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@☬ ᏝᏆᏁᏨᎾᏝᏁᏰᏒᎬᎳᏕᎿᎬᏒᎱᎯᏁ ☬

Glad you’re back friend. Next bits should be before the 4th

Take that you magically-inclined eggheads! A simple enchantment, a small pendant and a few bits. BAM. Self-writing diary based on my thoughts. Though I must thank those same unicorns for coming up with the enchantments in the first place, snarky bastards. Small victories, Sweet Bun. Small victories.

I’m about an hour out from the encampment now. Who would have guessed dragging a heavy cart through the forest underbrush would take forever? Not me apparently, but what can you do? The camp will need these supplies likely before the week is out, judging by the supply of rations and the sheer number of Night Guards. Sure those that live on meat and blood and emotion will be just fine, but everyone else is going to struggle within a few days. Plus outside of certain thestrals accustomed to it, the fruits in the forest can be transformative at best, deadly if you are truly unlucky.

That’s the least of concerns on my mind right now. The walk has given me time to think and consider how I’m going to keep up this façade of lies and promises. It’s bound to crack at some point and at worst it could get me killed if I don’t plan well, and I doubt waving a flag of peace would do me any favors right now. Probably best to keep my intentions vague, play the field as it were. I’m still going to help out anyone who needs it, rank and loyalty be damned. I’ve never seen a pony die, and I will do my best to prevent that. Now just to figure out how to bake potions into my goods without them losing their potency and being use-

Wait. What was that? It sounded almost like…trumpets? I swear I heard trumpets just now, coming from above the canopy. It’s too thick to see through but..yes, there they are again. Louder too, from the east. Trumpets from the east…the Solar War Horns! A counterattack so soon!? They were going mad in the throne room with preparations before I fled, but less than two days later? To find the encampment and plan an attack? This is bad. Really really bad. I might need to leave the cart and make a run for the camp.

There is another sound. Crackling behind me. The wind is picking up and it’s getting war-

…Oh crapbaskets.

The edges of the paper are scorched and crumpled

-Diary of Countess Sweet Bun, Entry ???. Between Hours 46-49 of the War

Chapter One – The Moon Rising

First Day of The Civil War

Eclipse’s Diary Entry 36, 4-2-1111 C.E.

When Princess Celestia suggested I start writing a diary to vent my frustration after transferring me to the Night Guard way back when, I never thought I would end up using it to record the start of a Civil War.

It’s been 2 days since this madness started and I don’t even know where to begin with this, it just feels like a bad April Foal’s joke gone wrong! I guess should start with how my first and apparently last day off went…

I experienced the pleasure of sleeping in for once! A true rarity for those in the E.U.P! And got to hang out at the arcade and enjoyed some overexpensive donuts with my childhood friend Dust, and of course, kicked his gray flank at ‘Them Fighting Herds’, you think being a Unicorn would gave that stallion an advantage of having a faster reflexs from his telekinesis. But he’s never been that good at technical fighting games, hehehe. Good to know he hasn’t changed all that much since the last time we were able to hang out last. It was nice to reconnect, we’ve both been pretty so busy, me with being a guardmare for E.U.P. and him with his private bodyguard work for Princess Twilight, funny how we both ended up working under Princesses. Once night approached on what was a pretty great day at the time. We parted ways at the train station, Dust returned to Ponyville and I flew my way back home, passing over the large group of protesters out front of the pathway up to the palace on my way to my provided housing nearby in the Upper District. The group seem to triple in size since yesterday, from what I learned later apparently a lot of out of town Ponies had been slowly streaming in from all over Equestria when they heard the news about the sugar tax hike.

At home I cleaned and checked my two suits of armor out of habit, then snuggled into bed with a book and drifted to sleep at some point before being jolted awake at the sound of somepony screaming and pounding at my door. Which turned out to be Private Arrow Feather, who panically reported that the Lunar Guard Batponies were attacking other guardponies at the Palace, before galloping down the hallway and beating on the door of Private Shield Break as I rush back into my apartment to grab my armor before I hesitated in front of the Lunar Night Guard armor, I’ve worn for the past 3 years, remembered how Private Mango Sweet mentioned something about a ‘BatPony only drill’ and how shifty all of them were being there the day beforehand, I realized there was a lot more going on here and wasn’t a random spur of the moment incident. I quickly donned my old Solar Royal Guard Armor, as a precaution to not be mixed up as one of the ‘attackers’, the cosmetic enchantment attached to the armor quickly magic my mane and tail up in mohawk and braids, grabbed my spear and flew quickly to the Palace, seeing other fellow Pegasus Guards flying towards it also and spotted some Grounder Pony Guards pushing through the now massive group of civilian protesters gathered in front of the gates.

Upon reaching the Palace I quickly noticed all of the usual guard posts were abandon. I flew into one of the open air hallways leading inside towards the throne, making my way towards it in the hopes of connecting up with Captain Bright Nova or Somepony of a high rank, maybe even one of the Princesses to learn exactly whats going on. Reaching the end of one hall, I heard the nearly inaudible chattering high pitched squeaks of several BatPonies conversing, I quickly pressed up against the wall and inched forward slowly towards the corner, being quiet as possible to keep from alerting their sensitive hearing and peered around. Spotting three of my Lunar Guard ‘Compatriots’ decked out in the old traditional Lunar Armor from the days of Nightmare Moon, who I recognize as Corporal Gloom Ebony and Sergeant Night Wing standing over the proned massive body of Major Stronghoof as Private Mango Sweet hog tied him with some rope. Despite my years of exposure to BatPonies I’ve never been able to understand their native ‘Bat Speech’ so I didn’t gleam any information from them as I hid and waited for the right moment. When the moment they had their backs turned from my hiding spot, I bounded forward, taking flight down the hallway as fast as I could, catching them by surprise as I slammed into Night like a golden armored battering ram driving him hard into one of the walls and then quickly lashing out my hind legs bucking Ebony upside her helmet sending her sprawling back onto the ground. Relying on Mango’s hesitation, she always hesitated in combat sparring, I gave two swift hard stomps to the side of the downed ponies helmets ensuring that they were out completely. Then quickly bring up my spear to redirect the poorly place strike from Mango, she lives up to her name and is too sweet to be an affected fighter, something I empathize with, It’s something I had to overcome back in basic training, quickly catching her spear with one on my wings wrenching it away and catch the shaft of my spear up under her barrel, flipped her to the ground, pinned her beneath one of my armored hooves. I interrogated her on what’s actually going on and being the timid mare she is, she spilled everything…

Apparently this was all a staged attack ordered by Princess Luna to prove to Her Majesty Princess Celestia that she’s not taking Equestria’s defense both abroad and internal seriously enough. Which thinking back on it she’s not wrong, considering how many times the Empire has only been saved by the efforts or in some cases pure luck on behalf of Princess Twilight and her friends. Doubly so after the incident with the Changelings replacing every single important Pony and the Storm King’s Invasion. So as insane as the Princess’s plan was, there is justification for it. Sadly though, it’s all the chaos that resulted from it afterwards that so messed up.

But back to what I was writing before, I continued to interrogate Mango, learning that they ordered to non-lethally attacked and restrain their fellow non-bat guards that are currently in the palace, I remember thinking “Thankfully Princess Luna completely hasn’t lost it”, and secure the palace completely under Princess Luna’s control as she confronts Princess Celestia on the issue. After it failed attempt at learning probable locations of Mango’s fellow compatriots that she refused to give up ,which I have to give props to her for, at least she’s always been loyal, I backed off and then realized she was no longer staring at me at something behind me, I turned around quickly and smacked muzzle first into the eyeball decoration of a traditional Lunar Armor, and cranked my head up to see the towering scared gray form of the one mare I have never been able to beat sparring practice, Captain of the Lunar Guard Blood Moon. In hindsight, it’s pretty obvious that those three would never been able to take down Major Stronghoof, that’s stallion like a living embodiment of a sparkling wrecking ball. Captain Blood Moon obviously the one who took him down, being of one of the small percentage of individuals in the E.U.P who has the skills to do so and had been nearby the whole time in a nearby conjunction hallway. Captain Moon said “Sorry Corporal Specialist Eclipse, I have my orders” and the next thing I know my muzzle hit the ground with my flank sticking straight up in the air and then a swift buck to my armored back sent me flying into the wall driving the air out of my lungs as I tumbled to the floor, with another swift kick to my exposed stomach and then everything slowly went black.

I would regain consciousness moments later from the jolt of being thrown to the floor of the throne room, ribs hurting, gagged and bound next to several other Solar Guards and regular Night Guards, Major Stronghoof, Colonel Mustang, Master Sergeant Flash Magnus, and Captain Bright Nova being the more notable ones, as Her Majesty Princess Celestia sitting on one of the two thrones look down on us with a sad disappointment in her tired eyes, whether or not it was directed towards us or her sister Princess Luna who paced back and forth in front of us, I’m not entirely sure. Princess Luna stop and looked over us with contempt before pausing on me, our eyes met and her look soften a bit giving me a brief look of seem to be some sort of an apology, then turning around in declaring to her sister, Her Majesty Princess Celestia, how easy it was for her Lunar Guards to take down the rest of the guards and secure the palace completely under her control. Going on how she kept warning her sister about the continuous threats that she’s not taking seriously, always leaving it to Princess Twilight, how the Royal Guard is now a fraction of their strength and skill compared to what they were back before her banishment, how the Thousand Years Peace has made her complacent and to trusting of her fellow Ponies especially considering some the biggest threats of late have been the results of a disillusioned Pony with an ax to grind, like the Storm King ‘s attack on Canterlot lead by Tempest Shadow and How some of those threats been only solved by pure luck, like the most recent Changeling Invasion. And that was just her grievances, not including the ones belonging to their subjects who was in mass outside the gate in mass right now. Then Princess Luna used a scrying spell to summon a magic window showing said ponies pushing the gate chanting Princess Luna’s name, while handful of BatPonies guarded behind it. I would later learn that seeing all the Royal Guards rushed to the Palace and followed by the appearance of the Lunar Guards announcing they were the ones in charge currently, the protesters figured out that something going on with Princess Luna and believe she was taking their side against the Nobles. And why completely incidental, Princess Luna was more willing to take up their cause believing herself to be a ‘Princess of the Ponies’, agreeing something had to be done about the Nobles. Adding it into her list of the demands towards her sister.

Her Majesty just set there and let her sister rant at her, and maintained that sad look in her eyes until it shifted to a hint of anger when Princess Luna said that the Nobles were nothing but talentless foals, who only got into their position because of their family lineage. Princess Celestia stood up suddenly after that and replied back with a edge in her voice I’ve rarely hear from her, that the Nobles were more than adequate for their positions, how had she watched most of them grow up and that they were practically raised in the courts, that they more than deserved their positions and to which Princess Luna snapped angrily back with the only reason her sister cares about them is because the descendants of their friends from their days early on in the empire’s founding, that these snobby Nobles are nothing like them, that they’re not the same ponies and never will be. The look of hurt on Her Majesty’s face was something I’ve never witnessed before, it was like a sad weight of a thousand years collapsing on her at once… to her fairness, Princess Luna had quite the look of shame when she realized when she’s said and went to apologize, but Princess Celestia shut her down with a hard look stating that she was the one who build this Empire from the ground up and she has reasons for what she does and who she allows to govern. To which Princess Luna yelled angary, and whose fault was that. Her Majesty hard look double down as she continue on that Princess Twilight has proven time and time again she was always the right choice to handle things, that Princess Luna’s pointless little take over for leverage to incite change did nothing but disrupt the peace. That she would not budge on changing things for now, that change would come but only when it was at the appropriate time and that’s the end of this discussion.

The two Princesses stared each other down in anger before Princess Luna back down stating that there was plenty of time of her sister to reconsider, that she was the one in control for once. Turning back to us Non-Bat Guards and declaring that we would be allowed to return to our duties upon swearing to her and follow only her orders. Which to my dismay after being ungagged quite a number of them agreed and swore allegiance to The Princess of the Night. I guess I understand how they could considering the Princess had a lot of good points, but to really turn that easily on Her Majesty leave the bad taste in my mouth even now. The rest of us were gathered up and confined to the barracks, thankfully Princess Luna was merciful enough to not throw us all in the dungeons at least, the exception of one pink earth pony in a Navel Guard outfit I didn’t recognize, who kept on yelling that they were all traitors that deserves execution and was gagged again and escorted off to a cell.

But to think was that really the reason Her Majesty really kept those annoying Nobles around because they reminded her of long dead friends… No! Like she said she has her reasons! She’s been doing this for over a thousand years I have to keep my trust in her, she’ll surely figure out how to end all of this peacefully!

(To be continued)