Herald of Dawn

Celestia waited with withheld breath. The Pegasus guards she had sent out would be back soon, hopefully bringing some news of Twilight's whereabouts. It had been weeks since the youngest alicorn had been seen, anywhere, and many assumed her dead. If her guards couldn't wrench Twilight from wherever she was presently, then Celestia had no choice but to call in favors owed to her by the leaders of the surrounding countries.

They would have to search their territories just as hard as she had hers. Cadence would be the easiest to request a search from, but the others would be harder. Chief Thunderhooves would protest the request, pointing out that an alicorn among buffalo would stand out like a pineapple among potatoes. Still, she would ask it of him.

The Gryphon empire was going through a particularly brutal coup d'état, so there really was no one to request a search from. Once a victor emerged from the fray and things settled down, however, they could expect a visit from one of her diplomats. As for the Hajahact empire ... well ...

Celestia walked into an adjoining hall, lined with portraits of leaders present and past. She primarily used it to familiarize her diplomats with some of the more 'intimidating' leaders they would have to face, so they wouldn't pass out, or flee, at first meeting. Rarely did she ever come here for anything else, but she had to see the face of her jailer, her enemy, and potentially Twilight's captor.

As she walked, she eventually came across the painting she was searching for. An elegant, purple-colored kirin stared down at her with a look of judgement. Thick scales sprawled across her face and back, parting to allow for a flowing brown mane. Two black horns forcibly split through the scales covering the kirin's head, one nearly matching Celestia's own horn for size, the other only about the size of a normal unicorns. The smaller was tucked beneath the larger in a straight line between the kirin's ears.

The ruler of the Hajahacts was all muscle and might, concealing a shrewd and cunning tactician. Traditionally, the two had stayed on their own sides of the border, unless one or the other needed to recover something. Recently, Celestia had initiated a trade deal with the militaristic country, involving the exportation of Equestria's criminals -- not the irredeemably corrupted ones, no those went to Tarterus but your average, run-of-the-mill drug pushers and other rabble. Petty criminals, you see. -- to Hajahact.

This deal had a two-fold benefit, as far as Celestia was concerned:

One, it allowed her to report, truthfully, to her subjects that only the worst of the worst were criminals in Equestrian society. This was true, in a wholly superficial sense. Crime wasn't completely eradicated from her utopia; rather, it was simply pushed somewhere else, like somepony using a leafblower to blow the leaves to another pony's lawn instead of cleaning them up properly.

Two, it meant that she didn't have to use the resources in building, and maintaining, a prison system. Why bother when you can just get a whole fleet of trucks and ship the criminals somewhere else, where the infrastructure for such a thing was already in place? Instead, these resources were put to use making Equestria happier for everypony else, which only further bolstered the utopia she was crafting.

In return for taking away the garbage of society, she promised to not make any inquires into what, exactly, the kirin was doing with all of these criminals, since in Celestia's last visit to Hajahact, she had not seen even a single jail. It was a shady deal, to be absolutely honest, but it was a needed one. Nevermind that if she had bothered to ask, more than likely, she would not get a decent answer. What else could be expected from a kirin with Enigmatic right in the name?

Celestia shook her head. Of all the things to name a child, her parents had settled on Enigmatic Insanity. It was a mouthful, and frankly, given that a pony's name often times reflected the wishes of their parents, it raised some disturbing questions about what Enigma's parents were wishing upon her.

She couldn't help but feel that the portrait's expression had changed somewhat. Before, it had a condescending and judgmental feel to its features; now, it seemed as though the kirin was hiding something behind that faint smile, taunting her with a silent chant of "I know something that you don't". Celestia couldn't help but glare at the portrait.

Somewhere in the depths of her mind, a thought niggled at her, the thought that Enigma had something to do with this. Celestia hoped that it was a baseless fear, that it was all in her mind. Equestria was in no way prepared for war, especially with one of the Elements missing.

Celestia walked back out to her throne room and waited.