Ponywatching

by ThunderTempest

Prompt #91: Invasion

The Invasion Of Cult Of The Sun? You want that story? Very well.

We’d heard rumours. Some fanatical, ancient cult had managed to sway or entirely replace the leadership of a distant country. Convinced that they and they alone deserved to rule the world. Of course, we dismissed them as rumours, fear mongering. It would hardly be the first time.

Then they invaded Griffhala. I remember seeing the reports. Chaos in the streets, the royal lines extinguished, panic and destruction on a scale like we had never seen before. She had wanted to go to war, right then and there. Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed, and we held off.

It did not mean we did nothing. We called upon our ponies, at first only asking for volunteers, and the response was impressive. We trained them the best we could in preparation for what we knew was coming. The next logical leap from Griffhala was Equestria, after all. And when they came, we were ready for them.

They attacked in the middle of summer, when the ground was dry and ripe for the burning, and it was only then that we got our first look at our aggressors. They looked like ponies, but stripes patterned their bodies. They threw fire at us, at the ground, hoping to scare us, and proclaimed that the Sun’s Flame would cleanse the earth of us. And for a while, it worked. Our ponies had never before seen these kind of fanatical devotees, and their forms were both familiar and alien, and if there is one truly great weapon, it is fear. They cut a burning path right towards where my sister and I were camped, as if they knew us to be the leaders of Equestria.

They tore down my tent, demanded that we surrender to them, to be subservient to the glory of the Cult Of The Sun, that as long as the sun was in the sky, they would be unbeatable. And of course, they spouted the usual platitudes of not fearing me, or Equestria, and that their conquest was simply a matter of time. Honestly, it gets old after the first time you hear it.

“Is that so?” I remember saying, with a glance at my sister who rolled her eyes at me, “and what does your cult say about the night?”

They had been confused for a while, but eventually answered my question.

“The night is only necessary for the Sun to refuel her Glorious Fire. However, our shamans have forseen that with the taking of Equestria, the Sun shall no longer need this time, and can spread Her Glorious Fire all over the planet!”

I remember the next part very clearly, because it remains one of the few times that I have subverted the natural cycle-I was much more impulsive back in those days.

I lowered the sun. As I did so, I could see the slow looks of horror grow on their faces.

“The sun brings light,” I had said, “the night holds terror. You should not fear me.”

As the sun set behind the hills in the west, I finished the sentence.

“You should fear my sister.”

Yes, I did have a rather dramatic streak, but I learned quickly that a correctly applied piece of dramatism could avert wars far more easily than any treaty.

For her part, Luna performed admirably. She always was the more violent of the two of us. It only took her eighteen hours of night, under a full moon, to completely sever the invader’s supply chains and chase down their leaders.

Alone.

I have never seen her scythe look more disturbing than that night, when it dripped with blood with every step that she took.

And when the sun rose the next morning, I found Luna with the sharp edge of her scythe pressed up against the leader of the whole cult, the initiator of the whole invasion, stopping her from running any further.

“As I said,” I remember saying to her, “do not fear me. Fear my sister. I believe that you can change, that we can become allies. Luna disagrees. It is your choice which of us you deal with.”

To her credit, the cultist looked thoughtful for a while, before spouting some doctrine about how I was not the true guider of her Fire Spirit of The Sun, and then Luna cut her head off.

Yes, I think that war, as short-lived as it was, was the point at which the other countries started taking Equestria seriously. Well, it was certainly the tipping point, at any rate. That was when the others saw us less as ‘accidental guiders of the Sun and Moon’ and more ‘competent rulers and warriors.’

Does that answer your question, Princess Cadance?

Author's Note:

Written for Prompt #91: “The Fires Of War”
The prompt: But then everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked.

Comments

[Malandy]

Cool! So this is a continuation of the one where there's that scythe and sword with names!

That last line... I find it 'ha ha' funny... 'Cause I read it like she was speaking sort of condescendingly... then the wording of the prompt is interesting... and now I see how you worked that in!

(Fire-bending ponies) What's with the stripes though?