Firelight barely had the chance to close the door to his office before the gem on the wall started to flash urgently. It was past midnight by the moon’s position, and he was near dead on his feet from standing and walking and talking for nearly six hours at a stretch and then officiating a surprise-not-so-surprising wedding for the future rulers of Merriedamme.

But, of course, he needed to record the wedding in the Seal while the memory of it was still fresh and the ink on the vows not yet even fully dry. Tomorrow would be too late for something like this, and he daren’t trust it to any of the regular clerks.

He activated the spell and was unsurprised to find Celestia pacing in and out of a field of golden light at the center of the alcove the magical runes were kept hidden from regular sight. She made two circuits through before she seemed to realize he’d answered.

He knew better. More was nagging at the Princess, and he thought he knew why. The news he got from Canterlot was sparse at times, but he got enough from the long-haul pegasi to know that something was brewing to the east. Not that there wasn’t always something brewing as it became clear to the other nations of the world that the rebuilt Equestrian Nation wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

Most of them didn’t seem to care one way or the other, though.

“Firelight,” Princess Celestia said by way of terse greeting. “How went tonight?”

“Better than the last two hundred galas combined, your highness,” Firelight said. “At least in terms of real progress. Whether or not that progress will stick…”

“There have always been steps forwards and backwards, Firelight,” Princess Celestia said in a soft voice. “It’s sometimes hard to see that when reading the history, or even when I try to recall what happened in a given year. We are blessed to not remember everything with perfect clarity.”

“The royal We, your highness?” Firelight said with a tired-sounding chuckle, even to himself.

“Nay. Though that is part of it. It is late Captain. Please tell me the news, and I will let you get to bed.” Celestia sat, then slumped to lay in the circle of light, her eyes looking tired and harried even through the monochromatic golden color of the sending.

“Of course, your highness.” Firelight couldn’t help but take a little pleasure at revealing the fullness of the night. Of necessity for secrecy his regular reports by long-haul and ship were bare of details. “Tonight, I witnessed and Sealed to the Sun the marriage of Lord Primline Collar Primrose and Lady Rosewater Rosethorn Primrose. The first of their family name, and began the laborious process of holding a secret ledger for ensuring the lineage of their firstborn is accurate and true.”

For a moment, his words didn’t seem to register with the Princess as her head cocked to the side, eyes widening slightly, then narrowing as she leaned forward, as if the sending on her end could show him or his office in any more detail than he knew it did. To her eyes, it would be little larger than an outsized diorama that she could, if she wished, magnify at the cost of clarity.

“I have the document with their signatures, their vows, and the attestations of the four Mares in Waiting Rosewater has chosen for her initial retinue.” He set the scroll gingerly on the desk, then the signed pages of each of the witnesses beside it.

“Married.”

“Yes, your highness.”

“Stars, have they even announced their courtship? I know they were getting closer from your reports, but—” Celestia’s eyes widened and she leapt to her hooves. “Were you deliberately downplaying how close they were getting?”

“Not deliberately, your highness,” Firelight said calmly. “But the regular channels of communication are not as secure as I would wish to share such information. They’ve taken care to keep their courtship a secret so far, and I would hate for our office to be the source of any kind of leak that would expose it.”

“And yet,” Princess Celestia said with perfect aplomb, narrowing her eyes as she stared at him. “And yet we have this wondrous means of communication I spent no small amount of coin setting up in your successors’ office for this express purpose.” She huffed and ruffled her wings, then shook her head. “But I suppose I cannot blame you for an overabundance of caution. They are well suited to each other?”

“They appear to be, yes, your highness.”

“And her mother?”

“An absolute ass the entire night once it became clear that they were going to announce something big,” Firelight said with a snort. “She even stormed out when Rosewater asked for her blessing on the union. A clever ploy to reveal to me in no uncertain terms that I not only could, but needed to register the marriage as Sealed to the Sun until such time it could be registered properly.”

“Clever indeed. You’ve handled this well, Captain. I thank you for your foresight and for proving that I was right to delegate this task to you.” Celestia closed her eyes and seemed to shrink. “I wish I could come to Merrie and Damme on the next day, but I made the promise that I would not interfere more than the treaty dictates required. I will hold to that promise, Firelight, unless you say that there is a good chance that the proper rule of law will be subverted, I can’t make any moves to disrupt the rule of law.”

She wanted him to say that there was a chance Roseate would go rogue so she could come and make things right and oversee the peaceful transition of power from one regime to the next.

But he couldn’t. Not with absolute certainty, and not even with a ‘good chance’ certainty. Right now, Roseate only knew that her daughter was courting Collar, and she’d made no moves to indicate she would do anything but shout and yell at her ponies. But her duplicitousness and her attempt to capture Collar while using the Treaty as a foil against her bad faith...

“I can’t say that she won’t disrupt the proper flow of law in Merrie or Damme,” Firelight said softly, choosing his words with as much care as he could. “But neither can I say with certainty that she will. She’s tried and failed to subvert the treaty, but I have warned her—”

“And that warning is all she gets, Firelight,” Princess Celestia said firmly. “She has been warned. The next time she tries to break the treaty’s strictures, or subvert it—” Celestia’s eyes blazed, but she stopped herself before she could go further than exhort him to do his duty. “We want Rosewater on the throne, but we can’t place her there by fiat and pretend that the rule of law means anything to us. To me.”

“I understand, highness. I will do as the law commands. Even if it means Rosary takes the throne instead.”

“She is not as bad as her mother by a long shot, but she is still young, and let us not forget that even Roseate was able to charm her way into Blue Star’s heart before he saw her for what she was.” The princess closed her eyes and shook her head, slumping to lay on the bed of pillows that briefly became visible in the field of light. “Let us hope that the stars are kind and that his daughter is as honest as he ever was.”

“I believe she is. Or she is a better actress than anypony I’ve ever known.” Firelight touched his hoof to his plastron. “The light of the stars watch over you, your highness.”

Celestia snorted. “It is late. Keep me informed. And more fully than you have been. If you have to drain the circle of magic to keep me informed, do so. I will not let the law be subverted yet again.”

“Of course, highness. My apologies for the lack of detail. I won’t make the mistake of caution again.”

“Stars, Captain, make the mistake but at least keep me informed of the worst. I placed you in charge of the Merriedamme contingent for a reason. Continue to show good judgement and I won’t need to come up personally to resolve matters.” Celestia shook her head slowly and reached out towards him, or the sending, with a hoof. “And thank you for the good news. I’m going to tell her mother in a few days, so it seems as though it came through the regular dispatches. She’ll be elated.”

It was that personal touch she tried to give to as many ponies as possible that made ponies love her. It stretched her out, but she always claimed that after a thousand years of life, a little stretching of her mental muscles was more than called for.

“I’m glad, your highness. Seeing her mother’s letter was, and continues to be, something that brings her to tears whenever she comes by. It’s what makes me believe she is absolutely not her birth mother’s daughter. She loves, and deeply.” Firelight reached out to touch the sending’s light, the warmth of the woven sunlight a balm against the cold of the night. “They, together, are the ponies you’ve been waiting for. I’m sure of it.”

“I hope you’re right, and I believe you are, Captain. Get some rest.”

“You as well, your highness. Celestia.”

Celestia chuckled softly. “I will. Never fear.”

The sunlight and the warmth faded from Firelight’s coat as Celestia broke the link, the gemstone on the wall darkened slightly from the length of the conversation and growing brighter slowly even as he sat, considering her words.

Roseate was a thorn, but she was also a thorn that was insignificant next to the flow of time that Celestia had already gone through. The rule of and flow of law was necessarily more important to her than breaking it to cause chaos. Word amongst the Students of Celestia throughout the ages, and passed down through the order’s histories, was that the War of the Long Night had been brought about because of a breaking of a law to suit a whim.

He’d asked her, once, and gotten the clearest answer he thought she would ever give on the subject.

“I reacted too harshly to a problem I created by sitting idly and doing nothing when a pony dear to me broke a law meant to protect others. I sat idly because I loved her and I trusted her and refused to believe that she would turn so completely against the ideals I thought we both shared. Law is important, but blind adherence to it is dangerous, as she showed me. I trusted her to bend or break the law so it would be beneficial instead of correcting the law. One step led to another, and another broken law to ‘preserve the public good’ and that led to another and another, until the sun went dark, the moon rose to replace it, and ponies and creatures everywhere suffered for my arrogance.”

Whatever Celestia did if Rosewater could not succeed on her own, he couldn’t say, but it was easy to imagine the breaking of one law leading to the breaking of another to justify the first. There was room for leniency and flexibility within the letter and spirit of any law, but outright breaking it to impose will wasn’t the right way to go.

Firelight carefully filed the marriage documents away in a chest and set his strongest seal against opening upon it. Not even his secretary could open it to see what was inside.

Tonight had been an exhilarating night, but not without its stressors, even after Roseate had left, and he was looking forward to bed.

Carnation wound her way through the maze of offices and paper baskets being maneuvered around the heart of the Equestrian bureaucracy, avoiding the worst pockets of gossip from the gala in the north by six long years of experience and knowing where the regular gossips liked to set up ambush points to corner her and pester her about things she was increasingly disconnected from.

It was a quarterly social fluttering that saw more than the usual number of ponies stopping by her office on the main floor of the Palace Administration compound, but this year had seemed to be particularly busy, and she couldn’t share even a tidbit of what she actually knew.

Rosewater was still there and she was taking care of Rosemary as best she could. Beyond that…

Last week had seen her dealing with the aftermath of that mess with Baroness Highwater, and the contraband from that customs inspection was still on its way to Canterlot along with the Baroness herself from the port of Los Pegasus, albeit rather slower than she’d expected because of the rains that had turned so much of the roads to the west into mud.

They would be arriving soon, if not today, and she would get to deal with that bundle of joy the couriers had already warned her about.

One of her assistants, taking the place of Golden Glow while she and her wife were on their honeymoon to Merrie, poked her head in just as Carnation was settling in to the stack of trade receipts and cargo manifests ready for review and tabulation.

“Lady Rosethorn?”

“Just Mrs. Rosethorn, Ms. Net. Do you have more invoices?”

“No, my… ma’am. They’re bringing the Lady Highwater in, and the customs officials are requesting your presence to inspect the contraband and assess it for charging.”

“Ah. Just how I wanted to start my morning. Dealing with an angry noble about to be fined half her flank.” Or incarcerated, if the contraband was bad enough. There were very few things that were legal in Merrie that could get a pony arrested for possessing them. Using them was another matter. “Alright. Did you want to come with me?”

“May I? I thought Golden—”

“She’s on vacation for an indefinite period of time,” Carnation said gently. “I assure you, Stellar, you’re more than capable to handle her duties while she’s gone or I’d not have asked for your help to fill her horse-shoes.” Carnation ushered her forward to walk side-by-side with the younger mare. “How is your family doing after the early snow?”

“They’re doing okay. The mountain shielded them from most of the storm, but they were happy to see me for a few days all the same.” Stellar Net smiled at her. “And… your family?”

The hesitancy wasn’t new. Most ponies that asked her about her marriage to more than one pony, or about her son born here in Canterlot.

“Starlit Dream is doing well and handling being a father a second time remarkably well, considering everything else he needs to deal with, and Feather Drop is doing well with her pregnancy.” Carnation ignored the faint discomfort the mare showed at her speaking about her husband and wife. That was a part of the price of staying in Canterlot instead of moving to a more open-minded part of the nation. “I’ve been considering that I might like to have a third myself, but I want to see how little Winter does with a brother or sister first.”

“I don’t believe I’ve met Winter, yet. How old is he?”

“He’s almost three and a half,” Carnation replied, smiling and letting herself sink into the familiar talk about her child, the light of her life here in Canterlot. She would always pine for Rosewater and Rosemary, but as long as she had family here, she could stay rooted in reality.

Winter’s early life, an unexpected pregnancy after she let her contraceptives lapse without thinking to since she and Feather Drop had been nearly exclusive lovers for almost a year by the time they met Starlit at a poetry and painting meeting. A few months later, she was pregnant and panicking and then married and calm again.

She let herself reminisce about her early years to Stellar Net as they made their way through the city and its chill air to the customs compound and its sturdy gray stone walls built right up against the side of the mountain itself along the wide road leading down and around the slopes of Mt. Canter.

It was a day crisp with the cold of the north, but dry to the point that her nose and lips started to chap from the constant, chilly wind blowing in from all around.

“I… can’t imagine what it must be like to live with two spouses,” Stellar murmured as they rounded the final bend towards the compound. A carriage stood out among the many, many carts moving steadily along the road, most passing without more than a cursory glance at bills of lading. “D-do you think…”

“Princess Celestia lets everypony follow their own hearts,” Carnation said to the unspoken question. “If you find two ponies you find you can’t live without, talk to them and see if they would be open to sharing love. I can recommend several books on the philosophy of Rosethorn the Wise and our way of life if you’re interested.”

“M-maybe… my parents would disown me if I even thought about it, though,” Stellar replied in a glummer tone of voice. “I… it sounds lovely, though. Sharing love.”

“It’s not for everypony. As the current conflict says. Don’t leap in, Stellar. I didn’t, and neither did Starlit or Feather.” It wasn’t exactly true. Letting Starlit mount her while she was horny hadn’t been her best or brightest moment, but she wanted it so badly it hurt. To feel a pony she loved filling her, to feel him come, to feel the warmth and rush as she came around him.

Stop it. You can let Starlit mount you tonight.

“It’s something you have to work towards, and build understanding before you can truly enter into a polyamorous relationship.”

“I… I see. So, it’s not just spontaneous?”

Carnation laughed. “Stars, no. We’ve had to work at it every day to make it work, but every day we grow closer together and understand each other better.”

They were crossing the way to the customs station when the carriage opened up and two liveried customs officials in the Equestrian uniform stepped out, leading a haughty mare who immediately started demanding to be released.

“A yeller,” Carnation muttered. “Lovely. Let’s go in the—”

“You! You’re a Rosethorn!”

Just what I needed. Carnation wanted to ignore the mare, but the best way to get her to shut up would be to speak with her and get it over with. She gestured for Stellar to follow her and approached the mare. Her lanyard with her badge of office flashed silver and gold, marking her as a trade factor and one of Princess Celestia’s higher ranking bureaucrats. “I am. Carnation Rosethorn, my lady, of Princess Celestia’s Office of Trade Regulations.”

“I demand—”

“Nothing of me,” Carnation said, breaking in and gesturing to the guards. “Do what you must, officers. I’ll be in to review the evidence in short order.”

Carnation flattened her ears to her head as Baroness Highwater started screaming at her to let her go. As if she had any such power to do so. Even had she, given how the mare was acting, like she was entitled to break the law any way she wanted, she wouldn’t have.

“With me still, Stellar?” Carnation asked the mare as she walked in a stiff-gait away from the scene the mare was making.

“U-u… yes. Yes, my lady. Stars. She’s mad.”

“She got caught. Of course she’s mad. Now come. Let’s see what it is that requires my specific attention.”

It was a bottle of perfume. Hardly surprising considering where the Baroness’s travel documents said she’d been. Among other ports of call, she’d stopped at Saddle Arabia on her way back to her home province, and spent more than two months making her way home.

The amount of liquid left in the bottle was concerning, but not for how she might have used it in Saddle Arabia. That nation was famously more liberal in what it allowed than Merrie was. Being a trade hub of the entire North Lunan sea, it was home to more cultural districts than any other, even Los Pegasus. She’d been, once, on a trade mission for Her Highness, but had been unimpressed.

“You can see the original fill line done in filigree,” Carnation murmured, demonstrating the delicate silver line half-inlaid in the glass bottle. “She’s used a fair amount, and the stopper is similarly well-protected against leakage.” She demonstrated by attempting to jiggle the plunger top free. “It’s moulded to the glass with magic so that it doesn’t wiggle, and it takes an act of will to open it. Against accidentally arousing everypony around you.”

Stellar shivered and backed away. “I-is that what it does?”

“It does, but you don’t need to worry. My daughter makes an exceptionally well-crafted perfume.” Carnation pulled the stopper free just a bit, letting the aroma of musky mare fill her nose and drew deeply on her gift, identifying the components the base, and, since she felt no pull even drawing so deeply, the likely target.

“Y-your cheeks.”

“A gift from my family,” Carnation murmured and pushed the stopper back in, the soft click as the wire snap parted around the top and clicked back into place satisfying. “This one is aimed at stallions, not mares. It seems like our baroness likes to sleep around, but not everypony is amenable to that at first blush.”

Stellar’s nostrils flared. “But that’s dark magic! And… your daughter made it?”

“It’s not dark magic. It’s not mind control, Stellar. It’s what we call an enticement. It’s a bit like flashing your marehood at a stallion without saying hello first. Rude to do to strangers and, depending on the setting, worse than rude.” Carnation set the bottle back on the table and considered it for a long moment, wondering why Rosewater would have made such a thing, why she would have agreed to make such a thing for a pony like the Baroness Highwater.

The only answer she could come up with was coercion.

Her sister had made her own daughter make such a rude and, outside Merrie or Saddle Arabia at least, illegal perfume. For what purpose or what reward, she didn’t know, but…

“Highwater Keep is along the Highwater River… and the Merrie and the Highwater share a watershed.” Carnation closed her eyes and focused on the map of Equestria as it was and traced the familiar lines of the Merrie river all the way along its curving path to… “There’s a marsh and some land about three hundred miles inland where the Highwater and the Merrie come close. They actually share a swampy flood area for a few miles of their lengths. I suppose enterprising barge crews could try to get around tariffs by going the long way and trading cargo there. Another area for the Princess to point her tax enforcement ponies at.”

Stellar made a face. “They’ll hate that. A swamp?”

“All the better a place for smugglers to set up camp.” Carnation shook her head. “It’s just a theory, but it’s the only thing I can think of. Roseate needs a noble to look the other way, bribes her with something only my daughter can do… and then twist a hoof or two to get her to do it. Rosewater would be none the wiser about the true purpose of the ‘gift.’”

“Unless it was a legitimate trade for goods and there are no smugglers?”

Carnation considered it, huffed a laugh and nodded. “Okay, fine. Maybe there are no smugglers. Consider me suspicious wherever my sister is involved. It’s not hard to believe the worst of her, because the truth is usually worse than I believe.”

Stellar gave her a pitying look. “What do we do?”

“Report our findings. We don’t even need to interrogate the suspect, so there’s that. Go back to the office, Stellar, and start a report. I’ll fill it out when I get back.”

Stellar stood up and started to leave, then stopped. “Where are you going?”

“To destroy this, and to report to the Princess. She’s asked me to report any incidents of contraband that come out of Merrie or Damme directly to her.” Carnation waggled the bottle. “Besides, it needs to be destroyed in a hot fire so its magic breaks down properly and I don’t have an appointment available at a forge this week.”

“Oh.” Stellar straightened herself and nodded. “Thank you, ma’am for letting me handle the report.”

“Of course, Stellar. Thank you for stepping up so fully.” Carnation bobbed her head at the mare and tucked the bottle into her day bag. “Do let the guards know that the Baroness’s case is still in decision.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

The royal palace, centuries old, didn’t so much loom as dominate the skyline as Carnation made her way from the customs compound to the center of the administration of an entire nation, the houses and buildings getting older and darker gray as she got closer to the original source of the mountain city’s stone.

The high walls, painted white and accented with gold on every fourth slab in the construction, surrounded the tall towers of the palace and the sprawling complex of buildings connected by hallways built after their original construction. It was a home continually expanded to fit the growing family of cooks, servants, guards, secretaries, and other staff needed to help an immortal ruler manage a country.

“Mrs. Rosethorn,” one of the guards at a side entrance said, bowing his head slightly to her. “More customs nonsense?”

“Mmm. Nobility trying to bring contraband in and use it.”

The guard winced. “The Princess may be available today. She’s been shuffling her schedule about from what I hear. If you hurry, you might be able to get caught up in the shuffle.”

“Oh?” Carnation’s ears perked up.

“Yeah. Courier from Captain Spark just arrived and it’s apparently caused quite a stir.”

“A courier? This close to winter?”

“Something big happened, apparently, but nobody is saying what.” The guard waved her on. “Spill for me will you, if you find out?”

Carnation snorted a laugh. “It depends on what her highness lets me say about it. But you’ll be among the first if she lets me talk about it.”

He laughed and nodded as she passed into the green space Celestia preferred to cultivate.

Garden plots were everywhere in the courtyard, full of flowers that could only survive in a mountain environment and protected by all kinds of pines and firs that likewise thrived in the mountains. If it weren’t for the pathways and the carefully boxed plots, it would have seemed like a forest in miniature with ponds and fountains scattered about mixed with statuary that artists had crafted over a half millennia.

Creatures that she’d only heard of stood in solo poses or in groups, every one of them with a plaque detailing the artist and the work and what it meant. It was, in a way, a museum of past art, one of many endeavors that the Princess promoted for the greater well-being and prosperity of her ponies.

Walking through the grounds always felt to her like wandering through history itself at times. Star Swirl the Bearded had several statues in various forms, almost always engaged in his favorite activity of teaching foals about magic, and not only unicorn magic, but pegasus and earth pony magics as well.

Any other day, she would have happily wandered the gardens for an hour before her appointment with the Princess, but… this wasn’t scheduled, and the bustle was intriguing. It was just long enough for the event to have been the Gala.

The palace guard passed her by without comment, looking bored.

Not even five steps into the palace, Princess Celestia’s seneschal saw her and waved her over.

“Carnation, I was about to send a runner for you,” Ravenwing said as she trotted up. “Her Highness needs your input on something that’s happened in Damme.”

“Something happened?” Carnation gasped. “What? Did she—”

“Calm,” Ravenwing said gently, tucking her wing over Carnation’s back and guiding her down a side-corridor Carnation had rarely had a chance to travel. “She’d have told me if it was something bad, I’m sure. If anything, she seemed pleased.”

“But… her private quarters?” The four guards standing watch eyed her and Ravenwing but passed them into the well-lit corridor with sun-lamps set in sconces lighting the hall as though it were perfect daylight and not a stone corridor on the first floor of a multi-story palace compound.

“I have a feeling it’s something she wants to ask in a more comfortable setting,” Ravenwing said quietly as they passed down the corridor of busts of ponies from history that Princess Celestia had cherished or wanted to remember.

She’d only been down this corridor once before, when she’d accepted the position, and been given a personal audience, alone, with the Princess to talk about her exile and what accepting the position meant to her.

This… it was something that Princess Celestia wanted to speak to her personally and privately about. Even her meetings with the Princess for trade details and her work with the customs office weren’t quite so private. There was always somepony on the other side of the door, or even somepony in there with them to record the details.

“Princess,” Ravenwing called, tapping a hoof against the door. “Carnation Rosethorn is here.”

A muffled pop sounded from within, similar to a teleportation spell, but too quiet to be one. At least too quiet to be one from a normal unicorn. She had no idea what the Princess’s teleportations sounded like. They might actually be silent as a ghost for all she knew, as refined as the Princess’s magic was.

“Thank you, Ravenwing. Please let her in.”

Inside, alone with the Princess, Carnation was both surprised and not at all surprised to find that little had changed in the four years since her first visit to these chambers. Four doors led off to rooms she assumed were bathroom, wardrobe, personal library or other such niceties that let the Princess relax in the comfort of her privacy when she wasn’t out of them.

It was cozy, but not extravagant and in fact rather humble considering Celestia was supposedly a thousand years old or more, and had surely amassed enough personal wealth to carpet and panel the walls and floor with pure gold if she wished. That she didn’t…

The door closed behind her, making her jump, though she held back the indignity of yelping at least.

Immediately, the walls flashed sun-gold, then dimmed as the minute sounds past the door and the rest of the world cut off abruptly.

“Carnation, welcome,” Princess Celestia said, stepping over a rumpled carpet that she straightened with a quick spell. “I wasn’t expecting you for some time yet.”

“I was on my way to request an audience, your highness. The Highwater situation finally arrived, and it’s both better and worse than we feared it would be.” Carnation pulled the phial of perfume from her day pack and set it to hovering halfway between them. “It’s, in Merrie, a very rude kind of perfume. At least when used in general public. But not illegal there.”

Celestia blinked, snorted, and wrapped the phial in her own magic before bringing it to her nose and unstoppering it for a moment. She grimaced and flicked her ears. “Rude seems to be the least of that. It smells like a mare ready to rut.”

It was Carnation’s turn to blink in surprise at the ready admission. “I… yes, that’s exactly what it is. It’s magical, too, and meant to affect mostly stallions. Not openly controlling, but it’s rather like if she had walked up to a stallion and raised her tail as the start of a conversation. Only, without the obvious display.”

“I see. That sort of thing…” Celestia shook her head and studied the phial itself more closely. “This is your… your daughter’s maker’s mark, is it not?”

“It is, highness. She’s one of the few… perhaps the only pony who could make such a thing for another. She has always been talented with perfumes. Far more than she has any right to be, if I’m being honest.”

“Her talent, perhaps?” Celestia mused, swirling the lusty red liquid about briefly. “She knew such a thing was illegal outside of Merrie? In greater Equestria?”

“Doubtless, yes. Her scents are quite popular here in Canterlot even, your highness. She’s aware of the laws that govern Equestrian magic.” Carnation swallowed and glanced from the phial to Princess Celestia. “I doubt she knew the purpose to which the baroness intended to put it. Or she did, but… I doubt even that she made such a thing completely willingly.”

“I’m less concerned that she made it than that Baroness Highwater either had it commissioned or had somepony else commission it for her. She should be just as, if not more, familiar with the laws governing mind-altering magics. You say it’s largely benign?”

“Yes, your highness. The effects on a stallion, I surmise, would be to generally make them more receptive to flirtation. Willpower notwithstanding, I would imagine it would open them to listening to her more carefully and interpreting her words with rather more… sexual overtones. Mares, of course, be they largely lesbian-oriented, may also be affected.”

“I see. What would the purpose of such a thing be in Merrie? Were it used, as you say, not ‘rudely.’”

“As foreplay, highness. A precursor to a likely planned night of lovemaking. More than likely, all ponies involved would be wearing something rather less specifically targeted.” Carnation flushed as she described the opening of more than one orgy she’d participated in, the memories coming back to her unbidden. “It’s… something that lovers do to feel more… to feel the moment more fully. It’s a… it’s hard to describe, highness. But it feels wonderful once the promise the scent gives is fulfilled. As if the entire body is floating in a sea of bliss.”

To her surprise, by the end the Princess was studying the phial with rather more interest than she had before. “Fascinating. Were it not commissioned to be so specific or so rude, I would see such a thing used by spouses in Equestria to liven up their sex lives.” She glanced over to Carnation, smiled, and shook her head. “My dear, when I was young, long ago, sex wasn’t some mysterious thing that happened behind closed doors. The evolution of the belief that it should be is as mysterious to me as why bees prefer purple flowers to red ones, but I can recount every step along the way from the openness that Rosethorn carried with him to Merrie to the state of affairs today. It makes no more sense for that ability.”

“I-I see.” Carnation coughed. “Regardless, the perfume is still contrabanded by law.”

“It is.” Celestia sighed and pondered the glass and silver work of art. “It’s a shame to destroy such a beautiful container for the contents. Your daughter certainly does have an eye for enspelled silver.” She glanced at Carnation. “Close your eyes, this will be brighter than is safe for mortal vision.”

Certain that this tiny, impersonal memento was going to be destroyed, Carnation did as she was asked and looked away. For several seconds, a brilliant light flared, seeping into her eyes despite not looking and having them tight-shut. The hum and crack of glass and metal coming under sudden, intense heat sounded, and then it was over and only the smell of acrid fumes from the burnt off perfume remained, harmless and inert save for the tickle it left in her nose.

“You may look, Carnation. I apologize for needing to destroy the phial, but I think we can make something more… useful out of it.” The princess opened one of the doors to what looked like a miniature crafting hall and ushered Carnation in. “Come. It’s rare I get to show off the things that keep me sane over the centuries, but there is a reason why I so often patronize the arts. It fuels my imagination, and inspires me to create new things that I’ve never before imagined.”

“Why do you not show them off?” Carnation asked, the question leaping past her lips as she scurried past the Princess, her monarch, and into a private space not meant for the eyes of others.

It was… chaos inside. The chamber was larger than it had appeared from a cursory glance, extending to the left and right of the entrance in a long, broad hallway filled with stations of many kinds. There was a tiny forge and kiln at the far end, covered half-over by a chimney, and no less than five different blocks of marble in various states of being turned into something resembling a statue stood at rest, the dust from the crafting swept into a pile to one side, but still there as a pile of debris, not disposed of.

“My own little creativity room,” Celestia said with not a little note of pride in her voice. “This way. I keep my glassworking tools near the kiln.”

“Princess?” Carnation coughed delicately, now following Celestia down the corridor, past a station with clay pots, bowls, jars, and what she was certain were variations on napkin holders she’d seen at state dinners. “I was told something had happened in Damme.”

“It has. And that’s why I’m so pleased you brought me this bottle.” It wasn’t a bottle anymore, but an orange-hot glowing ball of semi-liquid glass. Sitting apart from it was a ball of cooling silver slowly regaining its lustre. “It’s a part of your daughter’s work. Even if I had to destroy the spell on the silver, the glass… glass is hard to work, but rewarding and remarkable when done right.”

More confused than before, Carnation followed, hoping her not-quite-question would be answered but afraid of pushing for an answer. The Princess often had her own ways of doing things, even the simplest of things, that didn’t always make sense to her immediately.

Celestia set the ball of metal into a fired clay bowl where it sizzled and skipped a few times before settling down to hiss and creak as it cooled against the ceramic. The glass she set into a larger bowl and pulled out two small, clear cylinders of glass that shone prisms around the room as she held them in her magic for a moment, examining them.

“The most important part to creating something new from glass is to start with the right stock. This is made from white sand from Saddle Arabia, pure quartzite sand, just as it appears the bottle was made of. The clarity of the glass made it obvious.” Celestia glanced at her, smiled, and settled the large bowl of glass into a dark kiln. “Glass like that has a high melting point, and alchemists use it often for keeping potions and ingredients pure. A perfect choice for a magical, even alchemical, perfume.”

A spark of magic and sunlight spilled from the bottom, painful to look at directly, but not so bright that she had to look completely away. It lasted only a moment before the dark bed of what Carnation had assumed were coals started to glow, cycling from dull black to red to orange-hot and growing brighter as whatever spell Celestia had cast induced the material to radiate a heat she could feel from feet away.

The heat grew yet more intense and more, until the ceramic bowl began to change shade from dark brown to glow with the heat of molten rock.

Just as Carnation was about to back away, a shimmering field popped into place between her and the source.

“I don’t often have visitors here. I forget how hot the kiln can feel,” Celestia said softly. “It won’t take long, I promise, and you’ll have your answer by the time I’m done.”

Carnation sat to watch behind the strange shield that blocked heat, a spell she could barely even conceive of the components to, and deigned to reach out a hoof to touch Celestia’s flank. “She’s safe, isn’t she? Please tell me that much.”

“She is!” Celestia laughed and shifted to sit with her flank against Carnation’s. It felt almost sacrilegious to feel the warmth of her monarch against her coat, but at the same time it was… pleasant. To know that she could even be so personable. “Stars, forgive me for keeping you in that much suspense. Nay, this isn’t a memorial piece of art, but a celebratory one. I only have the barest details yet, and hope more will be to come, but yes. Rosewater is safe and well.”

Celebratory. Carnation felt her heart skip several beats, but restrained herself from pressing for more, instead watching as the Princess tipped the bowl back and forth, using a dark rod to poke and prod at the contents as the cylinders started to glow, then slumped and started to cling to the tool. A second rod joined the first, stirring the materials in place. A second bowl joined the first after some period of mixing the ball of molten quartz glass together, and she neatly divided the glob to rest one in each bowl.

“Coloring glass is a well-known process. I’ve had the pleasure of making several of the colored glass panels in the Hall of History. It will never flake or lose it’s color, as the color is baked into the glass itself,” Celestia said as she began adding bits of other things to each bowl. “But that’s simple soda glass for the most part. It’s something regular ponies can work without requiring a kiln that can get this hot.”

“This is… colored quartz glass?”

“It will be. Each piece will have a bit of the original bottle in it. It’s not an insignificant thing, magically speaking,” Celestia said as she tipped the bowls towards her. “It’s hard to see right now, but the one on the left will be pink, and the one on the right blue.”

Blue and pink. The colors of Merrie and Damme. News about Rosewater. “She’s formed an alliance with them? In the open?” Fear spiked in the pit of her stomach. Spying for Lace had been one thing, and she’d done so knowing that any time she’d gotten caught would have been the end of her time in Merrie. But staying in Damme would have done more harm. Rosewater would have followed her, ending any chance for the war to be over through her.

Celestia chuckled. “In a way. What I’m about to tell you can’t leave here. But I felt keeping it from a mother would be cruel. Every loving mother should know when their children go through important life stages, I feel, no matter the reason for their absence.” Celestia pulled one of the balls of molten glass out and checked it against a white tile, tipped her head to the side as she turned it, and nodded. She pulled over a wooden block and poured a splash of water from a nearby bucket on it. “The Gala happened a month later than it usually does because of your sister’s interference which, combined with Rosemary’s capture, gave Rosewater… hmm.”

Celestia paused in her storytelling to focus on the glass, rolling it back and forth and pinching and pulling at the glob, lengthening it and shaping it as the orange glow began to fade and show the bluish color of the glass. A thick neck rose up out of the glass, then a tail, and four legs, each one teased out and held stable in a matrix of glowing spell-light and metallic tools. Feathering of the tail and mane came from shears pressed into the glass and stopped just shy of cutting through, and features came out of the glass, shaping into something that might have been familiar if not for the clarity of the blue making it hard to fix on the face. The horn was done with a quick twist of pliers

As it began to cool more, the blue began to darken and cloud, giving the surface more of a solid-looking feel to it.

“Quartz glass, sadly, doesn’t remain as clear as soda glass when it’s colored. It can be, but it takes—” Celestia shrugged one shoulder. “I like it like this. It gives Collar—”

“Collar!” The name burst from her lips. “Stars, she and Collar? Together?”

Celestia laughed softly and flicked an ear. “Patience, Carnation. I think this captures Collar, don’t you think? It has been a few years since I’ve been to a Gala, so the details may be off.”

“It’s him,” Carnation said, barely able to stay seated. “Stars, it’s him, isn’t it? They’re courting now.”

“Mmm.” Celestia gave her a smile as she set the glass figurine on a workbench and pulled the other blob of molten glass out. “This is going to be even cloudier, but Rose Quartz often has white rime at edges. Quite fitting for your daughter, I believe. She is a Rose to the heart, I hear.”

“She is. Stars, I raised her myself. Half-raised her. Sometimes I think she did the other half on her own.”

“Given who her father is, I would find that not at all surprising.” Celestia hummed softly as she went through the same process with the other blob, and this time, knowing what it was going to be, she could see it before it was even finished, and could see the cloudiness spreading from the center as the crystalline structure hardened. “Blue Star was never one to let himself languish in a state he didn’t want to be in. He was always moving forward, and… I do miss him, but life continues and ponies like his and your daughter, both of them, remember his legacy and push it forward. I see him in her and in you, Carnation. I thank both of you for giving him a happier life towards the end.”

“He… Rosewater was there with him, at the end. I worry, often, what trauma that caused for her.”

“Too much,” Celestia said sadly, pausing in her work to glance at Carnation. “I didn’t know that, but more things make sense in that light. I’m sorry she had to go through that, but Blue went to the stars with his daughter’s love in his heart. I hope she knows that.”

“I can’t imagine that she doesn’t,” Carnation murmured. “She has always been an empathetic pony, and that night was the night she got her cutie mark.”

Celestia glanced at her again, her eyes deep pink and soulful in the dying light of the magical embers. “A father’s death is a pivotal moment in any pony’s life. Even more so when the pony is as young as she was.” The Princess was silent for a moment, staring at the figurine cooling in front of her, then firmed her jaw and focused on the work.

Rosewater, her daughter, took shape before Carnation’s eyes, the pink gradually bleeding into the clarity of the molten quartz and clouding it with occlusions of white appearing here and there.

“Blue Star was always a dedicated pony. Perhaps not as discerning of personality, but he would never stop moving forward once he set on a course. I have a feeling Rosewater has that in her as well.”

As the pink started to reach the outer portions of the figurine, it started to pale and turn white, seeming to fracture and fragment as white spiderwebbed across the surface, but never seemed to break the smoothness of the crystal.

“Hm.” Celestia frowned at the piece, cocking her head as the pink faded out from the mane and tail. “That didn’t quite turn out as I expected, but I’ve never had a chance to work in rose quartz before. Maybe…”

Carnation waited patiently as the princess returned the piece to the kiln and added a new, smaller bar of clear crystal to the other bowl and set about mixing the second while the first softened.

Before it could completely deform, it was pulled out and reshaped carefully back to the exact configuration as before save for the mane and the tail, both of which were split and merged back into the whole carefully.

Minutes passed as both went back and forth in the kiln, the second piece worked into two parts for mane and tail separately, the pink darker and clearer than the pink lightening to white of the main body with only a hint of the white frosting under the surface, and only where the mane and tail were pinched and feathered for detail.

“The color is… hard to get right. Centuries of trial and error,” Celestia murmured. “It’s the experimentation that takes my mind away from the stresses and trials of the days that go by. Not merely glassworking, but metallurgy, sculpting in clay and stone, painting… creativity is my saving grace, and I wish I had known it would be long ago.”

“It must be lonely for so long.”

“No.” Celestia smiled at her, head bobbing. “It can be difficult to deal with grief sometimes, but experience is a wonderful teacher on how to manage it in a productive, creative manner. The ponies I’ve outlived haven’t ever left me, you see. They live on in the stars, and it’s my pleasure to remember them to this plane from time to time. Occasionally, I meet an old friend come down from the stars to live a new life for a time. It’s only a matter of time before I see them again. It helps.”

Carnation bobbed her head slowly. “Blue Star, I’m certain, is watching his daughter with pride in his heart.”

“I’m sure he is. Now.” Celestia set the finished figurine on the table to cool, the dark pink of the crystalline mane and tail slowly darkening to near opacity, the joins where the different types of crystal had been worked into place seemingly perfectly blended together. The white body with a pinkish tinge around the edges and if she stared at it for long enough, the white horn with pink ridges. “I need some gold.”

“Gold?” Carnation looked up, brows raised.

“Yes. For their wedding bands.”

Celestia’s sparkling smile grew broader as Carnation stammered and glanced between her and the two figures, standing in a pose that she now recognized would have their forelegs crossed if they stood side-by-side, their hooves resting on an invisible bench.

“Married?”

“Yes. Eloped, to be more accurate. Witnessed to the sun and kept secret. Which is also why, sadly, I can’t give these figures to you now. Ponies would be able to do the math if they saw and knew who they were. I won’t—”

“I understand. Please. You don’t need to justify not giving me such a gift, highness. Knowing is a great gift on its own.” Carnation’s eyes swept to the figures again, and she wanted to take them home, wanted to revel in her daughter’s triumph in the open… but doing so would get back to Merrie eventually, and possibly before Rosewater was ready to reveal it to the world. “We all make sacrifices in a war. Even those of us not participating in it anymore.”

“Thank you, Carnation, for understanding. Now. Let’s see about some appropriate wedding rings, and I would appreciate hearing about Blue Star in his final years, if it’s not too painful.”

“Of course, your highness. Thank you.”

Author's Note

And now officially begins the one month hiatus with a proper look at Carnation's life in Canterlot. And that's the end of book 2.