• Published 7th Feb 2012
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The Griffin War - QuarterNote



Princess Luna leads Equestria in a guerilla movement.

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Chapter 12

“Your move, Your Majesty,” Twilight Sparkle said as she moved her griffin knight onto a different square of the chessboard. King Aeris studied the move for a moment, considering his options carefully before moving a pony pawn forward two spaces, further towards Twilight’s white pieces.

“I must say Lady Sparkle,” the King said, “You’re quite good at this game.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty,” Twilight replied with a hint of a nervous quavering in her voice. “You don’t need to call me ‘Lady’, though. I’m not really anything you’d call royalty.”

“Truly?” Aeris asked as Twilight took his recently-moved pawn with her knight, unfortunately leaving it open to be caught by a long, sideways move from Aeris’s rook. “I understand though that your brother recently married a princess. Mi Amore Cadenza, if I’m correct?”

“Well, yes,” Twilight said, biting her lip as she attempted to think her next move. “He did marry Cadance, but I don’t know if that necessarily brings my family into the nobility.”

“It should mean that,” Aeris said as Twilight moved a pawn forward one space. “And I could make it mean that, if you’re willing to cooperate with me.”

“What?” Twilight asked, looking up at him as Aeris moved a knight out of formation to capture her pawn. “What do you mean by that?”

“We both know that your Princess did not want this war, and that Equestria is virtually helpless without her and the Elements of Harmony: you and your friends. The Royal Guard was all but destroyed in our initial attack on Canterlot, and that only adds to the odds stacked against Equestria to be able to drive my army out.”

“So….what does this have to do with my family and me?” Twilight asked, continuing to look up at him. Aeris put both clawed hands on the table and pushed himself up out of his chair, turning and walking around the solar that the two were playing in. It was a nice, quiet space, cool white marble reflecting the warm, golden sunlight that streamed in through the tall glass windows on the eastern wall. Aeris walked over to one of the chamber’s eight walls, gesturing to the map that hung over a good portion of it. He lifted a hand and placed a talon on Equestria, looking back at Twilight.

“You are Celestia’s personal student, correct?”

“Yes…” Twilight said slowly, wondering where Aeris was going with the line of questioning.

“And therefore she must place a great deal of personal trust in you, and you in her? Such trust that you may have more influence with her than most?”

“Well, I…I wouldn’t say that,” Twilight replied, looking away from the King and walking her eyes around the solar. “She’s just my teacher…I don’t like to think that I can influence her very much…”

“But she does care for her subjects,” Aeris said, walking back over to her. “If she does, she would take every opportunity to guarantee their safety, wouldn’t she?”

“Well, y-y-yes,” Twilight stammered in reply, “I…I guess she would, but…”

“Once we’re done with this, can I trust you to present an opportunity to her?”

“Um…uh…I guess?” Twilight replied, looking up at Aeris. The griffin king put his hands down on the table, his green eyes looking down on her intently.

The gold-feathered king nodded in satisfaction. “Good. Then tell her that these are my terms: She yields Equestria to the Griffin Kingdoms. It will retain relative autonomy and become a vassal state of the Griffin Kingdoms. Princess Luna and any remnants of the Royal Guard that escaped Canterlot will surrender unconditionally. Luna herself will be brought here, to Gryphus Tower, to join her sister. While they will still be responsible for raising the sun and moon, your brother and his wife will be appointed the King and Queen of Equestria in the absence of the royal sisters. You will become a princess, your mother and father Duchess and Duke of Canterlot. In exchange for Celestia’s cooperation in this, I will withdraw my army from Equestria and allow them to govern themselves again, with Celestia and Luna kept here to ensure Equestria’s good behavior.”

Aeris turned to Twilight, one green eye bright with anticipation. “No more harm is done to Equestria, you and your friends are released. It’s a win-win, don’t you think?”

Twilight put a hoof to her chin, thinking for a moment. While she did want Equestria and her family to be safe, was it worth sacrificing Equestria’s freedom? For it to merely become a vassal of the nation that had started the war in the first place? Celestia would never accept it…come to think of it, why was she even thinking about it?!

“Well, Miss Sparkle?” Aeris asked, crouching down in front of her. “Do we have an accord?"

Twilight was conflicted, her thoughts still racing as she thought of a way to possibly get out of the deal. “Why me?” she asked suddenly, saying the first words that came to her mind.

Aeris smiled, standing up. “Because you are the only one that knows Celestia enough for me to be able to trust you to deliver it to her. Your friend Rainbow Dash is the Element of Loyalty, and would therefore not even consider the deal. Your friend Applejack is too stubborn, and the others would never agree to it.” He leaned down close to her. “Do you care for your homeland enough to want to spare it the horror and devastation of war?”

“Yes!” Twilight cried immediately. “Yes, of course I want to, but…”

“Buuuuuutttt?” Aeris prompted, drawing the word out as he got even closer. Twilight backed up, falling out of her chair with an undignified squeak as she hit the stone floor on her back.

“I…I don’t think Celes-uh, the Princess, would accept.”

“Truly?” Aeris said, raising his eyebrows. “Does she not care for her subjects, then?”

“No!” Twilight exclaimed. She then blanched as she realized what she had just implied. “I-I mean, no, it’s not that!”

“Then how do you know that she won’t at least consider it?” Aeris asked, raising an eyebrow. “It’s worth a try, don’t you think?”

Twilight opened her mouth to say something else, but realized that Aeris had just argued her into a corner. She finally sighed and let her head fall back to the floor. “Alright,” she said. “Alright, I…I’ll at least ask her…”

“Good,” Aeris said, patting Twilight’s belly and causing the unicorn to squeak again and roll over, getting to her hooves. “That’s all I wanted to hear.”

Twilight breathed a sigh of relief. She turned back to the chessboard, analyzing it quickly before moving a rook forward a few spaces. Aeris chuckled and moved his king forward one spot, then stepped away from the board. “Checkmate.”

Twilight blanched and looked down at the board, then leaned back as she realized that Aeris had subtly surrounded her remaining pieces during the entire game. The black special pieces were arranged in a large arc around the remaining white pieces, the pawns blocking any possible counterattack that wouldn’t leave Twilight’s King open to an attack.

“You’re quite skilled, Miss Sparkle,” Aeris told her. “I hope that we can play again one day.”

Twilight nodded. “Thank you, Your Majesty. I…I hope so too.”

Aeris looked up and nodded at Carif, who had been standing guard at the door the entirety of the two’s chess game. Carif bowed and opened the door for Twilight, the unicorn walking out before him.

As the two walked, Twilight bit her lip as she sank deep into thought. While she did want the war to end...was it really worth sacrificing Equestria’s independence? Would Shining Armor and Cadance accept becoming King and Queen if it meant essentially betraying Equestria and giving it over to the griffins? What would her parents think? What would her friends think? Most importantly...what would Celestia think of it? How would she react to it, even if it meant that the war would be over and the ponies of Equestria could go about living their normal lives?

...It’s worth a shot, at least... Twilight thought, biting her lip again. Maybe she’ll see the benefits of it. She looked up at Carif, the griffin pausing at her glance. “Somethin’ up?” the griffin asked.

“Could you take me to Princess Celestia’s room?” she asked. Carif hesitated for a moment, then nodded.

***

“And you’re actually considering it?! Celestia exclaimed as she glared at Twilight. The purple unicorn shrank back from her teacher’s fierce gaze, looking away.

“I just…I thought that you might…”

“Twilight, you should know me better than this!” Celestia said, sighing and lying down on one of the plush couches that had been provided to her. It was merely one of many around the lavishly decorated and almost sinfully comfortable room, which was filled with hangings of expensive silk, a circular bed big enough for two alicorns of Celestia’s size, and a massive balcony enclosed by glass. “Do you really think that Aeris will keep his word?”

“I’m sorry!” Twilight cried, fighting back tears. “I just…I thought…I just want this to be over, Princess!”

Celestia watched her student as Twilight’s dam burst, tears leaking from her eyes as she turned her head up, her haunches landing on the plush carpeting as she wept.

“I don’t want to be here anymore!” Twilight screamed. “I don’t want to spend every day worrying about Shining or Cadance or my parents or Spike or anypony! I just want to go home!”

Celestia sighed and walked over, wrapping Twilight in her wings and holding her student close. “Oh Twilight…I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have gotten mad at you. I’m worried for my family too, and all of the ponies in Equestria.” She leaned back, brushing her soft feathers across Twilight’s face. “Dry your eyes. I know that you want to protect those you love…but you have to think of what the rest of Equestria will think of this. You can’t do anything without thinking of what your subjects will think of it. Do you understand?”

Twilight sniffled somewhat, but nodded. “I…I’m sorry, Princess. For crying and…and coming to you with this.”

“It’s alright, Twilight,” Celestia said. “I don't know if your family is safe…but I can say the same about Luna and the rest of Equestria. Right now, my chief concern, the only one that I can focus on right now, is keeping you and your friends safe.”

“But what else can we do?” Twilight asked, still sniffling a bit. “If we don’t know what’s happening, how can we know if everyone else is safe?”

“We can’t,” Celestia replied. “All we can do is wait, and hope.”

Twilight nodded, burying her face in Celestia’s chest. Celestia sat there with her, keeping her wings wrapped around her favorite student.

***

Several hours later, Aeris, a number of lords, and the few marshals and military officials that had not been deployed to the various theaters of war all stood around a circular table. It held a map of four nations: the Griffin Kingdoms themselves, Germaneigh, Prance, and Equestria. Small flags had been placed around the map, representing the various armies that the Kingdoms had deployed at the time.

“Alright, let’s get underway,” Aeris said, looking around the table. “We’ll start with the busiest theater first. What’s the status of our Prance armies?”

“Watchover fell to Sharptalon’s forces yesterday, Your Grace,” the lord of Pinion said. “The Viscount was captured and executed when the city was breached, though West Wind was not among the dead or the few prisoners that they took.”

“Do they have any idea where he is?”

“No, Your Grace.”

Aeris nodded. “Alright. We’ll deal with that later. What’s Sharptalon doing now?”

“He’s consolidating his forces around Watchover at the moment, sending parties out into the countryside to forage for supplies.”

“And what of the two other armies?”

“The Second Prance Army is currently moving on Alsaddle,” one of the marshals said. “Scouts have sighted an army moving to intercept them. The Third Army is still marching down the Kingsroad. No armies have come against it, though the Third’s scouts have picked up ships moving towards Lorrein from various ports around the Prancer coast.”

“He must be getting ready to evacuate the city,” Aeris mused, rubbing his beak with a claw. “Very well. Do we know the size of Lorrein’s garrison?”

“The Crownlands of Prance are the largest and most fertile province of the whole country. As such they have a larger population than even Watchover, though a few of our spies have reported that Shining Star is recruiting as many ponies as he can to bolster the city’s army.”

“I’ll welcome the challenge,” Aeris said, nodding. “And what of Germaneigh?”

“Our army there has moved into the inner provinces, and Lord Rainstorm’s scouts have picked out three different areas of concentrated resistance before he can move on Auxios. At the moment he’s holding position in front of the pass that bridges the inner and outer Germaneic provinces.”

“And what would those areas of resistance be?” Aeris asked, cocking his head to one side.

“Two of them are fortresses, one for the Order of the Forest, the other of the Order of the Watchers. The last one is the Sovereign Forest, ruled by Lord Autumnbark.”

“A deer?” Aeris asked, raising an eyebrow. “Interesting…what’s the size of the forest?”

“About two thousand acres, Your Grace, though we have no idea of how many subjects Autumnbark rules within the forest.”

“What should we tell Rainstorm to do, Your Grace?” asked one marshal, causing the rest to look up at Aeris, awaiting his word. The griffin king was silent for a moment, his claws held behind his back as he thought. He finally leaned over the table, tapping each location in turn with a claw.

“Do we have any indications of the strength of the garrisons for the two fortresses?”

“No, Your Grace,” one of the lords said. “All we know is that they are the main bases for the two warrior orders of Germaneigh, and neither one has ever been taken.”

“The same was said of Watchover,” Aeris said, turning his gaze to the lord that had spoken. He then turned back to the map, tapping it with a puzzled look on his face. “Most of our manpower is already focused in Prance,” he mused, his claw still tapping on the parchment. “We don’t have the numbers to make another army the size of the Third and Second combined…” He finally laid a hand flat on the table. “We’ll need another source of troops.”

“Say the word and we’ll find them, Your Grace,” one of the marshals said.

“I don’t think you all will be the ones to find them this time,” Aeris said, raising a hand to stop him. “I will need to bring them into this war myself.” He looked up at them all. “I will need to go beneath the mountains.”

Silence greeted these words, every other griffin around the table staring at their king in shock.

“B…b…beneath the mountains?” one stammered. “But…my king, surely there are others that could still do the job?!”

“We don’t have enough griffins left in reserve to be able to gather a large enough army to besiege all three locations, and the ponies that live on the western plains aren’t numerous enough to justify recruiting them as auxiliaries,” Aeris said. “They are the only option. Rainstorm can’t bypass those fortresses without leaving three very great threats at his rear, and his forces aren’t numerous enough to be able to be split and besiege all three successfully, which is the only way that they could successfully be attacked all at once. Each one is within a few days’ march of the other, making relief from one or the other all too likely.”

He looked at them all. “So as you can all see, my lords, there are no other options.” He put both hands down the table, sighing. “I don’t like it any more than any of you do. But they have served us well in the past, and their rulers know better than to betray us.”

The other griffins looked at one another, then slowly, hesitantly, began to nod. Aeris nodded back. “Good. Have the royal treasury ready to pay out their fee. I’m going down there now.”

“Be careful, Aeris,” one of the lords said. “We don’t want to lose you.”

“You won’t, Gilgamesh,” Aeris said, giving the speaker a warm smile. “I plan on coming back.”

None of the griffins looked very reassured, but nodded and began to leave the room to go about their business. Aeris took a deep breath and turned, going out of a different door, to an area deeper within the Tower.

***

Aeris’s stomach felt like it was filled with butterflies as he reached out and pulled the ancient but well-maintained lever in front of him. He knew the histories; knew how dangerous that these creatures were. But that didn’t stop him from pulling the lever. He needed their services, anything to spare the lives of more griffins. Plus, they were vicious; he needed vicious. Like the griffins they were a warrior culture, though Aeris supposed that the griffins should count themselves lucky that they were content to stay in their present territory.

He could hear a deep grinding from below him. Looking down over the lip of the long, cylindrical column that housed the elevator, he could see its circular platform slowly rising up from the darkness. As the elevator locked into place in front of him, the griffin king gingerly stepped out onto it. The elevator creaked and some dust swirled around Aeris’s feet, but the elevator held. Aeris moved out onto the elevator, more soft creaking accompanying every step. Aeris extended his claw again, this one pulling a lever in the center of the elevator. Something deep below the platform gave a loud clank and it began to descend. Damp, moss-covered walls slid past Aeris as he stood on the platform, the griffin king passing the time by remembering his histories, those he had been taught while he had still been a mere Prince.

Long ago, before the time of the great griffin hero Talon Stormclaw, the griffins had been locked in a constant, brutal war for survival against their mortal enemies. Each race was the antithesis of the other; where the griffins had feathers, their enemies had scales. Where the griffins had beaks, their nemeses had long muzzles filled with sharp, triangular teeth. And where the griffins built rookeries and keeps on the mountaintops, their adversaries built vast cities beneath the icy crags. They were called drakons, not as big as dragons or even their smaller cousins the drakes, drakons were around as big as a griffin, winged but flightless. Thick scales covered their entire bodies, from the tips of their snouts to the ends of their long, heavy tails. Despite the legends making them out to be brutal savages, the drakons possessed a sophisticated society. They built enormous, well-crafted cities beneath the mountains, with masterful smiths forging arms and armor of unheard-of quality. Their warriors were exceptionally skilled, the equal of any griffin on the battlefield. Long, destructive wars lasting for decades at a time were fought between the two sides, thousands dying on blood-splattered fields and gore-covered mountainsides as locations ranging from misted valleys to snow-covered peaks were hosts to battles between the two.

Talon Stormclaw had quickly risen to prominence in one of the greatest and bloodiest battles of that gods-forsaken age, a battle that had spread fire and blood through an entire valley as the fighting had ebbed and flowed, first to one side, then the other, the balance repeatedly shifting until finally on the fifteenth day, Stormclaw and the champion of the drakon army had met in furious conflict in the center of the field. Wielding the greatsword Acheron, Stormclaw had smote the drakon’s ruin upon the field. And he had marched on. Gathering followers with each subsequent victory, eventually Stormclaw had led his warriors into the heart of the mountains themselves, where he met the drakons in battle within their own cities. Countless thousands had died in that maelstrom of war and bloodshed, but in the end, Stormclaw had carried the day. The drakons had been utterly beaten, and so Stormclaw had allowed them to remain independent of the griffins’ influence, as long as they came to their aid when needed.

It was to hold them to that oath that Aeris descended now. The elevator had almost reached its destination, long, window-like slits appearing in the walls of the shaft as orange rays of light had filtered through them. Aeris could hear the sounds of hammers banging on anvils, the sounds of marching claws, and the bellowing of orders in a harsh language that could only belong to the children of dragons.

Aeris took a deep breath and assumed a confident air as the elevator finally reached the bottom of the shaft. He resisted the urge to squint as the bright, orange light of countless forges shone into his eyes, the powers of wind that he wielded subtly shifting to keep the blasts of hot air away from him.

There was a welcoming committee outside the elevator in the form of a brace of drakon soldiers, who for the most part were armed in the customary way: large, rhombus-shaped shields and long spears with long swords strapped to the belts wrapped around their waists. All of them wore chainmail or partial plate armor, with leather pieces covering up any exposed spots. Winged helmets sat on the heads of every one of them. Aeris stepped off of the elevator as a large drakon stepped forward. He was large enough to be almost a drake, a head taller than his griffin opposite. Thick plate armor colored black with red trimming and backed with chainmail covered his torso, arms, and legs, and a winged helmet sat on his head, his dark, pointy ears sticking out of the sides. This was Firestarter, the drakons’ Iron King. The drakon smiled at Aeris as he approached, before finally extending a slim, scaly hand in greeting.

“Wind Waker,” he rumbled, the nickname still reaching Aeris’s ears despite the noise of the forges. “It has been a long time since any of the feathered kings have been brave enough to descend to the Forge-City’s level of your mountains.”

“Most other kings have not been in need of the drakons to fulfill their oath, Firestarter,” Aeris replied calmly. There was a loud rumble from the other soldiers around them, an anticipatory growling from every throat at the prospect of war and blood. Firestarter’s own eyes widened and his lips parted back from his teeth in a savage grin.

“That is the reason for your coming?” he asked, his long sinuous neck moving forward to bring his head to Aeris’s level, scaly muzzle coming point-to-point with Aeris’s beak. “The time for the drakons to march once again is finally upon us? You would call us to battle once more, to relive the glorious bloodshed of our ancestors?”

“I would,” Aeris agreed, nodding. “And I already have your targets here,” he continued, patting the satchel at his waist, filled with the maps from the war room. He looked back up at the drakon, smiling and extending a hand. “Do we have an accord?”

“We do,” Firestarter replied, both rulers clasping talons. Firestarter’s grin grew even fiercer at the agreement. “Show us where you would have us unleashed.”

***

Hours later, Firestarter and Aeris stood on a balcony overlooking a long avenue as the drakon legions marched to war. Row upon row of drakon soldiers marched past, a forest of weaponry poking into the air as thousands upon thousands of warriors marched down the street. Interspersed among the army were the drakon beasts of war; large horned lizards armed with catapults or cannons, though there were many that went without weaponry, instead being ridden by other drakons armed with long spears or bows and arrows. The beasts plodded along slowly, the long, sharp horns on their heads waving up and down as they walked.



“Magnificent, isn’t it?” Firestarter asked, looking down on his subjects with pride. Aeris nodded, a smile finding its way to his own lips.