Handy had made the executive decision that the Crystal Empire was a blight upon the face of civilization.

“Good morning!”

And absolutely nothing could redeem it.

Handy stared blearily down at the pony behind the window sill, who admirably kept his beaming visage up despite his otherwise nervous body language. He reached into his pocket, picked out a number of coins, and dropped it on the counter of the wall of the bakery.

“Kepthechange…” he grumbled sleepily as he stumbled off from the bakery with a disposable clay cup of coffee and some baked confection he hadn’t even bothered looking at before jabbing a gloved finger at it and ordering.

The crystal ponies didn’t get up at dawn, oh no. They got up before it. That ordinarily wouldn’t be so bad, having gotten used to the sound of roosters announcing the dawn every day back on his estate when his serfs and tenants went about their work. What was different were these iridescent fucks spending almost the entire night having a party in the street.

He didn’t know the reason. He didn’t care to find out. He was mostly just grouchy that yet another occasion of the magical wave of singing that infected all and sundry had washed across the city he happened to be in. It had been loud enough to keep him constantly awake throughout the night, meaning he only got a few hours of rest. The only good thing about it was at least this time, he had not felt the strange pull or urge to join in as sometimes occasionally happened when he was physically near another instance of the musical phenomenon. This time, he instead chose to keep a chair against the door of his room at the inn, the window firmly closed and shuttered, and blinded up with a pillow over his head. Shame too—he really needed some sleep after his long first day in the empire.

Handy had spent an embarrassing amount of time in the library the previous day, enjoying the quiet solitude, idly contemplating life and his situation. He had tried his best to compartmentalise and ignore the fact that he, once again, had barely survived an insane situation by the skin of his teeth, and as interesting as the various tomes were that he looked through, he found he could barely concentrate, and was more or less allowing the routine of taking down notes of medical and anatomical differences between the various pony races.

Medicine, dear reader, was of course not Handy’s academic specialty, which if you have been reading between the lines up until now, was fairly obvious. He was a man of words, not scalpels. However, you may have already surmised part of his interest in such topics given his current predilections. Rest assured, it was less insidious than it seemed, as he merely wanted to know how best he should go about his business and to do so with the least amount of damage to his prospective victims as possible.

Or the most damage, circumstances depending of course.

It was enlightening reading, and something at the back of his head—not his vampiric lust, it must be noted—seemed to urge him to broaden his interests in this field. It had hit him in a flash that he had been concerned somewhat as to why exactly the arcane specialists of this world, at least according to Crimson, were so adamantly convinced there was nothing inherently magical about blood.

It was something he knew objectively to be bullshit, as his entire existence ran on the fact that blood was inherently magical. He knew distinctly that higher order beings, people in essence, were inherently greater than animals. That meant that the current magical orthodoxy was wrong about a fundamental aspect of magic.

He kept that to himself, however. So far, his nature as a vampire meant that he was just a weird exception to this rule to most people in the know, though he knew Thestrals were as well. Given the sketchy history regarding magic, it was entirely possible research or knowledge into blood magic was suppressed, or there was something about the reigning orthodoxy regarding how magic was studied and practiced either precluded study into blood magic or made it difficult or impossible to work with.

So far, his own study of the crystalline method for the use and practice of magic in this world did not seem to preclude it. The use of the parts of magical plants and animals was a common and ubiquitous part of magical practices. It was for that reason he was getting more and more curious about the art of alchemy as well, his mad birds back in Skymount notwithstanding. The sheer time investment meant he’d probably not be on par with the great wizards of this generation, but he probably did not need to be in order to get special insight into this relevant area of study.

Speaking of, he was morbidly curious about accessing Equestrian texts on magical study while he was here in the Empire, but he knew that was a risky proposition. He could disguise himself, but he was under so much scrutiny that he could practically feel the scrying spells being used to keep a watch on him, on top of the guards who were—still this morning—shadowing him from afar. It was better not to risk it… at least for now.

He took another sip of his coffee, contemplating spending the day at the library again away from these confounded ponies, at least until midday when the prince required him to attend to talk about whatever the hell was on his mind. Whatever it was, Handy would be polite and diplomatic, as he had gotten what he wanted out of this mad endeavour and wasn’t keen on pushing his luck. In fac—

“Oh! Oh-Oh! Hello there! Yes yes!” Handy didn’t initially notice the small jumping figure from within the large and elaborate trading caravan as she called out to him. Not until the small diamond dog came running out and all but tackled his leg. The human started with a yelp as he almost instinctively reached to swat at the creature. The only thing staying his hand was the look of ABSOLUTE DELIGHT on the small dog’s face. “Grilina is so excited to meet human again!”

At a loss, Handy was stuck comically balanced on one leg as he tried to shake the excited dog off of the other one. “Ma’am! Ma’am, I don’t know who you think I am, but please, unhand me. You’re causing a scene,” he decided to say, noticing the sudden looks of the curious crowd at the outrageous scene, and the sudden flurry of activity by the small cadre of guards shadowing him at a distance. “Please… if you could just… let go!”

Eventually the dog complied but was still visibly excited. Now that he got a look at the diamond dog, Handy saw she was a relatively young one. She was grey with a stark white undercoat, bright, wide green eyes and with a very slight under bite, though definitely not nearly as bad as some other dogs he’d seen. And for the life of him, given his own history with diamond dogs, he couldn’t fathom why this random trader was so ecstatic to see him. Had he ever actually had a positive interaction with a dog? Ever?

“Sorry! Sorry! It’s just that… Grilina is just so glad to see you again, Hooman.”

“... Have we met before?” Handy asked earnestly, unable to recall the dog.

“Oh yes, it was last year! Come, come to Grilina’s store!” She hurried over to her wooden caravan. The side of it was opened up to an impressive jewellery display with a wide variety of fine wares for sale. Handy actually spotted some jewellery styles popular at Gryphonic courts that he had taken note of from before and was surprised. Despite the wandering trader set up, this Grilina was clearly an experienced tradeswoman with good taste.

Curious despite himself, he accepted the invitation and walked on over to the caravan. His senses picked up the guards maintaining their positions but clearly agitated by the new development. He hoped this Grilina liked having the government unduly interested in her business. It was her fault for loudly proclaiming to the world she was so excited to see the clearly dangerous and conspicuous agent of the crown of Gethrenia for all the world to hear.

So for that reason if nothing else, he was obligated to find out exactly how she knew him and whether or not he was safe in ignoring her from then on without compromising himself somehow.

Grilina hurried into the caravan itself; when Handy did not follow, she popped up from the side and waved him even closer. Handy gave a surreptitious look behind him before acquiescing and leaning over towards the door at the side of the caravan. After, Grilina carefully placed a weighted sheet over her wares with bells along its rim, the idea being if something more serious than a light breeze disturbed them while she was inattentive, it’d create such a racket as to immediately draw her attention.

“We’re so glad to see you again! You have been of great help to Grilina!” She clapped her paws together.

Handy, now genuinely confused, was forced to ask further. “I… apologise, but I’m afraid I don’t remember you.”

“Oh, well, that make Grilina sad.” She deflated slightly before immediately rebounding with endless enthusiasm. “But that okay! You still help! You give Grilina everything she need to make dream come true!”

“... I did?”

“Yes yes!” she said happily, bouncing on the heels of her… paws? Feet? The lower ones anyway. “You gave me more than I could have asked for! All for my bad stones!”

“Bad… stones? I’m sorry miss, but can you tell me a bit more? When exactly did we meet?”

“Right, it was back when I was poor.” Grilina rubbed her chin in thought, half sticking her tongue out of her mouth as she furrowed her brow. “It was back in…”

She counted on her fingers for some reason. “Pawstown! Yes, that's it!”

“Pawstown…” Handy murmured. He recalled the place and his time there but was still drawing a blank on Grilina. Sure, there were plenty of dogs in the town but none of them stood out in his mind. Apparently, he had bought stones off her? For what re—

It hit him then. There had been one occasion where he’d bought a massive amount of shitty rocks off of a random street merchant in order to hand a bag of them over to a kid that had been annoying him with the specific purpose of weighing the little shit down so he wouldn’t be his problem anymore.

“Oh!” he said in recognition. “Right right, I do remember buying those rocks off of you.”

“Yes, yes and you overpaid yes!” At that point, Handy couldn’t help but smile and decided to take a dig at this little digger of a dog.

“And… you being an honest merchant, of course, didn't think to correct me did you?” he said with a frown, crossing his arms. Grilina stopped almost mid-air in her giddiness, looking sideways for a moment as if thinking for an excuse.

She landed on her feet, standing up straight, crossing her arms in front of her chest and proudly answering.

“Nope!”

The answer was so shameless it actually got a laugh out of the human despite himself.

“Well aren’t you enterprising!” He glanced at the set up this diamond dog had for herself. She clearly was. Still, Handy didn’t have the best history with dogs of all races either, what with the, you know, whole enslavement thing. He gave the dog a harsh glance before continuing, “So, what do you want? I’m hardly going to be giving you any more coin for useless rocks again.”

“Oh no, no, Grilina no longer sells useless rocks. Grilina only sell finest of imported wares!”

“Imported how?”

“Grilina buy herself and travel with them from market to market. Grilina great salesdog!” she said proudly. That was impressive; Handy scrutinized both the dog herself and her caravan. It didn’t look too shabby, even if it had evidence of heavy weathering and wear and tear. The fresh coat of paint and strong, sturdy look of the glorified wagon definitely spoke of meticulous care for the vehicle. She wasn’t a pony or griffon, which implied she actually pulled the damn thing herself. He knew from experience that diamond dogs were deceptively strong, but she was awfully small for an apparently fully grown hound.

“Well, I suppose you have done well for yourself, it seems,” he conceded, honestly impressed at the honesty of a dog of all creatures.

“Yes! Thanks! All thanks to gold hooman—”

“Handy.”

“Handy Hooman give Grilina much gold! Real full gold! Grilina put to good use, get out of one pony town and go out and live dreams!” She positively beamed. Handy felt awkward all but being praised for a passing generosity he had quite literally never given a second thought to, and was only done to play a trick on a child. He wasn’t quite sure what to make of it, and he was wrong-footed by the entire exchange. Did she want something from him other than thanking him?

“I… see. You certainly do have good taste. I saw Gryphonic—”

“Oh yes, Handy Hooman work for great griffon king yes?”

“... Yes. Why do you ask?”

“It what all pony say when talk about hooman. Grilina listen when ponies talk, learn much ponies wouldn’t want dog to know. Think stupid. I am. But not as much as they think,” she said with a conspiratorial whisper.

“Uh… huh,” Handy managed, glancing around. People were occasionally giving them glances, but seeing as there was no more noise disturbing the peace, nor anything more scandalous than the infamous human having a seemingly pleasant conversation with a random jewellery merchant, most just ignored them and passed them by. A visibly bored guardspony was keeping a wary eye on them more so than anyone else at the marketplace. His actual detachment of guardsponies keeping a watch on him in the city were maintaining their distance and had calmed down after the conversation was clearly not evolving into anything to be concerned about, at least as far as they knew. Just a happy merchant catching up with an old customer.

He turned back to the dog. “And what of it? I am a knight of Gethrenia.”

“Yes yes, great griffon king loyal knight, what ponies say. If want, I can give you fine gift of Grypnoc silver. No price, take pick of liking!” she offered, arms spread wide. Handy was immediately suspicious.

“You’re… Giving me a free gift?”

“Yes! Of own choosing? Why, not like griffon jewels? Look good at court maybe. Grilina have many ware. Perhaps snake people silver, deep in south marsh, very rare if want. Not much get out of that place. Can take to pony jeweller for checking if want and no believe. Grilina no lie!” She held aloft a torc armband that would easily fit Handy’s forearm of intertwining snake-like figures with distressingly familiar upper portions. Grilina sensed he was a hard sell, even if she was willing to give him a literal free gift, and she clearly wasn’t taking no for an answer.

“Perhaps sea pony pearls! Bitches love them, make great gift!” She changed tactic and held aloft a rather stunning necklace of the brightest pearls one could imagine. Handy started at the phrasing and thought she was taking the piss. After a moment, he realised she was literally a dog so she was clearly referring to the female sex in a manner appropriate for her race and decided not to comment.

“Okay wai—”

“Maybe not appropriate. Grilina should not make assumptions about marital state,” she said thoughtfully, rubbing her chin in thought.

“Hey!”

“Perhaps some Zebrican—”

“Just stop!” Handy said desperately, a bit overwhelmed by the enthusiastic hound’s sales pitch, even if it wasn’t supposed to cost him anything. “Look, I just…” He sighed and rubbed his eyes, looking over his hand at the excited face of the dog. Well, free shit was free shit—who was he to say no? “Maybe… Anything Gryphonic?”

“Yes, of course, like I first said.”

“Right, I just… I dunno… Do you have any Talon rings?” he suggested. Having acquired two pairs of apparently magical amulets from the dragon's hoard, why not have something he could actually wear on his hand?

“Oh yes, plenty. What kind takes fancy? Please come look!” She gestured for him to follow her into her caravan. He hesitated slightly but eventually followed, taking careful notice of everything as he did so.

The interior was a surprisingly humble affair, with many of Grilina’s wares neatly stacked into well-organized boxes. Well, organised for a dog anyway. The boxes had the weird, slapdash construction he had come to expect of dogs, unlike her caravan itself, but otherwise labelled and clearly categorized in the dog’s unreadable script. It wasn’t another language or anything—she just had terrible handwriting.

A short ladder led up to a nook near the ceiling with a hammock where she clearly slept, a cast iron stove in one corner for cooking, with piping letting the smoke out the side of the wooden structure. A desk and ramshackle stool dominated one side, with innumerable tools and magnifying glasses, betraying its nature as a jeweller’s workshop. Grilina pulled out a small box from under her desk and placed it on top. Taking off the top revealed several immaculate rings neatly placed in a soft foam-like substance and polished to an impressive sheen.

Handy was briefly awed by the beauty of the objects, the stunning metalwork and craftsmanship, the glimmer of the precious stones decorating their surfaces, which only magnified when Grilina continued to lift more layers out of the box, revealing three full sets of a dozen rings each for display on her work bench. She proudly put her fists on her hips and stuck out her chest, pleased at what was evidently her workmanship in the maintaining and presentation of her wares.

Handy still said nothing, simply standing crouched in the tight fitting space and taking in the sight of the jewellery. A part of him, his natural greed and desire for fine things, was overjoyed of course, but it was silent at the moment, stunned by the beauty of the presentation. He eventually came to his senses as his eyes drew across one of the rings. It was much, much simpler than the others, and unlike most, it bore no precious stonework. No gems, either the grown variety that were of much less value than those mined from far underground. Its metalwork was also much simpler.

It was a golden band of metal, with the centre band of the ring hollowed out to emphasise the embossed central design of simple script work in Old Gryphonic which he still couldn’t read, with the intervening spaces between the gold filled in with hammered copper. It complemented the gold well and gave the small thing an immense warmth to its colour. But there was one simple design in the embossing that drew his attention. It was a small simple heart with a crown on top of it.

He knew it couldn’t possibly have the same meaning in this world that it did in his own. He also knew that in a world where the ubiquity of heart symbolism was primarily associated with ponies and their doubtlessly saccharine interpretation of everything, its presence on a Gryphonic piece of jewellery might have meant something different as well. Or the same, it didn’t matter—that was not why it struck him.

The design reminded him of Claddagh rings from back home. They were rings given in friendship or passed down in families, and the recognition of the similarity, especially because the central image of the crowned heart was so singular in the ring’s design, with nothing to distract from it, made it stand out more than anything similar he may have seen in all his days in this world. It was this comparison in his mind that struck him with momentary heartbreak.

“That one.” He pointed it out. “If you please.”

“Ohhhh,” Grilina said, clearly surprised. “Would have thought you’d have liked the other shinies more!”

“I do it's just…” Handy begun but found he couldn’t finish, so he simply ploughed on. “I just want that one.”

“Okie, if that what you want!” she said with a shrug and her tongue sticking out the side and a confused smile. She took the ring out of its place and secured it within a thin leather pouch with a gold thread that tied it close around the ring, and handed it happily to Handy. He accepted it gratefully, his gaze somewhat distant.

“Heh, only sorry no sell magic jewellery. Too much regulation,” Grilina said apologetically. Handy nodded somewhat absentmindedly. “Tried to sell bad stones as jewellery when first had stall. Did not work. Wizards said bright stones go splode when they tried.”

“What?” Handy said, suddenly shook out of his reverie by what she said. “What did you say they were?”

“What were what?” Grilina replied.

“The bad stones; you said you tried to sell them as jewellery first?”

“Oh yes, no good, ugly rocks, but dug out of mine so thought maybe good for magic. That’s how works, right?”

“... Right.” He recalled what he knew of the geologic anomaly. “But what was that other thing you called them?”

“Oh, bright stones, because wizards said they glow real bright if magic done before splodey. Useless. No good for magic. Bad stones. So try to sell for what could and try different idea,” she said with a confident shake of her head and cross forelegs. Handy stood very very still when he heard that.

“Grilina… how long did you linger in Pawstown after I bought the ba—bright stones from you?” he asked carefully.

“Uhmmm, not too long. I remember seeing Handy Hooman leave, stayed for a while to celebrate, then went off into great unknown! Start business!”

A frightful possibility emerged in the back of his mind as the conversation progressed, and he was suddenly MUCH more aware of his shadowing detail of guard ponies. They probably weren’t close enough to overhear the conversation within this caravan, but he couldn’t be certain that was the case magically. And anyone who cared could see them speaking through the open side of the caravan. He turned and angled his body away from the nearest visible guard in the marketplace outside.

He couldn’t do anything about magical scrying, however… or was there? There were at least a few mages nearby in the shadowy detail. He knew where they were—their emotional states were ones of deep meditative concentration, clearly casting spells. His armour wasn’t reacting so there were no spells being directly applied to him, but a spell to spy on him, if they knew where he was, didn't need to. Not if they could see and hear in the caravan from far off.

Time to play a game.

--=--

Starshout was concentrating deeply. He was actually on obfuscation duty as part of the team this time around, but his role was no less vital. Situated where he was in a simple cloak at a cafe, he glanced slightly out the window in the vague direction of the target caravan as he held aloft a newspaper. His horn glowing brightly from the task and manipulating his cup of tea on the table before him was an excellent casual mask for the spell he was actually casting.

A simple scrying spell wasn’t all that difficult, especially not for a crystal pony battle mage. But the human was an unknown quantity, with a history of surprising much better mages than himself. Including, if the rumours were true, a tracking spell made by Princess Luna herself. Word had it that he wasn’t a mage properly speaking himself, but clearly had some magical abilities that were poorly understood, and clearly knew his way around befuddling his pursuers. Direct magical attacks on the human were seemingly shrugged off by some kind of warding magic on his person. Again, rumours abound as to its capabilities in arcane circles whenever the topic of the human came up, but Starshout dismissed most of them.

Nonetheless, care had to be taken and it was better if he were not aware of how stringently he was being surveilled, as the target was evidently paranoid and usually expected such measures. If his conversation in the library with the deer was anything to go by, he was right to do so.

So far, he hadn’t done anything to arouse too much suspicion beyond a worrying interest in medical textbooks. The diamond dog suddenly tackling him from nowhere had caught everypony unawares, including the human, but despite initial concerns, there didn’t seem to be any likelihood of civil disturbance, so no intervention was deemed necessary.

He, like the rest of the mages involved in the operation, got back to their assigned duties. In his own role, he was tasked with casting a spell of interference to obfuscate any detection of penetrating spellcraft by interfering with the winds in the neighbouring area. Any unicorns in the vicinity would detect a slight wobble or difficulty in their normal routines of using magic for daily activities.

This was necessary for the others in their group to facilitate further obscured ranged scrying of the exact location around the human. One was to focus on sight, the other sound, and a third relaying between the three to keep them in harmony. This was easily one of the most inefficient methods of scrying, but it was also the most secure as it was borderline impossible to tell what was actually happening magically unless you knew what to specifically look for magically. And the intricacies involved essentially meant the information from within the spell’s zone of activity operated on a delay from what was actually happening by a minute or two. Still, it worked, as the human had no method of knowing the spell's effect on him, precisely because it wasn’t affecting him.

So far, his conversation with the diamond dog was proving unenlightening and dull, even if it was somewhat charming to imagine, especially seeing the human himself so put off by the situation. Apparently, the diamond dog was grateful for something the human had done and wanted to reward him with a free gift of jewellery. Getting free diamonds from a diamond dog was no mean feat, but it was also nothing special either.

The last he knew of what was occurring within the caravan was that the human had pointed out a specific ring he wanted. That was around the time, from his perspective, he first heard the voice.

“So that’s how you’re doing it?”

Starshout sputtered the coffee all over his paper and whirled around, immediately adopting a combat stance, sending his chair flying behind him and flipping over his table. The sudden outburst elicited a number of gasps and shouts of surprise from the other patrons of the cafe as his studied gaze jumped from one potential adversary to another, his horn ablaze with a glow as protective wards were activated and sweeping analysis was rendered of his immediate surroundings.

Nothing. He could have sworn the human himself had been right there beside him, speaking in his ear as clearly as if he had been standing there himself.

“Over here!”

Starshout spun and fired off a blast at a wall, burning a menu on the wall and causing a picture frame to fall from the wall and shatter on the ground. A mare behind the counter screamed and fainted, several more patrons, initially stunned by the warrior mage’s outburst, suddenly fled from the cafe.

“Getting a little agitated, aren’t we?” the human mocked, this time the voice coming from a spot right behind his ear. The unicorn jumped up onto the counter to his immediate left, cracking the glass divider between the public and the poor selection of pastries and chocolate goods for people to enjoy with their coffee, a newfound luxury in the Crystal Empire, not all that well known or prevalent a millennia ago.

The remaining staff behind the counter followed their patrons in fleeing the scene from the apparently mad pony, crying for the guards.

Starshout didn’t pass any mind to the civilians, nor did he respond to the voice’s most recent agitation.

“Oh, now you decide to take proper stock of the situation? I see, I guess you’re not a moron after all,” Handy spoke, though his voice seemed to be coming from the very walls themselves. Starshout looked around him carefully, extending his arcane senses, trying to find the disturbances in the winds of magic about him that would betray the origin of the spell. Had the human managed to sneak out from under him? Impossible.

“Oh, you think you have me? That's adorable.” The human evidently guessed the lines along which his opponent was thinking. “While you and your cohort thought you were being quite slick, you never paid attention to the obvious deception.”

“What deception!?” Starshout demanded, running through possibilities in his head. The others would be wondering why the hell he wasn’t keeping up his part of the ritual spell, and he knew it was compromising to their mission to be distracted like this, but it was an unprecedented complication to have the human use an as yet unassessed ability like this. What was going on?

The human chuckled. “You were so busy trying to make sure I wouldn’t notice your little spying ring around me that you didn’t consider the obvious. I was never there to begin with.”

Starshout eyes widened, even as a gaggle of guardsponies entered the cafe shouting, demanding the surrender of the battle mage. Starshout turned and bellowed his rank and authority, stopping them in their tracks, and immediately sent an arcane message to the other mages in the contingent. Taking out specially prepared cloths and inscribing a runic symbol on them with the mage’s intent inscribed within, he sent it off to them as he bounded off the cafe counter, rushing his way through the guardsponies and rushing down the street.

Though he wouldn’t discover for some minutes later, what had happened to Starshout had occurred to each mage in the circle around where the human was thought to have been, and similar scenes were occurring to each of them, much to the confusion of the mundane guards in their little coterie. By the time Handy was done, the entire magic circle was in absolute chaos, and the spell was well and truly foiled.

All without him having to harm a hair on anyone’s head.

--=--

Handy let go of the medallion and removed his hand from the pouch on his belt where it was held, closing over the flap and securing it once more. The small amulet of intertwining leaves with an inset amethyst was one of the prizes he had gained from the dragon’s horde. It was a stroke of inspiration that came to him to use it in conjunction with his ability to sense where people were in relation to him. Previously, he had used it to screw with Spike and Whirlwind back in the Dragonlands, and knew he could use it on people even if he couldn’t see them, what with them being in a thick smog at the time.

It seemed his assumption that he could use it at distance so long as he knew where someone was in relation to him proved correct. He had singled out the mages in the group following him, identifying them by the meditative and rhythmic emotional states they displayed, betraying the fact they were casting a spell in concert with one another. One after the other, often jumping between each of the four, he had rattled them, telling each a different lie about what they got wrong in assuming where the human was and how much he knew about them.

In the space of a minute or so, he had so thoroughly rattled the four of them and set them off, causing the mundane guards, who were unaffected by Handy’s shenanigans, to panic as they desperately tried to re-coordinate with one another and figure out Handy’s gambit. Soon he expected guards to show up at this caravan and address him directly, but it was a risk willing to take.

He had business with the diamond dog before him that he could not risk being overheard.

Grillina had watched the human with confusion, seeing him place a hand in a pouch and begin moving his mouth as if he was having a full on conversation with someone who was not here. Yet at the same time, he hadn’t made a sound, even though he was clearly talking. It was a strange thing to witness for the poor dog.

“Grilina, I need to ask you something very important.” This time, he looked directly into her eyes and, very subtly, laid his power into his gaze, holding her rapt attention. That she was already so well-disposed to him and possessed an apparently simple, if shrewd, nature meant he would not need to be too forceful. Still, he needed her loyalty in this. He needed to be sure in case his hunch was correct.

Grilina, little to her knowledge now fully enraptured by the vampire before her, nodded happily. She was about to speak but for some reason felt she shouldn’t until he asked his question. It was weird, but she waited. She could be patient; she liked talking to the human!

“Do you know what happened to the bag of bad stones I gave to the small pony boy who was with me when I bought them from you?” He asked.

She nodded. “Oh yes, he talk about you lots, really happy, wanted to do Handy Hooman proud!” she began. “Apparently lost bag, Grilina asked where it went. Pony try to avoid question.”

“This is very important, Grilina. What did he do with the bag?” Handy pressed. Grilina blinked and screwed up her face in thought.

“I remember I ask more,” Grilina said. “Pony boy be tight-lipped but eventually say he try to do Hooman favour. He thought rocks were special and magic, like Handy Hooman said,” she continued. “He was sad because rocks brittle, broke very easy every time he move bag.”

Handy vaguely recalled the incident. The second the pony had tried to drag the bag, he’d heard several of the brittle gems shatter. It was funny, he remembered, but now he wasn’t laughing.

“But they broke, right?” he asked to confirm. Grilina nodded.

“Oh yes, gems very brittle, broke as soon as you toss them in sack. Pony boy broke them more until nothing left but lots of dust in a bag,” she said with a throaty, doggy chuckle.

“You said he wanted to do me proud.” Handy continued, “but he broke all the gems and when you saw him next, he didn’t have the sack, right?”

“Right!”

“So what did he do with it?” he insisted, suspecting the answer based on his experiences in Pawstown.

“He tell he snuck into blacksmith pony’s forge, tells you told him he would know what to do with gems when time was right,” she explained, scratching her chin. “Dumped sack over Handy Human armour while still hot when smith pony put in separate room. Bunch of weird plants there, pony boy say, growing around purple crystals.”

“Purple crystals?” Handy asked.

“Glowing ones. He no know what they were, couldn’t say. Grilina didn’t really care though. Not her rocks.” Handy felt the trepidation build within him as he was piecing things together from what she said.

“And then what?” He continued.

“Then he dump crystal dust all over metal pieces smith pony make. Still hot too. Pony boy said he believed magic crystals would help armour, didn’t know how. Grilina knew stones were bad, decided to say nothing. Handy Hooman had already left by time pony boy say truth.” Handy stood there dumbfounded.

It… couldn’t be that simple, could it? Could it really have been the careless actions of a foolish, hero-worshipping young boy that had accidentally given Handy the greatest protection against magic he could have asked for? He raised a hand to his head as he suddenly felt a bit dizzy. The sheer… improbability of it all.

The useless brittle stones he had well and truly overpaid for by a wide margin was possibly the single most important purchase he had ever made in his life. And what was more, the use of them in the metalcrafting of his magic-resistant armour required further steps. The dust had only been added at the last stage of the forging process and, potentially, that was what ruined the armour. At least in terms of its durability, for the steel of the armour deformed much more easily, tore even, and was clearly not as effective as steel armour should be, but its magic resistant properties forced him to put up with it.

He wasn’t a metalworker or a smith himself and didn’t know the specifics… but he did have a smith. Maybe not as good as Heat Source herself perhaps, though he’d never tell that old bird that. Could he replicate the process? No, wait, there was more to it… the strange plants and glowing crystals the dog had mentioned that the colt saw.

He didn’t know the properties of those. It was almost certainly some kind of trade secret that his blacksmith wouldn’t be able to replicate from description alone. He would need to find Heat Source, would need to get the secret from her. God knew if she was still there anymore or if she would even be willing to part with such secrets.

But there was something of greater importance that he could deal with right now. He turned back to the dog.

“Grilina.” He stared her dead in the eyes, increasing the power of his gaze as much as he could without running on a blood high. His head began to ache with the effort. It wasn’t brute force, but he needed this dog to do what he wanted, and he needed her not to argue. “Do you know who owns that abandoned mine in Pawstown? The one you got the bright gems from?”

Grilina nodded. “Oh, Grilina got that for a steal! Bunch of other dogs owned it but were happy to dump it. Grilina found bright stones when digging, thou—”

“So, you own it now?” he interrupted.

“Yes yes, Grilina owns mine. Still does, never sold. No dog would buy.”

“... Would you sell it to me?” Handy asked. “I would be willing to pay you a great deal for the bad stones.”

“You buy more stones? Why?” Grilina asked, confused, but the power of the gaze shattered the defences of her suspicions.

“Because I want to.” And that was good enough for Grilina. Not that she had a choice in the matter, as much as she was in the vampire’s snare. “Will you sell this to me, Grilina?”

“... Yes… Yes of course!” she said after a moment’s hesitation. She rummaged around in her caravan, going from box to box, rummaging through drawers and bags, until eventually taking out a rolled up, thick, legal parchment. Handy looked over it and crossed out the names and paw prints of the previous owners. He even saw Grillina’s name as the new transferred property owner…and the signature of the legal notary who witnessed the sale.

That was a complication, but not one that couldn’t be easily overcome. The vampire smiled. His own experiences in his old life would come in useful for this little charade, as well as his brushing up in Equestrian law after buying certain texts during his brief stint in Canterlot.

“Grilina, I have decided that I don’t want that mine after all.”

She looked at him confused. “You don’t?”

“No, in fact, you have never ever told Handy the Human about the mine. In fact, you will tell no one about what you know about the stones mined there, only that the mine is useless. Do you remember that about yourself?”

“I… I uh… I… I think?”

“Of course you do. However, you did find someone… rather, somepony who would buy the mine from you after a long time after you left Pawstown.”

“I... I-I did?” Handy nodded. Up until now, he had been steadily holding the dog in the thrall of his gaze and would have easily convinced her to do what he wanted. However, he needed to inculcate this into her mind, to convince her that this was her own mind she had made up, so he poured all his might into the gaze. It was to protect both of them in the end. He needed that mine.

And he needed to make sure that no one would ever suspect there was anything more to their conversation than the fact that she knew him for some kindness he had done for her in the past, and that she gave him a nice ring. He proceeded to tell her to pull the shutter down on the opened side of the caravan for a moment, as he himself moved a foot to close the door slightly.

He then asked her to turn from him. When next she looked, there was a fastidious black and grey pony with glasses speaking a lot of legal nonsense. She nodded. She turned, when she looked back, there was a boring brown and white pony with yellow eyes. She asked his name; he said he wanted to buy the mine; she agreed. Then there was the black pony, who explained things. She heard the same before when she bought the silly mine. She signed her name on the appendix; the other pony signed his name as well—Corn something or other. The legal pony also signed. She rolled up the paper and gave it to the pony. A satchel of paper bonds of the Greycoast republic worth many times what the mine was worth was handed to her. Grilina was happy! This was good business! It happened a week ago! Now what was she doing again?

Grilina looked up after opening the blinds on the side of her caravan again. She turned, the tall human standing over her and smiling, admiring the ring as he lifted it out of the cloth bag she had handed him. That was right! She was talking to her human friend! Now why did she have a headache?

“Oh is… is Handy Hooman happy with ring?”

“Yes Grilina, I am very happy.” He saw the guardspony who was in the square look around, agitated. He had approached closer to the caravan in the time the blinds had been closed but was clearly looking around. The guards who were shadowing him at a distance had been in a state of disarray just long enough for him to play his hand at the moment. He also sensed a contingent of angry ponies heading his way from outside the passive range of his ability to sense people.

Well, looked like the consequences of his game were up. He looked down one last time to Grilina and smiled. He was fairly confident that if they questioned her, she’d happily tell them the version of things he wanted her to. None of them knew about the mine or the nature of the stones, and she certainly didn't know the significance of what they did to his armour, only that he bought useless rocks off of her to play a joke on a pony child. It was a suitably malicious act people would believe someone like Handy would do.

Besides, the fact that it was the truth certainly helped.

He took off his glove and placed the gold and copper ring on his right ring finger and admired it in the sunlight as he bade his farewells and exited the caravan.

He was greeted by a contingent of royal crystal guards. Two of them even held banners which fluttered in the wind. The one at their lead was, surprisingly enough, another familiar face to him. He was surprised at first but then a smile crept along his face as recognition slowly solidified in his mind. So, she did survive the fire at the tournament after all, eh?

Masquerade, though the name would not come to him until she introduced herself, stood and glared up at the human as he strode down the steps from the caravan after stepping under the low door frame. She fluttered her yellow wings at her side as her emerald green, gem cut eyes glared out at him from under her cloth chanfron covering her face.

“Oh, hello there,” Handy greeted with a smile, affixing his glove over his newly adorned hand. “Can I help you?”

“His Royal Majesty, the Prince Consort Shining Armour of the Crystal Empire, cordially invites Baron Handy Haywatch of the Kingdom of Gethrenia to attend luncheon with his royal person,” She ordered more so than spoke. Handy couldn’t help but smile. He knew he was meeting the prince today, but this formal invitation, under armed escort masquerading as an entourage, was absolutely a response to his little game.

Ah well, he had an excuse prepared and had no intention of snubbing His Highness. He nodded simply enough. “As you say, ma’am.” He spoke with all due deference and respect, his normally gruff demeanour uncharacteristically discarded, given his little victory that morning. He also gave nothing away at all that he recalled her. “Do give my apologies to the guards who were in my security detail. I hope I did not cause them too much undue distress.”

Masquerade’s eye twitched slightly at that, but otherwise her demeanour was as calm and professional as before. She stood aside as the guards took up a polite—if closer than expected—formation around the ‘guest’ of the prince.

--=--

The chewing was getting on his nerves.

They were seated at an outdoor courtyard high up in the parapets of the castle, with a commanding view of the entire city and the surrounding wastelands around it. Handy had briefly got caught up in admiring the sight, both the sparkling majesty of the city itself and how it contrasted sharply with the docking towers and the practical swarm of airships moving to and fro. Small dark plums on the horizon betrayed the snaking trails of trains in the distance, and all of it, far from being incongruous, created a strange, almost liminal experience of contrasts working in harmony to create a unique vision of this snow-trapped city state.

Munch, munch, munch.

All spoiled by His Imperial Majesty’s most august table manners of course.

He had been led to the palace and up to this courtyard where a quant metal lawn table dressed in an impressively sewn tablecloth of repeating floral patterns waited for them. They were served with a multi-tiered plate of various sandwiches—all vegetarian—along with a selection of different coffees and teas to choose from. Having had his morning coffee already, Handy elected for a kind of southern brew for a tea. It was something called Brediwane, which was apparently cultivated from the leaves of a desert plant. Its taste was neither sweet, nor bitter, but some indescribable intermediary between the two that was both rich and flavourful. The smell filled his nostrils and reminded him of a curious mix of roasted chestnuts and sun-baked stone. It was wonderful and Handy found he rather liked it.

His Imperial Majesty, Prince Shining Fucking Armour slurped down a gallon of black tea and half a dozen sandwiches after exchanging initial pleasantries with Handy with all the politesse of a barracks grunt six tours deep in a trench who had been starving for three weeks. It was honestly almost impressive.

Handy, too used to the practiced airs, poker faces, tense negotiations, and courtly decorum of previous experiences and his own expectations, was utterly caught off guard by just how violently blasé the prince was about table manners. He knew to expect any amount of disarming and social manoeuvring tactics from royalty, given he now had an embarrassing amount of experience with it, and had chalked this up as another one. He was reminded of Celestia’s silent treatment with her tea set, and the thought crossed his mind that the prince was doing this to unnerve him somehow.

But the more the lunch dragged on, the more evident it was the prince was just nakedly enjoying his time scarfing down sandwich after sandwich, cup after cup, uncaring for conversation. After some time, Handy learned he was just going to have to reciprocate, and so he poured himself a cup, helped himself to a few sandwiches, and tried his best to enjoy the scenery.

Munch, munch, munch.

As much as he could anyway.

Eventually, the prince finished his gluttony and let out a very unmannered belch. He then poured himself another large cup of coffee, downed it, and placed the cup on the saucer with a loud clatter and satisfied sigh. Handy, sensing he was now ready to talk about whatever he actually wanted, and prepared to do his duties as a dignitary, finished his own draught of his cup and waited for the prince.

“Right,” Shining began, speaking candidly, gracing Handy with a confident, friendly smile with a full set of teeth and placing his hooves on the table. “Now I’m going to kick your ass!”

“... What?”

“Yeah! Come on, look, it was going to happen sooner or later. Might as well be honest about it, right?” Shining asked earnestly. The smile didn’t fade from his face. He didn’t look like he was pissed, but he had to be joking, right?

“Just like that?” Handy asked incredulously.

“Yeah,” he replied without elaboration.

“... Why?”

“Is that a serious question?” he asked with a chuckle. Shining moved his neck side to side to loosen the muscles.

Handy let out a disbelieving breath. “I’m… sorry, your Highness, but I don’t think it’s appropriate—”

“Oh who cares? You’re telling me you’re afraid to get your hooves dirty?”

“Hands.”

“Whatever.”

“I’m not about to hurt a royal.”

“It’s adorable that you think you can hurt me,” Shining said with a laugh. This was idiotic; the prince had to be fucking with him. He came all this way and on the best pretences. He was not going to be duped into starting an international incident over nothing.

“Have you lost your mind?” Handy asked in all sincerity.

“Nope! Just cutting to the chase,” the prince said before sitting back in his chair. “Look. Handy, let me be frank.” Handy studied the prince, looking him in the eye. There were two crystal guards watching over the lunch, neither of them betraying any sign of surprise, indignation or even concern at the prince’s challenge. Their emotions were level, and even as far as Handy was able to discern, the prince was agitated slightly, which made sense given he had just challenged someone to a fight and earnestly and honestly looked forward to it. Handy couldn’t find a trace of deceit neither in his body language, his words, nor his heart. It was actually a bit unnerving.

“You messed with my little sister. You extorted her for your own gain, exploited her naivety and inexperience with your honeyed words and nefarious intentions—”

“Tha—”

“I literally could not care less about whatever political dogshit you’re about to spew to defend your actions. I don’t care, and I know you don’t really believe whatever principled stance you’re about to take to justify your shameless behaviour,” Shining said seriously. He met Handy’s gaze fearlessly. Handy sensed that if he even tried to manipulate the stallion with his gaze that it likely wouldn’t work, and might even just anger him further. “I have to play nice, I have to play politics, but I don’t have to pretend I can’t abuse my power to do the right thing.”

“... And the right thing is?” Handy asked, getting annoyed despite himself at the accusation of being unprincipled. That rankled.

“Beating your sorry ass. I know you hate ponies for whatever happened to you. Fine, whatever, but I don’t have to forgive you for being cruel to a mare who doesn’t deserve an ounce of your hatred for her.”

“I don’t hate Twilight,” Handy clarified.

“You literally demanded her blood.” Shining countered and let the accusation hang. It was true, and he just admitted he didn’t care about any justification. “Listen, I’m going to be fair; nopony’s going to know about this. Not my wife, not Twilight, not Celestia. And if you win? Fair’s fair, I’ll never make an issue of it again. At least this time.”

Handy stared and listened. “And if you win?”

“Then I get the satisfaction of beating the shit out of you,” the stallion confirmed. Handy noted the vulgarity of the soldier prince’s language in comparison to most ponies he had encountered. It was refreshing.

“Is that all?”

Why would I want anything more?” Shining confirmed with a shrug, the smile returning.

“That can’t be it.”

“Not all of us are that complicated, Handy,” Shining said, “I just want what's right. I can’t get that any other way right now. So, you’re not leaving here without giving me that much.”

“I’m not going to fight you,” Handy insisted.

“Yes you are, and you’re going to like it, or what? Are you going to whine back to your king that the big bad pony prince beat you senseless while you curled up on the floor without standing your ground? What are you, a mare?” Shining goaded. It worked. Handy ground his teeth. He knew nothing about this prince, and realistically didn’t have anything against him. His words burned at his pride.

Goading him into a fight was foolish. At any point he’d be swarmed an—

“Guards,” Shining Armour spoke, and Handy immediately got up from his chair, expecting an attack. “Please make sure we’re not disturbed.”

And at his command, the guards did just that, leaving them alone in the courtyard. Handy extended his senses. His head felt like it was burning from the over-extended use of his extra-sensory abilities in coordination with his use of his amulet. Sure enough, within a few minutes of tense silence, in which the prince did not so much as deign to get up from his seat, the various guards he had sensed near their section of the castle started moving further away. None he could tell were casting spells, at least not obviously. The ones in the air were keeping their distance as well.

Handy looked at the prince in the now deafening silence of the empty courtyard. The wind tugged at their clothes and hair. It was obvious by now this was happening whether Handy liked it or not. There was no matter of life or death here; there was no political ambition or subterfuge; there wasn’t even anything material to gain by it, only settling a supposed matter of honour. A brother standing up for his sister’s honour against a perceived cad, a senseless and foolish point of pride!

He had to admit, he almost smiled at his own hypocrisy.

“You have no weapon,” Handy pointed out, allowing his stance to appear relaxed though his hand hovered near where his hammer hung. Shining smiled.

“I don’t need one.” Handy nodded, noting from the horn that the stallion almost certainly knew some battle magic. That and he was a rather big pony.

“You also don’t have any armour.” Shining laughed and pushed away from the table, and hopped from the chair.

“It’s in the name, Handy. I am armour,” the stallion said as he stood across from Handy, who by now had also moved away from the table.

“You really think I honestly believe this is all you want out of this?” Handy asked seriously, trying to once more discern what was really behind this sudden aggression.

“I don’t care what you believe,” Shining answered. “Sure, you did my sister an honest favour, you helped save my friend, little Spike—”

“And this is your gratitude?”

“Let me finish—but you did it after treating my sister like dirt. And you’re coming away from this with, what, a massive pile of money, honour and glory for your king, and Spike as your errand boy for a full year? And you think I’m just supposed to sit there and do nothing at all about that?”

“Yes,” Handy answered arrogantly. Shining Armour laughed.

“Would you?”

“I don’t care.” Handy shrugged. “I didn’t think an Equestrian royal would do something this drastically stupid.”

“You’re talking to a stallion who threw his wife off of these ramparts like a weapon to win a battle. You don’t know a damn thing of what I am capable of.” Handy was momentarily stunned by the pony’s admission. Absolutely nothing about him betrayed any insincerity of his words. He now seriously considered his situation and just how adamant this prince was.

This was nothing like the arrogant coward Blueblood he had dealt with way back in Canterlot. This wasn’t some spoiled princeling agitating for an easy social win who needed to be humbled, nor was it some experienced chess player of the political game that Handy could manoeuvre his way into making a deal with to placate or buy time. This was simply a brother looking out for his sister, and it occurred to Handy that the only reason something more drastic had not already happened to him was precisely because he had actually fulfilled his promise to Twilight and had helped resolve Spike’s problem.

And for that, Shining only wanted to beat him.

A part of him respected that.

“So…” Handy began. “No hard feelings over spoiling your guard's fun earlier?”

“No harm no foul,” Shining confirmed.

“It's rude to spy on guests,” Handy goaded, his face stern.

“You’re no ordinary guest. And we didn’t actually interfere in your day, as it was.”

“My point stands,” Handy insisted.

“Would you not have done the same, back in Gethrenia with your spies?” Shining asked. Handy had no reaction to that, but that was a fascinating admission. He recalled that the ponies were under the mistaken impression that Johan had made the human, his ‘Shadow’, into his own spymaster. It was a farcical rumour that Sunderclaw had revealed to him once, that was preposterous but useful for the spymaster to maintain the facade. Handy couldn’t answer him because he knew Sunderclaw was also keeping an eye on him and anyone else in Gethrenia worth watching, visitor or resident. Shining smiled.

“Anyway, I take it you’re ready then?” Handy took a deep breath through his nostrils once, opened his eyes, and reached behind him for his helmet, which hung from his waist under his cloak.

“I fail to see how we’re going to keep quiet about this after the fact,” he said, placing the helmet over his face. He glared at the large, white pony from the T slit in the face of his helm.

“I guess I’ll just have to avoid hitting that ugly face of yours!” Handy snorted. “Fine, be boring. Now, come and hit me if you dare.”

Handy didn’t take the bait, slowly lifting his hammer out of the loop at his belt and hefting it in both hands, lifting once and spinning the hammer head in place as he did so. Shining snorted; his horn began to glow and he took a step forward.

Handy moved.

He had no blood to work with, his earlier extensive use of his powers having left him with a headache, proving his inexperience of using magic artefacts at his already woefully amateur level of experience in arcana. So his migraine, while not debilitating, was evidently going to count against him in this surprise challenge.

That and he couldn’t count on a blood high to pull him out on top in this exchange. More than that, the powers he could rely on without such an advantage were not the greatest for use in combat. His medallion, which allowed him to project his voice, was tucked away in his pouch and not easily put to hand, so there was no using it to offset his opponent on the fly.

However, Handy was more than confident, even if this princeling was evidently a soldier by profession and temperament, and not some foppish aristocrat whose tongue wrote checks his ass couldn’t cash. The unicorn was casting a spell, and if his magic was anything like his attitude, it’d be direct and blunt, and Handy relied on his infamous armour to carry him through any arcane threat.

What's more, the unicorn only had its natural abilities, his weight, and his strength to fight Handy, and the human had more than enough experience fighting quadrupeds at this point to be reasonably confident in his advantages to take him on.

Besides, his primary concern was in not actually hurting this arrogant prince somehow. Prideful bastard or not, the prince was actually the head of a kingdom, the husband of an alicorn, the brother of another one, and Handy had honestly no intention of causing any trouble before he got put into this position.

So one could understand, dear reader, that when Handy rapidly closed the gap between the two of them, why it was that he did not swing the hammer at full leverage. Instead, he gripped it at the head and the base of the handle, intending to use the full weight of it in a safe manner to wind the prince, without wounding him or breaking bones or pulverising organs. He hefted the war hammer and shoved the base of the hammer’s haft into the side of the prince, expecting to stun his right foreleg at the shoulder.

And it was then and there that the fight was decided.

Handy’s blow hit seemingly empty air that rippled. The blow didn’t rebound onto him, and he didn’t feel the recoil of force one would feel if one hit an immovable object. Rather, the energy from the blow and the shock just seemed to disappear. However, the rippling effect washed over Shining Armour’s entire body. What Handy had hit was in fact, a solid plate of body armour. The shining, translucent purple plate was engraved with repeating, swirling patterns of floral decorations and crystalline imagery.

It was an artefact of pure magical energy that protected the pony’s shoulder as surely as a pauldron would in Handy’s own armour. Now that the illusion was dispelled, Shining Armour was, quite literally, covered from horn to hoof in armour plating and chainmail. But this was not some mere construction of a smith’s forge and an artisan’s pride.

Handy, of course, was unaware of Shining Armour’s claim to fame, or even the true extent of the utter depth of magical reserves this singular unicorn possessed and was able to summon up akin to a god pulling an island from the bottom of the sea. It was understated, especially given the unicorn’s mentality and preference for physicality, but the stallion was in many ways his sister’s equal in arcane ability and potential—merely focused on different strengths.

Whereas his sister was the scholar and mage extraordinaire, and whose intellectual proficiency was such that she was quite literally a once in a generation prodigy, Shining Armour was altogether a more humble colt in his ambitions. He focused his arcane abilities in tandem with the training of his body, exercising his magical potential and blunt ability as surely as he sculpted the muscles of his body with all the care and dedication of the artisan.

As his sister came to him, bursting with pride over conquering some niche esoterica and intricate secrets of the universe that required too much specialized knowledge for him to appreciate, he merely smiled, tussled her hair, and turned back to books of his own: histories of great generals and warriors of the past, epic poetry, and philosophies of the ancients.

As his sister mastered great arcane arts under the tutelage of her most royal mentor, Shining focused his magic to augment his military training, plunging the depths of his own potential to push more and harder, to lift weights and crush obstacles that could not be reasoned with nor cleverly worked around.

And in the end, he had reached a pinnacle of perfection for a unicorn rarely attained in this age or any other. He was at once every inch the ideal warrior in heart, body, and mind, equal parts a magnificent specimen of health and strength, a keen and clear heart of impeccable character, and a keen magical insight and dedication to a simple purpose. He was the ideal of Thucydides, the Warrior Scholar, and nowhere was this perfection demonstrated than his unparalleled mastery over such a simple magical concept.

Each part of his armour, down to the singular scale of the mail he wore under each plate, was a masterwork of a very simple shield spell. Each one was perfectly imagined and encapsulated the arcane principles of the spell on an infinitesimally smaller and more intimate level than even the greatest mages could conceive of. A single inch of the armour had enough magical potential and intricate reinforcement to handle an incalculable blow from any force and, what was more, take in the energy that hit it, store it, absorb it, redistribute it across the armour and reinforce it, utilising it to make it stronger.

And that was before Shining started pumping his own magical power into the construct. And as we have already established, dear reader, Handy was unaware that he was facing a unicorn capable of projecting a much simpler expression of the spell over the scale of an entire city and an entire mountainside. That he had done so to keep out a besieging army and all while having a queen of the changelings draining this same unicorn of his strength on a continuing basis, day and night for who knew how long. And he still kept it up.

There was nothing Handy could do to break through it, and in that horrific moment, he seemed to have intuited that.

“Oh…” Handy breathed as his hammer rested in his hand as the fully-armoured Shining turned to face him, the confident smile on his face visible under the full face helm of his arcane aegis. “Shit.”

Shining turned on his hoof, swinging his rear end behind and bucking his rear hooves, catching Handy full on the chest and launching him clear across the courtyard, knocking the wind out from his chest. Twin explosions of blinding light erupted from his own armour as Shining’s armoured hooves connected with it. Handy landed hard on the crystalline floor and scratched deep gouts out of the precious rock as he spun and skidded across it before hitting the wall.

His hammer was out of his hands, and as he sharply gasped for his breath between sputtering coughs as he struggled to come to his senses after the blow, he realised Shining was approaching where it lay on the ground. He lifted it with his magic and looked at Handy sideways. He looked the weapon over, as if inspecting it before tossing it over at the human, landing heavily beside him head first with the handle, then swinging and hitting the wall beside him.

“It wouldn’t be sporting otherwise,” he said as if explaining himself. Handy looked at the prince incredulously. “Come on, don’t tell me you don’t want to take a proper crack at me after that.”

Handy did, but wasn’t a fool about it. He hadn’t hit that armour with all his power but knew even if he did, nothing would happen. Hell, he wasn’t sure if even the sheer force would cause the pony to as much as flinch. He fundamentally just didn’t have the right tools for the job here, and he knew it.

Still, he couldn’t just let the pony get what he wanted out of this without a literal fight. He stumbled back to his feet, frowning as he noted the deep indentations in his armour. He had to find some way of getting past that armour but how? There weren't any openings. Every part of the pony that needed mobility or movement was covered by a magical scale male. The harder points were covered by actual plate; even his helmet was translucent and did not obscure his vision.

His eyes narrowed at that. That's right, his vision wasn’t obscured, was it? He wasn’t sure if this would lead to anything positive, but it was worth a shot. He started moving over to the pony again, his hammer held out at length horizontally from his body. Shining Armour took up a defensive stance, the cocksure grin on his face showing his excitement, wondering what ploy the human was about to engage in.

Handy sped up his pace, now placing both his hands on his outstretched hammer as he ran. Just as Shining was about to move to answer the human’s charge, Handy swung the hammer, letting go of the shaft at the height of the swing, sending the hammer head flying and striking Shining’s fetlock.

Predictably, the blow did nothing, the hammer stopping dead and not even so much as moving the pony’s step as the energy of the blow was absorbed completely by the armour. But now the pony had the long haft of the hammer in between his forelegs, stumbling his own charge. Handy was now upon the unicorn. Shining swung his head, the bladed covering of his horn scratching across Handy’s plate. The shard of light blistering his vision was all the warning he had of the human’s plan.

Handy bashed in the sides of the helmet with his gauntleted fists, directly over each eye, creating blinding sunspots of incandescent light with each blow that Shining’s closed eyelids could only barely keep from damaging his eyes.

Handy was not unaffected by this gambit either, though somewhat lessened given the limited exposure of his helmet. It was only a few seconds, but Handy almost got a solid half a dozen blows before the unicorn was able to disengage by leaping bodily into the human, the head thrusting into the human’s torso and lifting him off of the ground. The horn tore part of the repaired placard off as it reacted to the magic of the stallion’s armour.

Handy landed on the far side of the pony, his neck aching, and immediately rolled away on instinct as the pony immediately raised his rear legs to initially stomp and then buck again. Handy had just gotten away, but his cloak was torn off in the process.

Both fighters tried to recover as quickly as they could, with Shining shaking his head and blinking away the blind spots in his vision. Handy recovered the majority of his sight first and did the next best thing he could think of. He couldn’t rely on physical force to damage him from the inside, so he did the next best thing that could damage him from the inside: gravity.

Handy rose to his hands and knees and then launched himself, grabbing Shining around the back and barrel and lifted. Shining, not expecting this approach at all, but not letting the affront go unanswered, immediately started kicking Handy’s back with his rear legs and thrusting down with his forelegs. The angles were not the best suit for attack, and while certainly painful, were not the winning blows that’d properly damage him.

Each blow caused a new sunspot of brilliance, an entire circle of light practically bisected the unicorn from where the human started to lift him bodily over himself.

And tossed it down onto the table.

The metal crumpled under the weight of the body and armour. Ceramics and cutlery went everywhere as the pony was splashed with still hot tea, which evidently found some space in the armour and had scalded him at some point. Shining was as dazed as Handy was now, having landed head first and the full weight of his body causing him to be winded and hurt.

But the stallion was a veteran and pushed through the pain, leaping to his legs once more, turning and giving Handy a fierce grin, seemingly pleased there was more of a fight to be had than he had expected.

That was about the time Handy’s cloak was pulled over his helmet, and Handy dragged it around, blinding the unicorn. Handy struggled as the pony bucked and thrashed. Eventually, Shining simply stomped on the ground and leaped, shoulder bashing Handy and forcing him to let go of the cloak. Handy was now in the unenviable position of having his face caved in by an angry quadruped that was above him.

Instinctively, he kicked and thrashed, but every blow literally did nothing to the pony. Shining held one of his hooves firmly on Handy’s gorget, planting him in place. Handy immediately reached for a dagger on his belt and pulled it free, hoping against hope that he could pry one of the plates off. Shining saw his movement and pinned his wrist with his other forehoof.

Handy, now unarmed and out of options, really didn’t have any other means of attacking this unicorn. He couldn’t even leverage his legs under him to force the pony off. Every hit he landed didn’t even seem to deliver kinetic force. And now he lay there, the connection between the two sets of armours bathing the pair of them in blinding light that neither could clearly see through.

Handy couldn’t see anything as the entire slit of his helmet was filled with blinding light. Shining began talking, but he couldn’t hear him, still vainly struggling against the weight of this pony and infuriated that his own strength was simply not able to account for anything, and for some damn reason tea was dropping onto his helmet!

Wait a minute. Tea had splashed onto Shining’s armour earlier and had passed through and scalded him. It was still on the armour and dripping onto Handy.

If the arcane armour had enough texture to physically interact with liquids to retain it on its surface like other materials could…

He reached for a pouch on his side, a long one. He no longer wore his bandolier, but seeing as it had proven so effective in the Dragonlands, he’d be insane if he didn’t keep at least one such potion on his person whenever he went out. Maybe if…

Shining, being just as blinded as Handy, and with no free hoof to stop his other hand, was not in a position to stop it when the ceramic potion bottle smashed onto the back of his crinnet and chanfron. The thick viscous potion covered the entire front of the helmet, blocking out most of the blinding light, the rest flowing down his head and into his eyes, blinding him totally as the foul liquid covered his face.

Shining flailed as it flowed down his snout and onto his nose. The distraction was enough for Handy to get his arm free from under the pony’s grip, and now with both arms, he was able to pull away from where he was under the stallion. Shining thrashed as he tried to blink away the viscous fluid from his eyes, being unsuccessful. And where he could see, the vision of his helmet was obscured by the viscous liquid clinging to the inside and outside of the magical chanfron.

Handy, now loose and the sight of his opponent now seriously impaired, rushed to grab the dagger from the ground and hurried to get his hammer. Shining, frustrated, had no choice other than ripping the helm of his armour and throwing it off, rubbing the gunk of the fire resistance potion from his eyes and glaring after the human. Seeing him run for his hammer, his horn glowed. A magical aura shone around Handy’s hammer, and he reached his hand and tried to reach it with his own magic first. But without a focus and as inexperienced as he was, all that accomplished was causing the gauntlet around his own hand to burst into light and blinded him for a moment as the hammer head came flying towards him.

He blinked and ducked just in time for it to miss him, but not before it clocked the side of his helm hard enough to daze him and knock him to the ground again. Shining snorted as he approached, letting the hammer fall and grabbing the fallen dagger with his magic and tossing it aside. Handy struggled back to his knees as Shining approached.

“Got any more tricks up your sleeve?” Shining challenged.

“Just… one.” Handy fumbled around at the ruins of the table he had fallen beside, his right hand very visibly reaching into the pouch at his side. A whisper tickled Shining’s ear, causing it to twitch in the direction behind him. Shining smirked.

“I’m not falling for that,” he said, glancing at where Handy’s right hand was. “So is that where—”

While Shining was looking at his right hand, he did not see Handy’s left hand grip the battered but unbroken metal teapot in his left hand from the ruins of the lunch table. He swung it around with all his might, tea and all, and clocked Shining right in his unprotected face.

It was, however, the last he could manage. Shining closed the distance, grabbed Handy by the shoulders, and repeatedly bashed the same unprotected head again and again into Handy’s helmet until the human was left lying on the ground, insensate. Shining sat back on his haunches, breathing heavily. He raised a hoof to rub over his right eye where the teapot had clocked him, wincing slightly and pulling away as the eye was now swelling shut.

It was going to be hard explaining that away. Oh well, he’d think of something. He lifted the teapot with his magic and shook it. There was still some left.

“Hey,” he said to the human, who was still somewhat conscious on the ground but was clearly in no position to answer him. “Do you mind if I finish this off? Groan if no.”

Handy groaned. Shining chuckled.

“There’s a good sport.”

Author's Note

Seasons Beatings everyone!

Hey, do you guys remember that one character way back in Chapter 6 who had only one line of dialogue and didn't even have a proper description?

I certainly did.

Here she is as a Chekov's Gun.

Because fuck you.

I hope you all had a Merry Christmas!