It was amusing to see Rosejoy galloping down the road towards her, then skid to a stop a good hundred paces away, stare at her, stare behind her at Dazzle, following a few paces behind over the bridge. Traffic was already flowing, albeit slowly, over the hoof-bridges across the Rosewine.

The mare, and her entire entourage of thugs, ducked down a side-street, presumably to retake the tailing once they’d passed. Not that it mattered.

“I see the goon squad got emergency orders,” Dazzle murmured.

Rosewater laughed. “They apparently didn’t get the memo that I’d decided to stay the night at the Garden.” She glanced down the street they’d ducked into as she passed it and found them just waiting there like particularly inept spies not thinking their cunning plan through.

Rather than look sheepish, Rosejoy puffed out her chest and advanced out of the shadows to stand in Rosewater’s path. “What were you doing?”

“Exercising my right to spend the night wherever I want.” Rosewater stepped around Rosejoy, not intending to engage the mare at all more than she had to. “Good day, Rosejoy.”

The mare huffed and followed her just as Dazzle came up on Rosewater’s right, looking mildly concerned.

“I am a representative of Roseate Rosethorn, Baroness of Merrie, and I demand—”

Rosewater stopped and stared at the mare. The words that would have come after died on Rosejoy’s tongue as her mouth clicked shut. “It’s good to get some exercise, so please go run to my mother and tell her that I’ll be following the schedule set forth by my agreement with Prim Palace regarding my negotiations for the return of my charge. If you need her name, it’s Rosemary Rosethorn, daughter of—”

“I rutting know who she is!” Rosejoy shouted. The stink of stale wine on her breath made Rosewater wish she’d been less close. She’d clearly just woken up and run after her. “I demand—”

“Nothing, because I am on my way to discharge treaty-authorized business. If you interfere with me, I will report you to Firelight Spark and let him deal with your idiocy.” Rosewater spun on her hind legs and continued on, her steps firmer and her jaw aching.

“Don’t let her get to you,” Dazzle murmured beside her, leaning into her. Not seeming to care that Rosejoy would report the closeness to Roseate. “Let’s get you to the Primrose and the treaty office, okay?”

Rosejoy did not, for a wonder, follow them. It was a longer walk to the Primrose Bridge than she normally had to take, but it was calm, and several Merriers seemed startled to see her, or at least see her with another pony. A few that she vaguely recalled as having met before, though names remained elusive, actually told her good morning, but didn’t stop to chat.

“Everypony in the city must know my schedule by now,” Rosewater murmured after the fourth such occurrence.

“Sometimes, I can walk across the rumors flying in the market about what you’re actually negotiating for.” Dazzle chuckled and nodded to another stallion trotting past with a cart full of sacks of grain, heading for the granaries in the hills. “Ponies are seeing you cross the river, treaty flag or no, and have hope that this insanity will end soon.”

“That must be riling up mother something awful,” Rosewater grumbled.

“Take heart. They’re rooting for you.”

Rosewater nodded, feeling uneasy about so many ponies speaking their feelings, maybe not against Roseate, but against her apparent plans. That was as good as rebellion to her mother. Or, at least she thought so.

“I hear you’re working the glass forges lately,” Rosewater said, changing the subject with all the subtlety of throwing a boulder.

He glanced at her, flicked his ears in acknowledgement of her discomfort, and nodded. “I am. Rose Temper ‘recruited’ me after she heard I’m used to working with hot things with my magic. Too few know how to craft a telekinesis spell to handle near-molten things, and either squeeze too hard, and send sparks and globs everywhere, or too loosely, and it turns into a puddle in their spell.”

“I’d never thought of it that way,” Rosewater said. “I usually just shape the spell to grab whatever object I need. It’s second nature and I don’t even need to think about it.”

“That’s the problem,” Dazzle said, grinning. “You don’t need to think about so simple a spell.”

They walked on, chatting back and forth about the benefits of this or that approach to telekinesis spells, amiably whiling away the paces to the Primrose. It was relaxing, peaceful, and the birds chirping in the trees along the riverwalk seemed to be singing in the wrong season. Squirrels and chipmunks chattered at them and each other, and cats chased both, all of them getting ready for the coming winter.

Things she hadn’t noticed as much before except peripherally.

She took it as a sign that her mental state was improving, that she could pay attention to the outside world, and not just the ponies in it, more then as an automatic process.

Before long, they were at the bridge, and rather than stopping there, Dazzle followed her across, giving a nod to the Merrieguard, then grinning and trotting ahead to greet the Dammeguard on the other side, a familiar face.

“Hey, Private Platinum,” he called out.

The mare startled and stared at him, then broke into a grin. “That’s Sergeant Platinum to you, Lieutenant.”

“Bah. I gave that up a year ago. Glad to see you making your way up.” Dazzle glanced behind him to Rosewater and waved her forward. “Have you met Rosewater?”

Some of the joy of reunion faded as Rosewater came up and stopped. “I have.” She glanced from Dazzle to Rosewater. “Are you two together?”

Dazzle glanced back at her, rolled a shoulder, and tipped his head to the side. “It’s complicated.”

“Most Merrier relationships seem to be,” Platinum grumbled. “So you are, but you aren’t?”

“We’re good friends,” Rosewater said calmly, nuzzling Dazzle’s cheek. “Thank you for the escort. I’m going to slip into the office and wait for Cloudy.”

“She’s already in the office,” Platinum said, sounding mildly surprised. “She came by earlier with some business. I didn’t know the two of you were meeting.”

“We arranged it the last time we met,” Rosewater said nonchalantly. “She wanted to talk to me, pony to pony, without the trappings of business mangling the conversation.”

Platinum eyed her, raising a brow, then waved her past. “Go on, my lady. This scoundrel and I have some catching up to do.”

“Scoundrel?” Dazzle laughed and nodded Rosewater on. “Is that what they’re calling me in the barracks these days?”

Rosewater ducked into the office, leaving the former and current Dammeguard to catch up. Inside, she found Cloudy leaned against the counter, chatting with the clerk, a younger stallion with a neatly trimmed goatee while he prepared some paperwork for her.

She turned around when Rosewater cleared her throat, smiled and tipped her head to the side. “Hey there. Getting you a waiver so you don’t need anything you bring in examined and searched. It’s a sign of trust from us to you. Signed to the treaty.”

“Has Collar signed off on it?” Rosewater asked softly, hardly daring to believe. “What about the ramifications? What—”

“Shh.” Cloudy stepped away from the counter and bumped against her, nipping her cheek in a way that drew the clerk’s eyebrows up almost to the line of his forelock. “Lace herself signed off on it. I was the delivery mare.”

“I was filling out Her Highness’s standard authorization,” the clerk said with a nod. “I just need your signature at the bottom, and we’ll provide you with a folio to carry the writ with you.”

“And if somepony steals it?”

“It’s sealed to your signature, my lady. Anypony else that shows it won’t have the seal of authenticity shown. It will be recognized as stolen or an attempted forgery.” He raised the document, a thick sheet of paper with the golden border and sun seal at the top gleaming with hidden magic. In the center was a simple writ.

By the power vested in me as the Baroness of Damme, and recognizing the good faith negotiation and efforts of one Rosewater Star Rosethorn, I hereby grant her immunity from normal bridge duty checks.

This writ does not cover articles of trade, merely personal possessions. Nor does this writ cover passage before dawn or after dusk. It is only effective between dawn and dusk.

Signed,

Baroness Primline Lace

It was both more and less restrictive than she would have thought, but was grateful for the kindness all the same. “I don’t have any letters today. They’re at my home, and I came straight from the Garden.”

“Understandable, and I’m glad. With this, you could rent a cart to bring the letters if you wished.”

“They’re largely dying down, now,” Rosewater said, shaking her head. “A few close friends still write to her on the regular and don’t trust Roseate to not intercept them.”

“A wise precaution, I’m sure.”

Rosewater signed with a steady spell and set the edge of her hoof to the paper below the line, feeling the warmth of Celestia’s solar magic flow through her briefly. The clerk signed on a third line and set his hoof in the same place.

“That’s it, my lady,” he said, slipping the thick sheet into a thin wooden case that folded into a narrow wooden slat with two sets of hinges.

Opening the case would expose the document, and the hinges were thick enough that they wouldn’t overly crease the page. It was less useful than a scroll case, she mused, but still ingenious for flat paper storage. She folded and unfolded it a couple of times before slipping it into her day bag. “Thank you.”

Outside, Dazzle raised a brow at her and glanced at Cloudy, his conversation with Platinum stopping momentarily. “You take care of her, Cloudy. She’s special.”

“I know. Don’t worry, Dazzle, I’ll take extra special care of her.” Cloudy winked at the stallion, and Platinum gave the other mare a sharp, inquisitive look. “Rosemary’s waiting for you, and Collar is looking forward to resuming talks.”

That sent Platinum’s eyebrows rising almost to her forelock.

Rosewater’s cheek tried to pull into a nervous tick, but she gave the guard a small smile and a bob of her head before turning quickly away and down the familiar path to the palace.

“Sorry,” Cloudy whispered from her side, her ears flat. “Platinum’s good ponies. She’ll understand. She’s usually one of Rosemary’s guards, but she’s on a rotation of guards at the Primrose now on the days you’re to arrive. Familiar faces, kind faces. Collar and Lace asked Captain Pink to make the changes.”

“Thank you. I’ll have to thank them.” Rosewater took a deep breath. As she let it out, she glanced around her at the ponies watching them make their way through Damme. With Cloudy at her side, she felt comfortable enough to actually look around more. The ponies that weren’t vigorously engaged in bartering for the day’s goods or chatting with neighbors watched them, and even the busy ones spared a look or two. “Thank you, again, for walking with me. I feel…”

She reached for the right words. Calm wasn’t exactly it, though there was an element of peace in her mind that hadn’t been there before, replacing the tension that was just waiting for the first tomato, the first stone, the next rainstorm. She was also free to watch the ponies around her without waiting, letting her see the colt and filly who watched her pass, curious about the tall white mare.

“Daddy, mama,” the filly called out, clear as a bell. “Is that Pincess Cestia?”

Rosewater chuckled and called back, “I am no princess, little filly, but I do appreciate the compliment.”

The filly beamed back at her and wrapped her forelegs around her stunned father’s forelegs. “Daddy, Pincess Cestia talked to me!”

Cloudy chuckled and bumped against her. “It would be interesting to see the two of you in the same room, I admit. I’ve heard she’s got facial features that don’t appear anymore in ponies, she’s so old.”

“By the stars, don’t let her hear you say that. She may be immortal, but I doubt she likes ponies pointing out her age.” Rosewater laughed and nudged back. “I feel happier,” she said, finishing the thought. “With a friend at my side.”

“I’m glad to be here,” Cloudy said, loudly enough that in their wake, a few not-so-hushed whispers started up.

‘Did she really say that?’

‘Friends?’

‘Stars above, really?’

‘What did you expect? She’s a Merrier.’

‘Yeah, but Lord Collar loves her.’

Then they passed beyond the too-loud whisperers and their disbelief over Cloudy calling her a friend, and some of the strain in her ears passed as they faded into the general background murmur.

Cloudy grinned at her and pranced ahead a few steps, hear ears flicking. She’d heard it, too. “So… tell me what you’ve been up to. Any special orders come in lately? Any customer stories? I really liked the one about that mare that couldn’t decide which fragrance of peach she wanted.”

Rosewater chuckled. “Alright, let me see what I have in my trove of tourists looking for the latest Rosewater scent. And not understanding that I don’t use rosewater in everything.”

Cloudy barked a laugh.

Collar stopped his pacing on the steps of the palace as soon as he heard Coat murmur, “They’re here.”

Cloudy and Rosewater were indeed there, both laughing while Rosewater obviously tried to contain herself telling a story of some sort, pausing to tap her hoof to make a point, and then prancing to catch up as Cloudy half-turned to watch her.

He didn’t think he’d ever seen her smile so brightly, or laugh so heartily since he’d met her, and her smile when she turned and saw him on the steps only brightened further as the two mares continued their half-trotting pace up to join him.

“I think,” he said when both stopped, “the plan was to show you were friends, not best friends.”

Cloudy snorted and shook her head. “It was a story about a customer of hers.”

“She wanted a rosewater tincture to drop in her bathwater that would make her smell like actual roses. And when I tried to explain to her that rosewater only had a passing semblance to the fragrance of a rose, and I would need to send her candied rose petals to dissolve in the bath with enough pollen of rose mixed into the batch to give the smell.”

Cloudy gasped and slapped a hoof on the ground. “This is the best part.”

“‘I don’t want to make soup! I want to smell like a rose!’ and I said, ‘Ma’am, any rose soup with you as an ingredient should be tossed out with the toilet water.’ I was quite fed up with arguing with her over the matter, thinking she knew how to make scents work better than I.” Rosewater sniffed and smiled.

“You left out the best part!”

“Okay,” Collar said, a smile tugging at his lips. “What is the best part?”

“She came back later and asked if I could make a rose soup so her breath would smell like roses. I kicked her out of the shop and told her to go to the marketplace and ask for a chef.”

“Rosewater,” Cloudy whined. “That’s not how you said it.”

“Okay, okay, fine.” Rosewater giggled. “I told her I could make her breath smell like roses, but she wouldn’t like it.”

Collar chuckled. “Okay, what did you do?”

“I gave her a bottle of rose perfume and told her to drink it.” She paused for a beat, grinning, and Cloudy started gasp-laughing and leaning against him. “And she did. Right there in the shop. She gagged on it, ran out of the shop, and everypony in a hundred meters of her started gagging. I couldn’t stop laughing for half a day at the look on her face of absolute horror when she just upended the flask in her mouth. I even told her it would taste terrible, and warned her what it would do to her digestive system.”

Cloudy gasped, “Rose farts!”

Collar barked a sharp laugh and shook his head. “Dear stars, some ponies.” Collar gave Rosewater a more appreciative look, and stopped. Her cheeks were glowing pink, either from embarrassment or joy, and her eyes sparkled with laugh tears. He hadn’t ever seen her looking so beautiful in the light of day. Not ethereal and otherworldly as she often was at night, but real and solidly beautiful in the full mid-morning sun.

“I-I’m glad your walk was so entertaining,” he said, clearing his throat and giving Cloudy a light kiss on the lips. “Rosemary’s waiting, love. Tell her Rosewater’s arrived.”

When she’d gone and he turned back to Rosewater, much of the glow had faded, but the faint smile remained as she advanced up the steps one at a time. “I’m glad she came to escort me, Collar. Thank you for sending her.”

“Of course.” Collar turned and invited her in, falling into step beside her. “I never thought working as a shop owner could be so amusing.”

“It wasn’t at the time, merely frustrating to deal with her demands and insistence that she was right, and she was the customer, so she had to be treated with pampered hooves.” Rosewater rolled her eyes, ears flat back. “Thankfully a rarity. Most tourists are courteous and listen to the advice they themselves sought out from an expert. But every now and then… usually Canterlot nobility or other minor hedge nobles.”

“And then you gave her what she wanted.”

“Stars, yes.” Rosewater chuckled. “Most perfumes are best used with a single droplet used for an entire day. A little misted drop goes a very long way. But the number of ponies that come back year-after-year to refill bottles that should have lasted two…”

“I wouldn’t think you’d sell bottles so large.”

“The tourist bottles. Since they can only come infrequently. I sell much smaller bottles overseas to resell in local boutiques and parlors.” Rosewater glanced aside at him, flicked an ear. “And how are you today?”

“Fine. Harvest is about three quarters done, and most of what’s left is out past Dammehollow where the valley spreads out into wider and wider fields. The lack of bandits this year has really helped us to bring in a bumper crop.” He glanced at her. “But that’s boring compared to the world of sales.”

“Not at all. I wish I could dig into what Carnation and Budding raised and taught me to do. I wish I could delegate and watch the city bustle and prosper, and walk among the ponies as they bring in golden grain and sweet oats.” She sighed. “But that will have to wait, it seems, and all I can do is follow the publicly available grain harvest status. That, and practice at it by running a small shop.”

“Hardly small. I saw our spymaster’s valuation of the business you do. Your overseas exports alone net enough to buy a few small farms.” He chuckled and flicked an ear at her. “As I understand you’ve done.”

Rosewater turned down the hallway to Lace’s office before he could gesture her there. “I have. I’m diversifying a little with the Garden’s help. We’re going to turn it into a retreat from the city and offer parlor services there. Mane-does and hooficures. Steam baths in the future if we can manage to buy the neighboring farm.”

“That does sound luxurious, if a bit out of the way.”

“It’s an investment for the future, in part. Merrie is so disorganized, street-wise, and that’s largely because of the hills, that we’re starting to overcrowd what housing we have. We’ll start to need to grant building permits outside the walls, towards the flatter fields and farmland.” She shrugged and set hoof to Lace’s office door, knocking twice. “It will push the farmers either across the river or farther towards Merriehollow and beyond, but where go the farmers, the Merrieguard follows.”

“Come in, Collar.”

Rosewater grinned at Collar, winked, and opened the door, sliding in before he could say anything. “Lady Lace,” she said demurely.

“Oh my goodness.” Lace laughed and pressed a hoof to her chest. “You’re looking very well today, Rosewater.” She glanced past her to Collar, bobbed her head once. “Thank you, Collar.”

Before he could leave, Rosewater shook her head. “I would like, actually, to take a look at the journal first, and share it with Rosemary.” She glanced at Collar and flattened her ears.

He took his cue and silenced the room, then stepped fully inside, shutting the door behind him.

“It’s my father’s journal, Collar. Your mother has kept it safe after Carnation gave it to her as, I presume, a means of keeping it safe should she herself be caught before she could give it to me herself.”

“That is the short of it,” Lace said softly, glancing at Collar. “Carnation was one of our agents, Collar. She is the reason why our Dammeguard were so prepared for many of Roseate’s earlier probing attacks and why she eventually withdrew to doing single-target night raids for so many years. Her work, and her sacrifice, is something that I can never truly repay. She has now lost six years of being in her daughters’ lives, and did not see her youngest grow up into the fine mare she is today. Who knows if she will ever see Rosemary married.”

“She will,” Rosewater all but growled.

“We hope she will,” Lace temporized, bowing her head briefly, then pulling out a box from the center of the desk. When she opened it, Rosewater gasped. “I asked the Treaty office to look for any paintings of your father from when he was stationed here as a factor. They had two. I asked for both, and commissioned this box from a master carpenter and painter to shrink the paintings down to fit in the cover. It is, Rosewater, the least I can do to thank your mother, your real mother, for what she did for us.”

The stallion in both pictures, one a bust, and the other in full dress uniform of the Royal Guard, in full, vivid color, showed a stallion with a snowy white coat, strikingly golden eyes, and a regal face that spoke of the kind of nobility that had earned the title. His cutie mark separated both pictures, picked out in felt and embroidered with golden thread, and the plush interior was a pink so deep it was almost red, rather like Rosewater’s eyes, while the lid was a rich blue.

Not unlike the Prim blue that decorated half a dozen flags and paintings in Lace’s large office.

She’s… giving her blessing. Collar realized it at the same moment that Rosewater gasped.

“That’s him. Stars above, that’s him. That’s my father. How…” She looked into Lace’s eyes. “How did you convince them? I asked so many times, and they said all of his official possessions had been sent to Canterlot at his family’s request.”

“I don’t know how they got a hold of them, but they did. Perhaps Celestia herself intervened. We may never know, Rosewater. What the Princess does is often hidden behind veils even we cannot pierce.”

He saw her tremble as she sat in front of the desk and accepted the box, staring into the eyes of the bust on the left, then the full figure on the right. Solemnly, she closed the box and set it on the desk. “Lace,” she said, her voice thick but controlled. “I can’t thank you enough for letting me see the stallion I loved more than anything. This.” She set a hoof lightly to the front edge of the box. “This is beyond valuable to me.”

“It is yours. Whenever you deem it safe to take it home with you.”

“I came, and I wanted to share what I found with my daughter, to introduce her to her grandfather.” She swallowed, clearly uncertain, then sat straighter. “It would be an honor to share—”

“Let his daughter and granddaughter hear it first,” Lace said gently, breaking in over Rosewater. With a spell, she raised Rosewater’s chin gently to look her in the eye. “Take the rest of the morning with your daughter, and share his words with family first.” She nodded to Collar. “When you’ve delivered her. Come back here. We have history to discuss.”

“Yes, mother.” Collar glanced at Rosewater, tears glistening in her eyes, but unshed, and nuzzled her cheek lightly. “Come on. And thank you for trusting me.”

“And that’s how you get rose farts,” Rosemary said, laughing. “Stars, I remember that story. Rosewater was giggling all day, and Carnation had trouble focusing on making dinner after she told it.”

“It was that long ago?” Cloudy’s ears perked up. “Stars above, I thought that was recent.”

“She’s owned her perfumery for almost a decade. That was one of the earlier ones, before she started to kind of… grow numb to the idiocy of outsiders.” Rosemary chuckled. “Still. It was amusing to hear from my friends who told stories about this mare with horrible indigestion and farting roses all over town, looking for a cure.”

“Stars, I think I do remember that.” Cloudy cocked her head, shook it, and shrugged. “Vaguely. Maybe just gossip.”

“Maybe.” Rosemary glanced at the door, restless. “She was happy today?”

“Beyond. Stars, the way Collar stared at her while she was still all aglow… you’d think he’d never seen her before. I’m telling you, he’s changing his views of her in ways he’s not accepted yet.” Cloudy raised her nose at the same time the scent came to her. Collar’s scent, and Rosewater’s less obvious one mingled with it. “Come in, Collar.”

She heard a grunt from the other side, and a laugh from Rosewater before the door opened.

“I swear, I am going to, one day, trick your nose.”

“You can try,” Rosemary teased, slipping from the bed and prancing towards Rosewater, then stopping when she saw what she set on the bedside table. It was a box, ornately carved, with a simple latch on the front.

Almost immediately, Rosewater silenced the room and nodded to her. “Cloudy, I’m sorry, but can I ask you to go with Collar for now?”

“It’s for a good cause,” Collar said softly, sitting next to her and nuzzling her ears. “Lace can explain some of it.”

Cloudy nodded solemnly. “Family is always important.” She glanced at Collar and nodded to the door. “Let’s leave them be.”

After they left, Rosewater slid onto the bed, her ears flat. “I… don’t know what’s in here,” she said softly, drawing the box to her as Rosemary joined her. “Your grandfather, my father, was a remarkable pony, Rosemary. I know I haven’t been as forthcoming about him as I should have. But I need to make up that lapse.”

Grandfather. Rosemary felt a shiver down her spine. Blue Star was the name Rosewater would never talk about, and the word ‘daddy’ was there in the darkest of her nightmares, when she cried out in the middle of the night when the fears had taken her the worst after Carnation had been taken.

“To explain some, your mother… my mother,” Rosewater cleared her throat when she glanced at Rosemary. “She was my mother, too, I realize now, even as both of us were your mothers.”

Rosemary nodded, ears flat. “I’m glad you’re realizing that now.”

“She was an agent. Lace’s agent. She spied on her sister and gave what she could to Lace, to keep Roseate’s vicious brand of fighting from taking the Dammeguard too much by surprise.”

The tingle along her spine turned numb, and cold crept into her limbs as the world seemed to spin. “Sh-she what?”

Rosewater didn’t repeat the statement, instead resting against her lightly.

She was a spy? She’d kept it so well from her, and apparently from Rosewater. And Rosewater helped. She had been a mother to keep Rosemary safe so she could do the difficult task of checking Roseate’s growing power and viciousness. It made too much sense. Why her mother hadn’t fought the exile, why the Treaty Office hadn’t raised any objections, why Roseate had been able to just take her mother away.

“Why?”

“To keep Roseate from winning.”

Rosemary nodded. The loss of her mother to exile was so old by then that the wound was well calloused, and only the occasional tear against it brought back the old pain. Rosewater had been her wall to lean against, her pillow to cry in, her confidant, her mother ever since. She had helped her grow that callous, though it had tormented her. She closed her eyes and prodded at the ache, thinking about Carnation again, at what had taken her away.

It still hurt, but… knowing Carnation had done everything she could to fight against Roseate, just as Rosewater and Rosemary had tried to do in the limited ways they could…

“And this…” Rosewater said, opening the box to a pair of pictures with the same stallion in two styles. “This is your grandfather from my side of the family. Solar Knight Captain Blue Star, former factor assigned to Damme.”

He was a strongly featured stallion, and much of the features he had held sway on Rosewater’s own. Her height and the noble arch of her muzzle, the thickness of shoulder was missing, but his eyes, she could see a part of in Rosewater’s.

“And the book?” Rosemary asked, surprised at her own calm tone of voice. “And… mother? Can I ask Lace about her later?”

“I will ask that you can, but I cannot see her denying you that comfort. It was a side of her neither of us knew.” Rosewater nuzzled her ears, resting her chin behind her horn as Rosemary leaned in closer, then gave up the struggle and laid against her, legs curled up close. It was like being a foal again, safe and comfortable against her mother’s flank.

“I miss her.”

“I do, too. Sometimes I wish I could ask her for advice.” After a moment, Rosewater pulled out the journal and set the box back on the bedside table. “I think you can ask Lace for advice. And Dapper. Both of them care for you, Rosemary.”

“I know.” Rosemary shifted about again, draping her neck over Rosewater’s back like she used to do, and peeking around the larger mare’s neck, the sight of the journal obscured by a curtain of pink mane. “Read to me, please, mother.”

“Of course.”

Rosemary saw there was a foreword, just a few sentences that Rosewater hesitated over, then turned the page to the first page of full text.

“I apologize. The first page was from him to me. I’m not sure I can read it aloud without breaking down.”

“It’s fine.”

Rosewater cleared her throat.

“I want you to know, Rosewater, why I married your mother. Why I had a foal, you, with her. It wasn’t because I thought I could change her ways, because in those early days, she was a better actress than I thought anypony could be. I come from Canterlotian stock, and we’re a bluff herd. We don’t act, prevaricate, or stand aside. For the most part, what we say is what we mean, and who we are is always on our sleeve. It’s because that’s how Princess Celestia has shown us how to be.

“She could have been a tyrant. She could have been deceptive. Every day, however, she tells us exactly what she wants to do, and then she sets about doing it. If it takes her a hundred years, she’ll do what needs to be done. Patience is something that every Canterlotian is well familiar with, and I urge you patience as you read this, as there is much I want and need to say, and I fear I don’t have much time to say it. Every night after you fall asleep, I will spend time writing in this journal, not thinking about what to write.

“I fear that if I sat down to think, I would not, in the end, get a tenth of what you need to hear into writing.”

Rosewater shifted the book slightly, bringing the opposite page into view and shifted her mane out of the way. “Comfortable?”

“Very much.”

“Tonight is the first night since I found out that the dragon’s smoke will be my doom. Six years ago, southern Equestria was in danger from a dragon that was burning crops and stealing away our four-hooved brothers and sisters, the bovid kin, for food. I, along with a strong contingent of troops, led by Celestia herself in her full battle raiment, went south to stop the predation.

“The details of the battle are not important. Our task was not to fight the dragon, but to protect Celestia while she focused on offense. We diverted fire blasts, we stopped claw strikes, and we kept the smoke away from her. All the while, she slowly brought the dragon to submission through strikes and spells that would have sundered small mountains.

“In the end, we succeeded. But during the course of the battle, I and some of the guard accompanying her highness were caught up in a burst of smoke from an aborted fire blast. We kept it away from her highness, but for a long, agonizing minute, all of us breathed in the hot, cinder-filled smoke.

“That is what caused my weakness.

Rosewater turned the page, and if Rosemary hadn’t been laying against her, she wouldn’t have felt the tremor passing through her mother’s body.

“Mom?”

“It’s alright. Memories.” Rosewater’s voice was hoarse, but she cleared it with a cough, and continued. “I retired to Merrie and Damme, intending at first to settle down and live to the last of my days in the city I had represented for half a decade of my life. I wanted to be where the beauty of the northern lights came down without needing a telescope, where no dragon would dare come, for the cold of the north is anathema to those creatures of fire and molten rock.

“But it was her sister that called to me more when I landed in port. A festival day was in full swing, and I found myself swept up in the fervor as I stepped across the Rosewine and into a world I’d barely glimpsed from the other side of the river. Light and color and scents all so savory they caught my heart immediately. I had never fallen in love so quickly nor so completely as I did with Merrie that day.

“I accepted the masque they gave me, and explained to me what to expect. It wasn’t, quite, an orgy. It was the Masque of Spring festival, and drinking and wine were expected and drunk in vast quantities. I met your mother there, and while I didn’t fall in love with her as quickly as I did with the city, she intrigued me with her mysterious air and aloof coyness.

“She was charming, playful, and took the time to explain the custom of the masques. It was a night to celebrate fertility, to drink in the atmosphere and be merry. Other mares, and even some stallions passed through our circle, but she seemed to know who I was, and whispered of some of my deeds.”

Rosewater shifted the book again, her breathing more rapid, almost panicked.

“Mom, it’s okay. I know this is hard to hear.”

“I need to know,” her mother insisted, her voice quavering. “I need to know what she did to him.”

“Then let me read to you. Listen to my voice instead,” Rosemary crooned soothingly in her mother’s ear even as she tugged lightly at the journal. It came away surprisingly easily, and Rosewater nodded numbly. Her breathing started to even out. She cleared her throat and began where Rosewater had left off.

“I was intrigued and excited by the difference between the two cities, and with a few glasses of the best wine I’ve ever had clouding my better judgement, I listened to her when she asked me to take her to bed.

“Eleven months later… you were born. You were beautiful, hale and healthy, and clearly took after me, though your eyes were half your mother’s. By then, I’d gotten to know Roseate better, learned her name, but my duty would not let me leave her. I had willingly mated with your mother, knowing what the consequences could be.

“I never thought that you, my darling child, could be a consequence, and it made all the doubting, all the worrying, all of the fighting your mother and I went through over the long year before you came to me… it was all worth it to hear your voice cry out, ‘Here I am. Love me.’

“And I did. I fell in love with you faster than I did with Merrie. I promised myself then that you would grow up loved and beloved, that you would never want for any support. I had also come to know Roseate’s sister, Carnation, and together, we worked to keep you apart from your mother as much as we could.”

Rosemary turned the page, coming breathless herself at the rapidity of what must have been a hectic few months and years after the birth.

“She promised me she would look after you even after I was gone. Even then, I knew the dragon’s smoke was slowly killing me. But I had to do this. For you, for your future. And Carnation helped me. I loved her more than I ever did your mother, and I would have married her if”

The text trailed off into a scrawl and began again on the next line.

“I don’t regret what happened. I don’t regret anything, and I would do it all again if it meant I got to hold you again even for a few precious moments.”

“They planned it all along,” Rosewater murmured, her voice soft, wondering. “My father and your mother… they planned keeping me safe from her.”

“And he won,” Rosemary whispered in her ear, taking one of her bookmarks from another book and slipping it into the journal before placing it back in the box. “They won. You’re here, now, safe from her, and you grew up believing in the rightness of your morals.”

Rosewater drew in a deep breath, her body steadying against Rosemary’s, the tremors fading as she held, then released it in a long exhalation. “They did. Now, I have to finish what they started. That is my duty.”

“More, you need to love yourself, and find love for yourself. They didn’t raise you to be an engine of vengeance, Rosewater, but a mare who deserves love for its own sake and for her own self.” She kissed her mother’s neck lightly and pressed her forehead against the back of her neck. “You need to be yourself. If that means loving Collar, then love him. If that means loving Cloudy, love her. Find your own love, Rosewater, not what you think you need to win.”

“I do love both of them.” Rosewater took a shorter breath. “And I grow more certain of that every day. Every time I’m with either of them, I grow more certain that they’re the ponies I want in my life forever.”

“As do I,” Rosemary murmured. “And… I think Collar may come around. Politics alone, I think, are making things complicated for him.”

Rosewater made a noise that could have been agreement or resignation and rolled over to lay on her side, leaving Rosemary to rest her cheek on her mother’s shoulder.

“It’s almost lunchtime.”

“I know.” Rosewater heaved a sigh, but didn’t move. “Let them come get us. I need this moment with you.”

“Of course, mom.” It was simple, then, to close her eyes and curl up in the space between Rosewater’s fore and hind legs, and pretend she was a filly again.

An hour later, when Collar creaked open the door, he found mother and daughter curled up together, Rosewater assuming the protective role with her head covering Rosemary’s neck.

It was clear to him then, as it hadn’t been before, that they were truly mother and daughter.

Collar closed the door again and shook his head at his mother’s questioning look. “Another half hour,” he whispered.

Lace nodded quietly and padded back down the corridor.

He stopped at the top of the stairs, glancing back.

She would make a great mother.

The thought stuck with him all the way back to Lace’s office, and kept coming back even as the day advanced, and the usual ‘public’ talks began and ended with Rosewater not betraying how vulnerable, how strong, and how motherly she’d looked in that stolen glimpse of her at her most relaxed.

It made him long to see more of her, to find all the ways in which she could be.

That might take a lifetime, a small voice in the back of his mind said.

Author's Note

Another important moment of Rosewater's past unveiled. I know the timing is a little vague, but that's intentionally done. This isn't a historical memoir. It's an emotional confession to his daughter. Things he thinks she needs to hear.

The actual timeline is more:

1. Fight with the dragon
2. 2-3 years later: retirement when it becomes clear the lung damage is hindering his ability to do his duties.
3. 11 months later: Rosewater born
4. Carnation and Blue Star undertake raising Rosewater free of Roseate's influence.
5. 2-3 years later, Blue Star finds out that he only has, at best, a few years left and starts writing this journal. He writes in it nightly for the two years he had the strength to push himself while his daughter slept nearby.
6. Carnation makes an impassioned plea to raise Rosewater as her own to a magistrate court. Roseate, already tired of being a mother to a rebellious young Rosewater, doesn't contest it, and focuses instead on her next four daughters.
7. The rest is history.

Another two chapter week. Next chapter is Collar and Rosewater's next date. See you on Friday!