of the surrounding countryside, she saw the white mare huddled against the side of the cliff, pawing through some of the loose rocks around its base.

“Come look at this! Look!” she exclaimed. With a small strobe of blue Arcana, Platinum lifted up a rather large rock and slammed it against the ground. As it cracked and split in two, Clover only expected to see more of the gray stone. Instead, an army of bedazzling colors assaulted her eyes with their brilliance. Hundreds of tiny gems every color of the rainbow simply scattered onto the ground like common stones.

“Stars above!” Clover exclaimed as she bent down to pick one up. “That shouldn’t be possible! Gemstones aren’t naturally cut, and neither are they in so shallow a ground… or in such a magnitude, either!” To try and prove it was some fluke, Clover charged a bolt of Arcana and released it at the stone wall of the hillside. As the stone shattered and crumbled, several large rubies and sapphires clattered onto the ground. Each one was perfectly cut and, aside from dirt and dust, shiny and lustrous.

“This is simply too great of a find to pass up!” Platinum asserted as she gathered a few of the larger gems into a pouch. “Just look at this! I’ve never seen such jewels! Think of how valuable of a find this is! Look here,” she began as she singled out an impressively sized cut ruby. “This ruby is something special. This ruby is dazzling This whole land is dazzling! Why, I’m… I’m double dazzled!”

Clover picked up a few gems that caught her own fancy as well and set them aside. “That I can agree with. This would do wonders for our economy if all we have to do to get cut gemstones is stick a spade in the ground.”

“Who cares about the economy?!” Platinum exclaimed as she finished rolling in the gemstones. “I can have all the jewelry I want, when I want it!”

“Shall we raise the flag?” Clover asked as she walked over to a tree and began to strip a suitable branch from it as a makeshift flagpole.

Platinum wasted no time pulling the banner from her saddlebag. “Of course, Clover! Then I can get back to gathering gems!”

As Clover wedged the flagpole into the ground with her magic, Platinum carefully fashioned the banner to one end of the branch until it could flutter freely in the wind. Taking a step back to admire it beside Clover, the Princess proudly proclaimed to the world:

“In the name of King Lapis, fourth of name of House Azurite, and in the presence of the Great Kings of Old, especially the Wise Five who founded the mighty Diamond Kingdom, I hereby proclaim this to be the province of Unicornia! May it serve the Diamond Kingdom well and offer up many gems to the crown, now and forever!”

The ceremonial ritual complete, Platinum and Clover bowed before the flag. When they arose, it was with smiles on their faces.

“We did it, Princess!” Clover proclaimed. “We found our new land!”

“Indeed we did, Clover. Indeed we did.” Shaking a few granules of dirt from her hoof, Platinum’s eyes suddenly squinted as she looked towards the sky. “I do say… what on Earth is that?”

-----

“Alright, pause, Pansy,” Hurricane breathed as he clutched at his chest. The hours of marching had taken their toll on the Commander, but he had refused to be bested by mere pain. Instead, he scooted towards the side of the steep hill and leaned against the wall.

Pan Sea fluttered down to Hurricane. “You okay, sir? It’s just another thousand feet from here.”

“I’ll live,” Hurricane grunted back. As his breath slowly came back to him, the pegasus glanced across his surroundings. He was facing south and was able to clearly see the fields and hills for miles. The greenness gently undulated over hills, the blades of grass contributing to a cascading sheen with every dip and turn. Beyond that, the countryside quickly gave way to humid swampland.

“Impressive; I can only imagine it’s more so from the sky,” Hurricane said.

Pan Sea nodded. “You’d have to see it to believe it, sir. That swamp down there,” he said as he gestured with a wing, “it runs on for miles, and thick as could be, too. After about ten or so leagues it begins to thin out with the change in elevation. The dampness of the swamp looks to change into arid highlands. Lovely shade of orange. One day I think I’ll take a flight out there.”

The soldier glanced at his officer and coughed lightly, mumbling some sort of apology. Hurricane only waved it off with a hoof. “Go on, talk is better than silence.”

“Right,” Pan Sea replied. “Anyway, eventually a series of mesas blocks out the horizon to the south without flying any higher. To the west, there’s a wide forest that ends at the feet of those mountains over there. I tell you, that one spire, though, it pierces the skyline. I couldn’t see another mountain anywhere near as tall as that one. I think it’s higher up than even Stratopolis—or, how high it used to be.”

“One day we’ll outdo it, Pansy,” Hurricane assured him. “One day we’ll build a city that’s higher and grander than that mountain. We’re Cirrans; we don’t give up, and even if it takes a thousand years, the Empire will be reborn. After that, who knows? Perhaps even one day we’ll take back Dioda from the griffon bastards that drove us out.”

Pan Sea sat down next to Hurricane. “Sometimes I still dream of the war.”

“Sometimes I don’t dream of the war. It’s hard to forget what we’ve been through.” Hurricane sighed and wiped the handle of his sword with a fetlock. “I close my eyes and I still see Zephyrus burning. Every time I even blink, I can see Silver Sword’s face. I always thought I would be the one to die first, but he beat me to it.”

“You know he’s still watching us from the Great Skies.”

“Aye, that he is.” Hurricane stood up and shook a hoof at the sky. “I bet you’re banging Celeste up there, aren’t you? I should have figured as much.” The black pegasus took two steps back and shook his head, chuckling. “Soon enough I’ll be up there with him. Hopefully he doesn’t get in too deep of shit with the Gods while I’m not there to watch his back.”

“I only met him once during training, but he seemed like a great guy,” Pan Sea offered.

“Yeah, you were the only one to actually beat him during sparring practice, weren’t you?” When Pan Sea blushed, Hurricane guffawed and struck the ground. “I remember it all! He was sore for weeks about that! The look on his face when he walked off the field? Priceless.” Ending with a few light chuckles, Hurricane smirked and looked further up the side of the hill. “Ironic that some of my fondest memories of Silver came in the worst of times. If the Gods are going to make your life shit, at least there’s usually a silver lining to it, right?”

“I would say that missing the entire war because you get wounded in the first battle certainly seems to follow that theme.”

“Be grateful that you never had to go to Nimbus or Feathertop.” Hurricane slowly blew air out the corner of his mouth. “Anyways, let’s get back to it, shall we?”

With that, Hurricane began to scale the remaining height of the hillside while Pan Sea hovered nearby and assisted the wounded pegasus whenever he could. Slippery slopes of gravel, twisted and gnarled undergrowth, and spindly trees were soon overcome. After the arduous climb, Hurricane found himself standing atop the mountain.

The view was all that Pan Sea had made it out to be. There was the swamp and the highlands to the south; there was the forest and the massive mountain to the east; forest and plains stretched onwards on the opposite side of a rather large river to the north; and, far more interesting, was the view to the east.

Verdant fields and hills abruptly came to a halt against a wall of ice. Even from there the popping and cracking of the glaciers was audible. Clear skies clashed with thick, gray clouds that hung over the opposite shore of the strait. From there, the land was only visible for a few additional miles before a cocktail of snow and hail obscured its features behind grayness.

Pan Sea joined Commander Hurricane on the hilltop and gently folded his wings against his sides. “Looks even worse from the outside.”

Hurricane shrugged. “Looks worse, but I’d prefer looking at it over feeling it any day. Come on, let’s just plant the flag and go. It’s about time Cirra came out of the snow and shadows and into the light and warmth.”

Turning around, the Commander walked closer to the western edge of the hill, looking for a good spot to place the flag. Most of the hilltop was rocky and barren, but eventually he found a patch of dirt deep enough to plant a flagpole in. With a few sweeps of his wing, Hurricane cleared out the immediate area and began to unfold the Cirran standard.

“Pansy, break me off a branch of that tree there, would you?” he asked. The private nodded and, drawing his sword, began to hack away at a thin limb that would make a good pole. Holding the banner with his teeth, Hurricane quickly unpacked Cirra’s flag and spread it on a rock in front of him. The familiar blue horsehead flanked by a pair of wings and set against a sea of stars greeted him. There were a few splotches of blood on the flag from his battle with Streak Wing, but that was better than most Cirran flags after about a month of service.

There was a solid thump as Pan Sea split the branch from the tree, and the Legionnaire sheathed his sword and began to drag the branch over to Hurricane. The black pegasus grabbed onto one end of the pole and managed to secure the standard to the end before hoisting it onto his shoulders and ramming the branch into the ground. With a little bit of force the makeshift pole stuck, and Hurricane stood back to admire his work.

“We did it,” Pan Sea breathed, wiping some sweat from his brow. “We found a new land.”

Hurricane nodded and saluted to the flag. “Whenever the might of Cirra is contested,” he began, reciting the words of the ancient Cirran oath, “Whenever those who would seek to cause harm to my friends, family, and emperor strike us; whenever the thick clouds of war cover my land, I will stand in the face of such terror. And together, a million strong, we will fight the enemy hoof and feather, ceasing only when it has been driven back into the abyss, or my blood stains the skies of my homeland red.”

Lowering his hoof, Hurricane bowed to the ground and spread his wings, an action which Pan Sea copied. “In the name of the Gods, I offer this piece of land to the Empire of Cirra. May our soldiers, now and forevermore, keep it safe and keep it beautiful. For there can be no war without the home front, and no conquest without a place to start from.”

“Well spoken, sir,” Pan Sea congratulated. “I wish I could have been around when Roamulus himself spoke those words so many years ago.”

“He probably said it better than I,” Hurricane stated. After watching the flag for a little while longer, he slackened his wings and began to trot around the edge of the hilltop. “Let’s take a little rest, then gather some food and begin the journey back home. It’s a long flight back to Cloudsdale, and we’ll probably have a strong headwind the whole time.”

“Sounds good,” Pan Sea replied as he leaned over the edge of the hill. “Perhaps we should—” He stopped suddenly, frozen in place.

“Should what, Pansy?” Hurricane demanded, turning to spot the Legionnaire. Pan Sea held one hoof in front of him with his wings splayed open in shock. Hurricane made to move over to him when he heard the distinct sound of an unwelcome voice:

“I do say… what on Earth is that?”

-----

“Get the fuck down!”

Typhoon slammed herself against the wall of the nearest building as another volley of arcane bolts skittered across the grounds around her. Cyclone crouched next to her, shielding his face with a wing as he peered through his feathers at the unicorns along the rooftops. The moment the firing let up for just a second, the two pegasi sprinted out of cover and into the shadow of the next building.

“You just had to kill the freaking guards, didn’t you?!” Typhoon screamed at her brother. “You just had to catch the attention of the entirety of the Diamond Guards!”

Cyclone shoved her to the ground as more manabursts came their way. “By the Gods, just shut up, Typhoon! We’ll argue about who screwed over who when we get the fuck out of here!” With a whirl of his wings, Cyclone hauled Typhoon to her hooves and dove into cover across the street.

Typhoon leaned out of cover and glared at the dozens of unicorns along River Rock’s rooftops. “How did they manage to organize that quickly? We were talking with Star Swirl for not even five minutes before they began to attack! Did they know we were coming?!”

Cyclone picked up a chunk of ice and bucked it at the guards along the rooftops, forcing them to retreat from the shower of deadly shards sailing their way. With that side of the street barely suppressed, Typhoon and Cyclone streaked down the road as they flew only a few inches off the ground.

“If we can just get to the town square, we can get the hell out of here!” Cyclone shouted as he skidded to a stop behind a wagon. “The rooftops will be too far away for them to be able to shoot us out of the sky! We just have to dodge their fire until we do get there!”

The wagon rocked as a blast of mana hit its side, causing Typhoon and Cyclone to lean away from each other and cover their heads with their hooves as it passed through. When they looked back, a smoldering hole had been blown through the cart between the both of them. In the meantime, smaller Arcana bolts peppered the street and building facing them.

“I knew I should have put reinforcements on standby!” Cyclone spat as he drew his sword. “We may be Praetorians, but we can’t take on the whole damn Diamond Guard by ourselves!”

Typhoon leaned out of cover just enough to see a company of Diamond Guards advancing down the street towards them. “Cyclone, we’ve got a problem!”

“Yeah we fucking do!” he shouted back around his sword. “When I get back to Cloudsdale, I’m so getting a damn bow!”

“More Diamond Guards coming down the street!” Typhoon yelled around her sword. “We have to get out of here, now!”

Cyclone looked both ways down the street but ducked back under cover as an arcane bolt struck the skysteel of his helmet. Taking a deep breath, he gritted his teeth around his sword and began to channel fury into his Empatha. “On the count of three, we go opposite ways. We’ll regroup at the town square and escape from there. Got it?!”

“Sir!” Typhoon answered as she opened her wings. The calming effect of her adrenaline had begun to pour into her veins, muting the environment around her to all but Cyclone’s voice.

“One! Two! THREE!

Typhoon kicked off of the cobblestone road so hard she nearly snapped her neck as she accelerated. The company of Diamond Guards advancing her way suddenly broke ranks in fright as she sailed over their heads. With a quick twist of her wings, she was able to roll her way out and around the various halberds and pikes that the guards angled towards her until she was on the other side of their formation. Now past the guards, she quickly landed and turned to catch a quick glimpse of Cyclone.

The Imperator had turned himself into a ball of fire that was terrorizing the unicorns along the rooftops. Typhoon could see and hear soldiers screaming in pain and fear as Cyclone’s wingblades ripped into their flesh with fire, sending them tumbling from the rooftops. Even then, he was unable to stay in the sky long as soldiers in the entire city block began to fire upon him with their magic. Looping once in the air, Cyclone dove straight through the wall of the nearest building. The explosion of fire and debris rocked the entirety of River Rock and lit up the night sky brighter than the sun.

“There she is!”

“Damned Cirran, get her!”

Typhoon’s thoughts were brought back to her surroundings as several of the guards she had bypassed turned and began to charge her. With a cocky smile and a salute of her wing, the Praetorian kicked up snow and ice and launched the projectiles at the nearest guards. As the ice hit, her Empatha took over and froze several soldiers in place. The advance of the Diamond Guard stalled, she flapped her wings and began to wind and twist through streets and alleyways.

As she flew beneath rooftops and bounced off walls between buildings, Typhoon could still hear the carnage her brother was wreaking on the city. Every few seconds there was another explosion and a burst of fire that spiked the night with light, and she could hear several desperate screams. She smiled as she left an alleyway that opened onto a wide street. At least Cyclone’s destructive nature was taking the majority of the Guard’s attention off of herself.

Or that was what she thought until she saw a brigade of unicorns aligned against her on both sides of the street. Upon seeing her, both sides filled the air with mana. Typhoon’s flight was nimble and quick, but it wasn’t quite agile enough. She felt a searing pain in her left wing that sent her tumbling out of the sky and through the window of a rather large craftsponies’ guild house. Her heavily armored body smashed several small wooden tables and scattered artisan’s supplies everywhere.

Clambering to her hooves, Typhoon had just enough time to take cover behind a bookcase as the unicorns began to pile in and fire on her. In response, Typhoon located the chains to a chandelier and split them with her skysteel sword, sending the thousand pound iron construction slamming into the floor the Diamond Guards occupied. There were several cries of pain and crunches of bone and flesh, but the explosion of her cover from manafire informed Typhoon that she wasn’t out of the woods yet.

Cursing under her breath, Typhoon flipped over a railing at the edge of an elevated platform that divided the room into two. Sliding left and right around arcane bolts, she managed to scramble over the platform and put something solid between herself and her pursuers. That was when the building exploded in fire.

She couldn’t see which window Cyclone had flown through with all the smoke, but before she even realized what was happening the entire building was filled with flames and exploding painters’ oils. Raising her wings to shield herself from the blasts of nearby glass bottles, Typhoon began to force her way towards the end of the building.

The doors had been blown open from Cyclone’s entrance, and the mare could see the fountain of city square through the smoky haze. The heat was escalating, quickly becoming unbearable for the ice Empath. Her hooves began to stagger as the smog stole her breath, and she had to struggle to not slip on broken glass around her. After a long and agonizing minute of stumbling, Typhoon made it to the doorway.

Then the entire wall of the building suddenly detonated in fire and ash.

Typhoon tried to roll out of the way of the falling stone and mortar, but there was simply too much of it to dodge. She barely managed to scoot across the threshold of the doorway before a sizeable chunk of stone slammed into the ground in front of her. She immediately jumped to the left to avoid it, but then a heavy wooden beam dropped on her back and pinned her to the ground. She tried with all her might to stand up, but a stone fell from the wall and slammed into her wing, turning her struggle to escape into a cry of pain.

Gritting her teeth and looking around, she could see unicorns beginning to enter the town square from the various side streets. She kicked once or twice at the wood pinning her to the ground, but it refused to budge even under the harshest of her kicks.

“Cyclone!” Typhoon shouted as she squirmed beneath the wood. “Cyclone, where are you?!”

She looked up, and there she could see her brother circling wide around the clearing. Seeing his sister trapped beneath the smoldering wood, he quickly accelerated and fluttered down to her side.

“Get this thing off of me, Cyclone!” Typhoon shouted as she pushed against the ground.

Cyclone blinked.

“Cyclone, what the hell are you waiting for?!” Typhoon growled.

The red stallion only looked over his shoulder at the approaching unicorns. He lowered his head towards Typhoon, but instead of reaching for the wood he brought his mouth to her ear.

“The Legion will honor your sacrifice for the coming empire, dear sister.”

Typhoon couldn’t even process what she just heard. She struggled even harder before looking up at her brother with pleading eyes. “What do you mean?” she asked as desperation began to seep into her voice. “Brother!!”

Cyclone bit down on his lip as he pulled away from Typhoon. With a curt nod, he spread his wings and shot into the air. He circled the square once or twice before disappearing into the northern night sky.

“Cyclone! Cyclone, damn it!!” she screamed up at him. When he didn’t return, she lowered her head onto the ground. “Cyclone…” With that short whimper, she gave up trying to force her way out of the rubble and simply sprawled herself out across the ground. Her body hurt, yes, but some bitter hollowness had devoured her heart.

Her brother, her own brother and closest friend, had left her to die.

The broken mare barely moved as she saw a blue hoof step into her line of vision. Instead she slowly angled her sad eyes upwards to see the figure standing over her.

Jewel, clad in Diamond Guard armor, simply sneered back and lit his horn.