Derpy Hooves had never thought herself a mare of exotic tastes, but when Equestria gets conquered by an invading army (again) she learns the hard way that sometimes the heart wants what it wants, regardless of good sense.
Fire. Panic in the streets. Canterlot lies in rubble and ruins, the citizenry in chains. Calamity has come to Equestria.
But that's none of Derpy Hooves' concern. Leave that mess for the Heroes to deal with (they always win in the end, right?). Besides, she's got her own problems to deal with. Problems that take the form of a very tall and intimidating figure engaged in a very one-sided affection.
It had been itching for nearly two hours and she was running out of ways to distract herself. She'd counted all the pieces that made up the one stained glass window she could see (seven hundred and eighty two), hummed all the songs she knew (or at least three of them before one of Pinkie Pie's ditties got stuck on loop and refused to leave her brain), and made a valiant effort to scratch the itch with her tongue before eventually giving up with nothing to show for it but a strained jaw.
Maybe some kind soul would come and scratch her nose for her, but she was sadly alone and would be for... well, she didn't know. Things had been strange recently (and that was coming from a mare who lived in Ponyville of all places).
With nothing better to do, Derpy reflected back on the roller coaster of ups and downs that had been the last fifty-ish hours of her life.
It had started on a high note. After weeks of begging and pleading she'd finally convinced Deputy Postmaster Dead Letter to give her a few days off (really she was supposed to get national holidays off anyway, but he had a terrible case of forgetfulness and always seemed to schedule her no matter how many times she reminded him she was supposed to be off. Sometimes he'd even reverse-forget and give her too many shifts if she reminded him too often).
With that golden nugget of free time secured, she'd finally been able to redeem the voucher to the Ponyville Day Spa that Dinky had gotten her for Mother's Day. Unfortunately, when she arrived her luck took its first downward turn. Aloe and Lotus had been forced to explain that she'd read the numbers on the expiration date wrong and that the offer had expired just a few days before. It wasn't an uncommon problem for her. Her eyesight had never been the greatest, especially with tiny writing in loopy fonts.
But! It hadn't been all bad. They'd still given her a hefty discount off the standard massage package and even let her try a brand new type of mud mask that they weren't offering to anyone else yet.
It... did leave a weird oiliness on her fur that didn't wash out, but on the plus side they didn't charge for the mask!
The day after that had been much better! She'd woken up Dinky just before dawn and they'd caught the earliest train to Canterlot for the first ever Friendship Festival. There was food! Games! Live music!
...kinda. The Festival didn't actually start till late afternoon, so she'd spent most of the day helping out and volunteering wherever somepony needed help setting things up while Dinky helped the youngest Apple filly run 'quality control' on their family's products.
All in all, a fantastic day!
Right up until the pendulum of her luck swung the other way and Canterlot was invaded by a flotilla of war dirigibles filled with angry yetis who demanded their surrender, stormed the city, enslaved the populace, and generally brought rage and ruin to an otherwise pleasant day.
If she had a gold bit for every time Ponyville was conquered by a crazy magic tyrant, she'd have five bits, which wasn’t a lot but it was weird to see it happen in Canterlot.
Things had moved very fast after that, with the ups and down trading off almost too fast for her to follow.
A unicorn who really looked like she should have been in a hospital for horn trauma instead of doing flipkicks off an airship threw something that exploded and turned the princesses into statues.
That was bad.
But she'd missed the one that she threw at Twilight.
That was good!
But she'd only missed because Derpy had, in her panic to find Dinky, accidentally flown straight into her line of fire.
That was bad... but also good, in a way? Since it meant she'd saved a princess and was maybe a hero now. Heroes probably got more days off, right? Rainbow Dash was a Hero and she only worked a few days a week.
Being stone was a weird experience. She couldn't see or hear or feel and all her thoughts mushed together. Like being trapped in molasses. Or that brief state in the really early morning moments after waking up but before she actually opened her eyes. Time got all fuzzy.
Not that she'd ended up spending all that much time as a statue.
On the upswing, it turned out that whatever experimental magical goop was in her facemask (and still coating her fur) had a bad reaction to the petrification and made the stone crumble right off by the next morning.
Which was good!
...except it only crumbled off her head, leaving the rest of her body still stoned and balanced awkwardly on two legs.
Not so good.
And then her nose started to itch and her recollection of recent events caught up to the present.
Since waking up, she'd been alone. Someone had moved her from the courtyard to the palace throne room (along with the statues of the princesses which she could see if she craned her neck right) but the pretty stained glass windows weren't great for looking out of. She could hear just fine though, and the noises outside didn't sound like ponies who were partying after fending off an invasion.
Parties didn't usually involve so many grunts and screams and rattling chains.
Then a new noise caught her attention. The sound of footsteps coming down the hall. Not hooves, but something with claws. It wasn't long before she could make out a voice overtop.
"Just look at this place! Real classic architecture here! Nice tall ceilings, wide hallways. This'll make a great HQ once we remodel. What's this? Some kind of memorial hall? Boring! Ooh! But it'll be perfect for the Marketing guys once we tear out all these old murals and tapestries. What? Yeah, put up some banners there, there, and there, over all the suns and moons. Won't be needing them anymore, ha!"
It was a powerful voice, with a rich timber that oozed confidence. Even as it said such alarming things, Derpy found herself straining in to listen closer.
She needn't have bothered.
"And here we are! The throne room!" The double doors burst open with a powerful kick, and in walked the most imposing creature Derpy had ever seen.
He wasn't a pony, but some kind of huge yeti creature, taller than even Princess Celestia. Light from the stained glass windows glinted across his dark breastplate and the jagged blue insignia that graced it. Ominous-looking staff in hand, he strode forward like he owned the world and the world merely hadn't been informed of it yet.
He was...
He was...
He was so incredibly hot.
Derpy felt her face flush as she took in the tallest drink of water she'd ever seen.
Rich silver fur. Broad shoulders. Eyes like arctic ice. A commanding aura.
Just like the old gypsy mare had predicted.
...admittedly, Derpy had been expecting to someday meet a pony that fit the description, but clearly her tastes were rather broader than even she had realized.
The tall, dark, and handsome stranger's eyes roved across the room before they locked onto the three-and-a-half statues arranged in the middle. "And would you look at that? Tempest actually did something right for once. Four princesses, gift-wrapped and ready and—" His eyes locked onto Derpy. "And one of them's still moving. Why is one of them still moving?" He launched himself forward and jabbed a claw in her face. "Why are you still moving?!"
"Oh! Um... hi? I think your stone magic thingy wore off."
"Wore off? Wore off?!" He growled and looked like he was about to explode before he turned away and struck his staff against the ground, sending up a shower of sparks. "Lousy, cheap, knock-off goods! Should have known better than to trust anything made in Klugetown, no matter how good a deal they were."
He whirled back around and stared her down like his outburst hadn't just happened. "So! I don't know if you've noticed, but there's been something of a change in management around here. A little hostile corporate takeover. Now," He lowered the business end of his staff in her direction. "Which one of the prissy pony princesses are you supposed to be then, huh? You look too small to be the sun one. Don't look smart enough to be the new one either. Maybe you're the ~love~ princess?"
"I could be, if you want," she blurted without thinking.
"What was that?"
"N-Nevermind! I'm actually not a princess at all." It hurt to admit it, since he seemed so very interested in princesses, but she couldn't bring herself to found their relationship on a lie.
He looked at her, confusion briefly replacing his sneer of command. "Not a princess? Are you even one of those alico-whatsits?"
"Alicorns?"
"Yeah, those."
"Nope. Just a regular pegasus."
"Then why are you here?"
She shrugged. Tried to shrug. It didn't work. She settled for tilting her head. "I just woke up here and I can't really leave."
The handsome devil retracted his staff and groaned, massaging the bridge of his ape-like nose with his free hand. "Typical. Can't trust a pony to get even a simple job done right. 'Capture the princesses' I said, is that so much to ask? Is that so unreasonable? I even gave her half a dozen zeppelins and she still couldn't do it."
Contrary to the gossip she knew certain ponies whispered behind her back, Derpy was not slow or simpleminded. She could put two and two together just as well as anypony else. And all the numbers she had added up to this tall drink of cider being the one in charge of the invasion of Equestria's capitol.
Well, she'd always had a thing for bad boys. Dinky's father was proof enough of that.
But him being a villain also complicated her romantic ambitions. It meant that one of two things was going to happen. The first was that, though she didn't like his chances, he might actually succeed in his evil ambitions, secure the throne, and become the next King of Equestria. If he did, then all kinds of disreputable mares would start climbing over each other to try and become his Queen and secure their place in the new world order.
And not a one would care that she'd seen him first and called dibs.
The other option, and the more likely one, was that Twilight Sparkle and her friends would show up in a few days and dethrone him like they usually did when this sort of thing happened.
Dating would be really hard if he was in Tartarus (not impossible, but she'd been a postmare long enough to see plenty of long-distance relationships crumble).
Either way, she figured she had a week or less to make him fall for her.
Piece of muffin.
"So," she looked up at him and batted her lashes just like the dating advice column in her magazine recommended, "You're Storm King, then?"
"At least brand awareness is on the rise," he said with a roll of his eyes. "What gave it away? The staff? The crown? The iconic and memorable insignia?"
Honestly, it'd been a guess. But the porcupine guy that had asked for their surrender had mentioned a Storm King and the creature before her didn't look like the kind of fellow who would stand for working under anyone else. "The, eh, whole package, really. It's quite a look."
"Naturally," he said, though the smile didn't quite reach his eyes. "I'll give you ponies one thing; if nothing else you're good at recognizing those superior to you."
A lump formed in her throat. "You... don't think much of ponies?"
"Can't stand the lot of you," he agreed. "All namby-pamby happy friendship flowers whatever. Bleh! If I could have done this one takeover remotely, I would have."
He didn't like ponies. Her destined soulmate, her star-crossed lover, bound to her by the red string of fate... didn't like ponies. Of which she was one.
That would certainly be a hurdle in their relationship. But Derpy could be very convincing! She just needed to take it slow. Baby steps.
If he wasn't ready to commit to a relationship, there had to be some other way she could justify staying near him so she could win him over.
Well, if society was going to be rebuilt from the ground up anyway...
"Are you hiring?" She asked with her brightest smile. "I'd love to offer my services."
Storm King blinked. He actually looked a little stunned. "Wow. Just like that? So much for loyalty to the crown."
She gave another headbob shrug. "It's like you said, right? Recognizing a superior. Out with the old royals and in with the new." And if Twilight won out, she'd say she'd cooperated under duress. "I don't have my resume handy, but I'd be happy to fill any openings you may have." ‘Or vice versa’, but she clamped down on that far too forward suggestion before it could escape her traitorous brain. Later. Once he warmed up to her.
"Ha! Now that's the kind of go-getter attitude I wish my underlings had!" He chuckled long and hard before the laughter faded away and his regal sternness returned. "But tough luck for you, I already have a pony under my employ, and one is more than enough."
No! Tragedy! How was she supposed to put the moves on him if he already had a marefriend?
In her frozen shock, she failed to react as he tapped one of her petrified wings, the crystal feathers making a ringing tone against his claw. "Huh. Neat. Add a couple candles and maybe you'll get a job as a chandelier! Haha!" He turned and strutted back towards the double doors. "Enjoy your last few minutes of freedom, pony. I'll send some guards to deal with you sooner or later. Probably later; it's nearly lunch."
Derpy could only watch in impotent, immobile helplessness as her dreamboat sailed away. (Though as much as she hated to see him go, she couldn't help but blush as she appreciated the view of him leaving.)
The sound of grumbled rants and passive aggressive stomping echoed through the halls of Canterlot Castle. That is to say, the sound did its best to echo. The echo was having a rather rough time of it, finding the usual marble corridors muffled by a gratuitous excess of banners and curtains and carpets all branded with the same catchy logo and layered as thoroughly as necessary to cover up the copious sun and moon and pony iconography.
The muttered complaints continued as Storm King, Conqueror of Canterlot and all the Southern Lands, shouldered his way through the double doors of the throne room and made his way across the chamber.
"...for twenty minutes! Is that so much to ask? I don't think I'm being the bad guy here. They're literally in chains! How hard is it to keep them quiet? And the excuses! Don't give me excuses, just do it!"
He sank into Princess Celestia's throne with an angry slouch as he massaged his temples. "It's like herding Abyssians, I swear."
"Rough day?"
Storm King, unrivaled warrior of the Hurricane Archipelago, shrieked like a little child and leaped out of his seat. There was a statue of a pony tucked between the two thrones that hadn’t been there before. Most of a statue.
“Good morning, your highness!” Derpy smiled.
"You. You're that..." He snapped his fingers a few times, hunting for a word. "That pegawhatever from yesterday that my guards mistook for a princess. Why are you still here?"
She shrugged. Tried to. Settled for a side-to-side bob. "I can't really leave on my own."
He rolled his eyes. "Obviously. But I know I gave the order to have you moved out of my sight."
Derpy nodded. That much she could still do. "You did. I was here when you yelled it, but I don't think your guards understood. Once they showed up they just argued and kept moving me back and forth and back and forth and back and forth around the room before they gave up and set me back here."
It hadn’t been quite so straightforward. In truth, it had taken some fast talking to convince the guards that their boss wanted her to be "rearranged within the throne room" rather than "tossed out the window into the sculpture garden". But the yeti guards weren’t so bad once she convinced them she was supposed to be there. One had even scratched her nose for her and placed her close enough to the thrones that, if the itch returned, she’d be able to scratch it herself.
Nice fellows. She’d make sure to remember them once she started officially dating their boss. They deserved a raise, or at least some time off.
"Ugh. Idiots," he growled as he rolled his eyes and retook his seat with much more formal posture. "You can't get good help these days."
She nodded again and tried to look understanding (even though she'd never had anyone working under her in all her employed years). “What did they mess up today? You sounded stressed when you came in."
He eyed her suspiciously. “Why are you so interested? Looking for some kind of weakness? Some way to escape?”
“Nothing like that. I don’t think I could escape if I wanted to.” She wobbled in place. “I’m rock solid, remember? I’m just bored. Really, really bored.” She gave him a commiserating look. “And you sound like you really need someone to vent to.”
He gave her a long look through those stormy eyes of his. Derpy relished the moment and allowed herself to get lost in them. “Fine.” She snapped out of it as he looked away. “If you’re going to be a piece of furniture you might as well be a useful one. Those dimwits couldn’t hold a conversation with both hands and trying to get a reaction out of Tempest is like talking to a brick wall.”
“Tempest?”
“My lieutenant,” he answered. “You probably saw her during the invasion. Angry unicorn, sans the horn? Big fan of lightning and explosions? Personality like a badger with a stick up its—”
“Oh! Yeah. Her.”
Tempest. So that was the name of her rival for Storm King’s affections. A worthy foe. Their battle would be legendary.
Assuming she didn’t just win outright while the mare was off doing something else. It’d be her own fault then for leaving such a hunk of a stallion alone and unspoken for.
Derpy banished those premature thoughts. She’d earned his tolerance, but that was just the first step. “So what was it your guards did that was so bad?”
Storm King reclined back in his throne and let his staff idly tap against his crown. "You wouldn't believe it. They've set a new low bar for themselves."
"I believe a lot of things."
"Hmph. Well, get a load of this:"
With that, he launched into a truly unbelievable tale about how three fillies had nearly escaped by convincing the guards that they were actually guards themselves who’d been cursed and transformed and switcheroo-ed into a cage by a unicorn who’d since escaped. Apparently they managed to cross nearly half the city and draw over thirty guards away from their posts to form a posse to hunt down the “escaped unicorn” before they made the mistake of heading for the castle and running into King himself.
After that, it was like a dam burst. Morning turned into midday that stretched into afternoon as Storm King worked his way through an endless backlog of complaints to the first willing (if captive) ear he’d had in years. Incompetence and idiocy, laziness and lollygagging, misinterpreted orders and off-brand merchandise. Every grievance under the sun and then some. For most, Derpy could offer nothing but affirmations and agreement, assuring him that, yes, he was in the right (it helped that a lot of the time he was). But for some tales, she had retorts. The post office had a tendency to attract a lot of oddball seasonal workers, so she had stories to rival his own. Not every story was suitable to share, though. She quickly learned to steer away from anything too sentimental or happy and focus on ones where culpable ponies actually faced consequences or caused policy changes. Eventually, that segued into conversations about her work in general and management in specific.
“…so if you take sick days and vacation days and bundle them together as a unified PTO, they’ll actually take off less over the course of the year.”
“Brilliant!” her sharp-dressed stallion cackled as he scribbled away on a notepad. “Another new way to boost productivity! I never would have thought a pony could have such a head for business and logistics.”
Derpy just smiled and took the compliment. They weren’t even her ideas. Just normal policies at the post office and a few other dead end jobs she’d worked at before that. Though his joy at their “devilish duplicitousness” was making her wonder if maybe her bosses had been taking advantage of her.
“Hey.” Her head snapped up as his attention turned back to her. There was something different about his voice. It wasn’t any warmer, but it had lost a little of the harsh edge. Had a few hours talking broken down the barriers between them? Was he already ready to confess his love?! Derpy’s heart sped up like a hummingbird as she waited for his question.
“You still interested in a change in career?” Not quite a confession then, but a good start. Bosses fell for their secretaries all the time, or so said the gossip columns.
He slapped his hand against his stack of notes. “This is good stuff. Management stuff. And I’ll be honest, even if I’m going to be running this place I’d still rather deal directly with ponies as little as I have to. So I need someone who knows how ponies think to enforce my policies.”
This was it. Her first big step towards his heart would be through his wallet. Not the usual stomach-based route her mother had always spoken so highly of, but if it worked, it worked. But just to put her concerns to rest… “What about Tempest?”
“Tempest’s not a…pony’s pony. Wow. Boy, do I hate your language. Anyway, blah blah blah hammers and nails and problems: do you want the job or not?”
There was no doubt in her mind. “Yes! Absolutely!”
“There’s no benefits and the pay is your choice between company shares and Storm King Bucks which can be redeemed at the Storm King Company Store.”
“Still yes!” She raised a hoof and— “Uh… I’d shake on it but… you know…”
“I’ll overlook it this time. Welcome to Team Storm King…”
“Derpy. Derpy Hooves.”
“Derby?”
“Derpy.”
“Birdy?”
“Der. Py.”
“Yeah, whatever. I don’t care.” His smile dropped as he lost interest.
She waited a moment to see if his mood would bounce back, and when it didn’t, she bit the speartip anyway. “Soooo… since I’m an official employee now—”
“Wow. Five seconds on the job and already discontent. That’s gotta be a record.”
“—do you think I could maybe get unstoned?”
Storm King eyed up the rest of her body that was still obsidian crystal. She didn’t mind, but only wished she’d been stuck in a more flattering pose. At least her wings were nice and spread to show off her span. “Oh right. That. You know, I would, but I didn't actually buy any reversal potion for the petrification orbs. Seemed like an unnecessary expense at the time.”
“Ah. I see.”
He stood and cracked his back, muscles rippling under his armor and sending all of Derpy’s blood rushing to her face. “Welp. Time to clock out. Still have to check and make sure there’s been no other escape attempts today. You be up bright and early tomorrow; we’ve got a company meeting first thing.”
“Right! Of course… sir?”
“Sir’s good. I like sir.” He lifted a clawed hand as he left. “Good night, COO.”
“Good night your maj- sir.”
As the door closed, she wondered about his last comment. Coo? Like a bird? Was he already giving her pet names? She grinned in the low evening light. Maybe she was better at this whole seduction thing than she thought.
"Next order of business." Storm King steepled his fingers and transfixed Derpy with that stormy gaze she loved so much. "An image overhaul for our new Chief Operations Officer."
She waited for a moment for him to continue. When he didn’t, she hesitantly gestured to herself.
“Yes, you,” he clarified. “No matter how competent you are, I can’t have a member of my staff looking so… pony. I think your main problem area is roughly…” He gestured vaguely with a roll of his wrist. “That.”
“That… all of me?”
“Yeah, that.”
She considered it. There wasn’t a lot she could change about herself at large (if she could, she would have already to suit his tastes) but she did have a base to work off. The one other pony she knew he approved of.
Though she didn’t have a horn to splinter, and she definitely wasn’t going to do anything permanent to her wings. Maybe a mohawk, though? She could work a mohawk.
“I could wear an eyepatch?” she offered. It wasn’t like her depth perception could get any worse.
“It’s a start.” He noted it down, but didn’t look satisfied. She needed more than that. This was her chance to start enticing him in. Fashion was a mare’s weapon in romance, or so Rarity always said. What kind of makeover would appeal to him?
“A set of armor might help.” At his interested eyebrow raise, she continued. “Maybe with spikes?”
“I like spikes. Spikes are good. Very on-brand.”
“It’d need to be dark grey and blue, those are the company colors right?” What else did he like? “Chains?”
“Chains?” he echoed.
“Not real big heavy ones” —like she saw the ponies who’d pulled in the table manacled with— “but maybe some thin decorative ones? Linking the different parts of the armor together.” It really wasn’t her style, but she could compromise.
“That’s... a novel idea,” Storm King mused. “Good symbolism there. A sign of subservience even in a position of power. I like it!”
A thrill ran through her at his praise. Chained armor sounded heavy, but it couldn’t be worse than those itchy one-size-fits-none delivery uniforms. Maybe she could get it bespelled to be lighter or more comfortable.
Or maybe it could even be spelled so with a single word the chains could tighten up or even drop off entirely…
Okay. Maybe she was into chains after all. She was learning so many new things about herself lately.
She descended back from her daydream of impractically risque armor and realized he’d kept talking without her. He’d moved past the armor itself to something about wing blades which she was pretty sure were illegal to own without a special license. But rules about licenses could be changed once he was in control.
That thought reminded her of a question that had wormed its way through her mind late the previous night as she’d tried to find a comfortable neck position to sleep on.
"Can I ask a question?"
Storm King looked disgruntled at being interrupted, but thought about it for a moment. "Alright. I do appreciate feedback." His eyes narrowed. "Just don't try and suggest anything cute. I hate cute."
"I know." He brought it up a lot. Her own lack of cuteness was probably half of why he tolerated her presence.
“So I’ve been thinking about all this. Invasion. Capturing. Conquering. And I was wondering, what’s the…”' she fished for a word that would appeal to his vocabulary. “...the brand trajectory in this? What’s the end goal?”
She wasn’t really keen on the whole dictatorship thing herself, but Equestria could do worse than her Aponis of a beau for its iron-fisted ruler.
He gave her a considering look as his eyebrows came together in a picture of deep thought. Finally, he nodded. “Good question. Insightful. I like that. If you’re going to be on the team then you’d better know the mission statement.”
He turned his chair to face her properly and leaned forward, his face set as stern and serious as though he was about to impart some deep secret of the universe.
“It's all about merchandising, see.”
She blinked. “Merchandising?”
“Right. What's the use of a big threatening reputation if you're not making money off it? Build a big brand and slap its name on everything.” He rose suddenly and kicked his chair out from behind as he jumped up on the table, his long limbs gesturing grandly with every word. “Storm King hats! Storm King vests! Storm King souvenir mugs! Storm King action figures! Storm King branded bedsheets and dinette sets. It's an endless well of fame and wealth!”
Derpy nodded eagerly and wished her forelegs were free to clap for his great performance. It made sense to her. She wouldn't mind a set of Storm King pillow cases, herself. Especially if they had his picture printed on either side.
“So that’s the plan? Once you conquer all of Equestria you’re going to sell them your stuff? Or have them make it for you?”
“‘Once I conquer’? It’s already done. You were there, weren't you? You saw my airships come down in their diesel clouds with the whoosh and the bang and the ‘surrender now’.”
"When you took Canterlot, I know. But it’s only been a couple days. When did you have time to take the rest of it?”
Storm King froze mid-pose. He turned slowly—oh so painfully slowly—and pierced her with his serious gaze.
“What do you mean the rest of it?”
Derpy fought to control her breathing. That look, that glare. She thanked the stars her wings were immobilized or they’d have sprung out to full spread in an instant. Luckily, bland geographical trivia (in lieu of buckball statistics or mental math) was exactly the kind of thing she needed to cool her jets. “You know, all the other cities? There's Cloudsdale, Manehattan, Las Pegasus, Fillydelphia, Baltimare, Whinnyapolis, Seaddle. And those are just the ones as big as Canterlot or bigger. There's dozens of little towns and villages all over. Equestria's a big place.”
Storm King was not happy. It showed in the flare of his nostrils. The arch of his back. The crackle of sparks that ran across his crown. He stepped down from the table, calm as anything, before roaring and smashing his fist against the surface.
“There’s more?! There’s not supposed to be more cities! All the hippogriffs lived in the same place! So did the Parrots! And the Abyssians! Tempest never said anything about this! Why are ponies so spread out?”
“Well, it all started over a thousand years ago in the Warring Tribes era—”
“Did I ask for a history lesson?!”
Kind of, yes, but she felt it wasn’t the time to say so. “And beyond Equestria there’s also the Crystal Empire up north. The mail doesn’t run there, so I don’t know much about it but that’s where all the crystal ponies live.” She paused as a thought occurred to her. “I'm kind of surprised they haven't made a move yet since they haven’t heard from their empress in three days.” She nodded towards the spot of the room where Princess Cadence’s statue still stood.
“An Empress?” he balked, “I thought she was a princess?”
“Both, really. She got a promotion but kept the old title.”
“That’s… ugh.” He sank back down and put his face in his claws. When he spoke again it was muffled and muttered. “We are going to go so over budget. This was supposed to be a raid, not an extended campaign. I’m going to need more soldiers, more supplies, a logistics chain. All so expensive. Ugh, this was supposed to be a one-and-done hostile takeover to nab the magic to boost my numbers!”
Derpy’s ears perked up at the new detail. “Magic? What magic?”
Storm King groaned again and took one hand off his face. He reached around blindly before finally finding the staff he always carried around and fiddled with when he got bored. “The plan was to sweep in, blitz the place, and get all the princesses in one spot. Then I was going to use this stick—I forget the name, the Staff of… Sarcasm or whatever— that Tempest stole from some ancient desert hermit to drain the princess' magic and give me control over the elements. Can't exactly be the Storm King if I can't summon storms on command. It’s right there in the name! I gotta be able to back up my claim or else the whole rebrand is pointless!”
There was more to his rant, but Derpy didn’t hear it as she’d collapsed into herself in a black hole of mortification. Storm King wasn't his name, it was a title. The Storm King! Not ‘Mr. King, but my friends call me Storm’. How embarrassing! It was a small mercy he hadn't found out about her mistake before she learned the truth. (Though she made a mental note to adjust her fantasy wedding invitations from “Mrs. Derpy King” to “Storm Queen Derpy”. The latter had a much nicer ring to it anyway.)
Then she latched onto the other important part of what he’d said.
“Wait, that's it?”
He stopped mid-rant to glare. “What’s it?”
“You just need magic to make a storm? You don’t need the princesses for that.”
His eyes narrowed into two twin pinpricks of icy fury. “Explain. Now.”
“A-any pegasus can whip up a storm,” she said, fighting back a wave of heat from his intensity. “Maybe you’d need a team for something bigger, but it’s still something every third pony can do. I don’t think I’ve ever even seen Pri- Celestia use pegasus magic aside from just flying. Lots of unicorn spells, but never anything weather based. She's got- she had staff for that.”
He roared. It was like the most violent parts of a lion and a gorilla rolled into a singular sound. The edges of the table cracked between his claws. “Tempest,” he growled through grinding teeth. “That snake lied to me. Promised me that only the princesses had the magic I needed, that I needed all four of them—”
“Five.”
“What.”
“There's five alicorn princesses,” she corrected. Maybe it was a dangerous game to keep stoking his anger, but stars it was so hot! “Princess Cadence has a daughter she left up north with her daddy. She got the wings and horn and everything. I heard she’s so strong she blasted a hole through the whole palace at only a few days old. There was a big hullabaloo for weeks in all the papers.”
He threw the table. Picked up the whole thing, scattering papers everywhere, and flung it like an empty pizza box. It sailed through one of the stained glass windows and shattered it into a million glimmering pieces. “That self-serving traitor! She was taking me for a ride the whole time! Me! That’s my schtick! Was there anything she wasn't lying about?!” His eyes roved the room, seeking a suitable substitute for his fury. They landed on the staff. “I bet this is just some worthless stick!”
With a heave and a grunt, the Storm King took three steps and launched it through the broken window like an Equestrian Games javelin gold medalist.
Just as it disappeared into the distance with a twinkle, there came a knock at the door.
“What is it NOW!?” he roared
The doors edged open just wide enough for a small, porcupine-like figure to poke his head through. Derpy recognized him. He was the one who’d demanded Canterlot’s surrender back when everything started. He eyed the room with fearful cautiousness, taking in the destruction and the Storm King’s still wrathful looming.
“I… hi. We’re, uh… we’re back. And we got the princess.”
The Storm King stared at him unmovingly before his features slowly settled down into an irritated scowl. “Oh you have, have you?”
“Ah… yes?”
“Well? Bring her in!”
The messenger yelped and scuttled back through the door. A moment later both doors were opened by a pair of yeti guards in their full armor. They stood to the side as a haughty-looking unicorn walked in like she owned the place.
Derpy disliked her immediately, and not just because she’d been the one to trap her in stone in the first place.
She ignored the destruction as she stepped over the detritus and lowered herself into a bow as she approached.
“Your highness,” she announced with the most insufferable arrogance. “As promised, I’ve brought you the runaway princess.” Behind her came a cart pulled by two chained stallions and bearing a cage that held the unmistakable form of Princess Twilight, looking more downcast than Derpy had ever seen her. “She put up a fight, but now she’s all alone.”
Tempest rose and, for the first time, finally noticed she had company aside from her boss. Her eyes widened, then narrowed, then tried to force themselves to fit a look of casual indifference.
“And who… is this?”
“Well.” The Storm King snapped. Gone complete was his hot-burning rage from before. Now there was just a cold seething fury. (Fury that was directed on her behalf, Derpy smugly noted). “I was going to introduce her as your new boss, but that’s going to be difficult now that I'm starting to rethink your future in my ranks entirely.”
That clearly threw her for a loop. Her stone-cold facade cracked as she stepped back in shock. “What? ‘Rethink my future’? I’m your second-in-command!”
“Were my second-in-command. And descending the ladder like it’s on fire.”
Anger ignited in the mare’s eyes. A wrath Depry had rarely seen in a pony. “I’ve… I've been nothing but loyal! I captured Twilight Sparkle! And the rest of the princesses!”
“Well, news flash Buster Brown!” the Storm King hollered, “You missed one!”
He closed the distance between them like a jungle cat on the hunt. “And that's the least of your deceptions I’ve discovered! I know all of your lies, Tempest Shadow!”
“Lies!? You can’t imagine the amount of effort I’ve—”
“Don’t you talk to me about effort! I built this brand from the ground up!”
“Derpy?” Twilight whispered. Derpy turned to her, but kept her eyes on the growing confrontation. Seeing her stallion fight for her was too good to miss. “Derpy, is that you? What are you doing here?”
“Hi Twilight, but shhh,” she murmured, “Don’t interrupt hubby when he’s getting fired up.”
“Hubby?!”
“And another thing!” The Storm King bellowed, steam flaring from his nostrils in short furious bursts. “This whole invasion was your idea in the first place! A secret plot to bankrupt me by withholding information about the enemy! You’ve done nothing but use me to get your own petty revenge against Equestria. The petty revenge part earned you points, but trying to manipulate me was your biggest mistake!” He pointed across the room to Derpy and smiled for the first time in minutes, though it was a smug and leering thing. “Dursley here has shown me the truth!”
“Derpy.”
“Whatever!”
“This pony,” Tempest hissed, “has fed you lies. She’s turned you against me, your most loyal follower—”
“Oh come off it,” he scoffed, “We both know you’re just in this for the hornjob. Get with the program!” He leaned in close enough that he was shouting right in her face. “You are never! Getting! Your horn back! It’s gone! Kaput! If all the doctors in Equestria couldn’t fix it, what utter insanity made you think I could? You were a useful tool, and now you’re getting traded in for a better model.”
Tempest’s horn… exploded. That was what it looked like as raw magic burst from the cracked base like fireworks made of sunlight that filled the room with searing light.
While she was still blinking away black afterimages, Derpy felt herself be surrounded by a magic aura and yanked across the room. “You!” Tempest’s voice screeched right in her ear. “This is all your fault! You turned him against me! You ruined everything!”
In that moment of blindness and panic, Derpy knew one thing to be certain and she said it without even thinking. “I was right. I’m a much better match for him than you were.”
The next thing Derpy knew, she was sailing through the window at high speed. Trailing off into the distance, she barely heard Twilight scream out her name but she didn’t miss the familiar tingle of a featherweight spell being cast on her, the same kind they used in flight school.
As she sailed over the city, she closed her eyes. This was going to hurt. Not a lot, thanks to the spell, but still. Her heart hurt more than anything. Twilight had arrived, which meant her beloved was going to be defeated. It didn’t matter that she was in a cage; once Twilight showed up, a victory for Equestria was pretty much certain.
She was going to have to get used to addressing letters to Tartarus. Then again, maybe she could leverage this into convincing the Postmaster to give the Tartarus delivery route? It’d hardly be long-distance if she could still see him every day. Yes, that would work.
That last thing two things that passed through Derpy’s mind before collision was an idle confusion over why she smelt a giant cake and a pondering if she could track down the baker to cater her wedding.
Derpy knocked twice on the front door, then wobbled alarmingly as the enormous box she had balanced across her back tried to fall one way and the much littler box balanced atop her uniform’s hat tried to fall the other.
After a few unsteady moments she righted them, then set both down. She fetched a key from her pocket, unlocked the door, and walked inside.
It was her house, after all.
Now inside she turned around, signed for the delivery (she could take the paperwork back to the office tomorrow) and brought the boxes inside.
Even more than a week later, it felt strange to move so freely. Her body felt so light compared to when it’d been a block of pegasus-shaped rock. While freeing, the downside meant she was knocking over even more things than usual.
Once she was inside, alone and with the curtains drawn, she allowed herself a giddy giggle of anticipation. Finally. After days of waiting, it had arrived.
Grabbing the letter opener by the door, she sliced through the tape that separated her from her purloined prize, lifted the lid… and smiled.
Within the box… was rocks.
Hundreds— thousands, even— of obsidian shards. Some were big enough she could recognize the curve of a horn or the knuckle of a finger, but most of it was so much gravel. But it was all there. Every single pebble. The Royal Guard had made very sure to get every last piece.
It was her good fortune that they hadn’t been nearly so rigorous in checking their shipping labels. By the time anyone at the Tartarus mail depot realized a package was missing, it had already been routed through a dozen redirects and loopbacks. Anyone who even tried to trace the web she’d woven would wind up fruitlessly digging through the Las Pegasus dead letter office.
Not even the most thorough gumshoe would think to check in Ponyville.
And yet here he was. Her mail-order husband, some assembly required.
She opened the second box, one that had traveled through more normal channels. Luckily, it too was exactly what she’d hoped for. A fifty-two bottle case of Dr. Whoopsie Daisy’s all-purpose superglue. More than her usual order, but this was a big job.
Derpy sighed in contentment. Nothing was missing. Everything was in place. Sure their first time together had ended in him being stoned and shattered and sentenced in absentia to Tartarus while she was flung through a window, but she’d been on worse first dates.
“Dinky!” She called out. “Do you want to help me with a jigsaw puzzle?”
“What? Yeah! I love puzzles!”
“I know,” Derpy tittered, “So I got an extra hard one for us!”
It was going to take many long nights (and no shortage of sticky hooves) but in her heart Derpy knew without a shadow of a doubt…
